discrimination between true and false sayings in the Scriptures, as for instance: "And Peter said: If, therefore, of the Scriptures some are true and some are false, our Teacher rightly said: 'Be ye approved money-changers,' as in the Scriptures there are some approved sayings and some spurious."(1) This is one of the best known of the apocryphal sayings of Jesus, and it is quoted by nearly all the Fathers,(2) by many as from Holy Scripture, and by some ascribed to the Gospel of the Nazarenes, or the Gospel according to the Hebrews. There can be no question here that the author quotes an apocryphal Gospel.(3)

There is, in immediate connection with both the preceding passages, another saying of Jesus quoted which is not found in our Gospels: "Why do ye not discern the good reason of the Scriptures?" "[———]; "(4)

This passage also comes from a Gospel different from ours,(5) and the connection and sequence of these quotations is very significant.

One further illustration, and we have done. We find the following in Hom. iii. 55: "And to those who

think that God tempts, as the Scriptures say, he said: 'The evil one is the tempter,' who also tempted himself. "l This short saying is not found in our Gospels. It probably occurred in the Gospel of the Homilies in connection with the temptation of Jesus. It is not improbable that the writer of the Epistle of James, who shows acquaintance with a Gospel different from ours,(2) also knew this saying.(3) We are here again directed to the Ebionite Gospel. Certainly the quotation is derived from a source different from our Gospels.(4)

These illustrations of the evangelical quotations in the Clementine Homilies give but an imperfect impression of the character of the extremely numerous passages which occur in the work. We have selected for our examination the quotations which have been specially cited by critics as closest to parallels in our Gospels, and have thus submitted the question to the test which is most favourable to the claims of our Synoptics. Space forbids our adequately showing the much wider divergence which exists in the great majority of cases between them and the quotations in the Homilies. To sum up the case: Out of more than a hundred of these quotations only four brief and fragmentary phrases really agree with parallels in our Synoptics, and these, we have shown, are either not used in the same context as in our Gospels or are of a nature far from special to them. Of the rest, all without exception systematically vary more or less from our Gospels, and many in their variations agree with similar quotations in other writers,

or on repeated quotation always present the same peculiarities, whilst others, professed to be direct quotations of sayings of Jesus, have no parallels in our Gospels at all. Upon the hypothesis that the author made use of our Gospels, such systematic divergence would be perfectly unintelligible and astounding. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the agreement of a few passages with parallels in our Gospels cannot prove anything. The only extraordinary circumstance is that, even using a totally different source, there should not have been a greater agreement with our Synoptics. But for the universal inaccuracy of the human mind, every important historical saying, having obviously only one distinct original form, would in all truthful histories have been reported in that one unvarying form. The nature of the quotations in the Clementine Homilies leads to the inevitable conclusion that their author derived them from a Gospel different from ours; at least, since the source of these quotations is never named throughout the work, and there is not the faintest direct indication of our Gospels, the Clementine Homilies cannot be considered witnesses of any value as to the origin and authenticity of the canonical Gospels. That this can be said of a work written a century and a half after the establishment of Christianity, and abounding with quotations of the discourses of Jesus, is in itself singularly suggestive.

It is scarcely necessary to add that the author of the Homilies has no idea whatever of any canonical writings but those of the Old Testament, though even with regard to these some of our quotations have shown that he held peculiar views, and believed that they contained spurious elements. There is no reference in the

Homilies to any of the Epistles of the New Testament.(1)

One of the most striking points in this work, on the other hand, is its determined animosity against the Apostle Paul. We have seen that a strong anti-Pauline tendency was exhibited by many of the Fathers, who, like the author of the Homilies, made use of Judeo-Christian Gospels different from ours. In this work, however, the antagonism against the "Apostle of the Gentiles" assumes a tone of peculiar virulence. There cannot be a doubt that the Apostle Paul is attacked in it, as the great enemy of the true faith, under the hated name of Simon the Magician,(2) whom Peter follows everywhere for the purpose of unmasking and confuting him. He is robbed of his title of "Apostle of the Gentiles," which, together with the honour of founding the Church of Antioch, of Laodicaæ, and of Rome, is ascribed to Peter. All that opposition to Paul which is implied in the Epistle to the Galatians and elsewhere(3) is here realized and exaggerated, and

the personal difference with Peter to which Paul refers(1) is widened into the most bitter animosity. In the Epistle of Peter to James which is prefixed to the Homilies, Peter says, in allusion to Paul: "For some among the Gentiles have rejected my lawful preaching and accepted certain lawless and foolish teaching of the hostile man."(2) First expounding a doctrine of duality, as heaven and earth, day and night, life and death,(3) Peter asserts that in nature the greater things come first, but amongst men the opposite is the case, and the first is worse and the second better.(4) He then says to Clement that it is easy according to this order to discern to what class Simon (Paul) belongs, "who came before me to the Gentiles, and to which I belong who have come after him, and have followed him as light upon darkness, as knowledge upon ignorance, as health upon disease."(5) He continues: "If he had been known he would not have been believed, but now, not being known, he is wrongly believed; and though by his acts he is a hater, he has been loved; and although an enemy, he has been welcomed as a friend; and though he is death, he has been desired as a saviour; and though fire, esteemed as light; and though a deceiver, he is listened to as speaking the truth."(6) There is much more of this acrimonious abuse put into the mouth of Peter.(7) The indications that it is Paul who is really attacked under the name of Simon are much too clear to admit of doubt. In Hom. xi. 35, Peter, warning the Church against false

teachers, says: "He who hath sent us, our Lord and Prophet, declared to us that the evil one.... announced that he would send from amongst his followers apostles(1) to deceive. Therefore, above all remember to avoid every apostle, or teacher, or prophet, who first does not accurately compare his teaching with that of James called the brother of my Lord, and to whom was confided the ordering of the Church of the Hebrews in Jerusalem," &c., lest this evil one should send a false preacher to them, "as he has sent to us Simon preaching a counterfeit of truth in the name of our Lord and disseminating error."(2) Further on he speaks more plainly still. Simon maintains that he has a truer appreciation of the doctrines and teaching of Jesus because he has received his inspiration by supernatural vision, and not merely by the