QUOTATIONS AND CITATIONS.
The _apparent_ or seeming use of our Gospels by Justin and his
contemporaries is a fact of great weight in determining whether they are
the “Memoirs” referred to by him.
According to the Indexes of Texts by the learned editors of the
Ante-Nicene Christian Library, John’s Gospel is quoted or cited, twice in
Barnabas, once in Diognetus, twice in Hermas, once by Justin, and once
by Papias. Mark is quoted or cited, once in Barnabas, twice by Clement,
three times by Justin, and once by Polycarp: Acts is quoted or cited once
in Barnabas, once by Clement, once by Justin, and four times by Polycarp:
Luke is quoted or cited three times in Barnabas, three times by Clement,
once in Hermas, fourteen times by Justin, and twice by Polycarp: and
Matthew is quoted or cited six times in Barnabas, five times by Clement,
twice in Diognetus, nine times in Hermas, forty-seven times by Justin,
and seven times by Polycarp.
As to _citations_, passages deemed such by one, may have been overlooked
or regarded differently by another, so that there is not an entire
agreement as to the number of citations, _i. e._ of allusions or
references that are not quotations. And it should be understood that in
the _quotations_, the books from which they are taken are not stated,
except that Justin indicates that _his_, in general, are from the
“Memoirs.” Their agreement with our Gospels is sometimes literally exact,
quite often it is otherwise; and not unfrequently two or three passages
are seemingly blended, as if the author were quoting from memory and
giving the sense, merely.
It will be sufficient for the purposes of the argument to give examples
(except as to the Fourth Gospel) only from Justin, and to omit _his_
quotations from Matthew and Mark, since they are so numerous and not a
few of them of considerable length. Of his references, Rev. Mr. Wright
says[1]: “Upon examination it is found that of the one hundred and twenty
or more allusions which Justin makes to the Gospel history, nearly all
coincide as to substance with the statements of either Matthew or Luke.
Of the sixty or seventy apparently direct quotations, ten are exact,
twenty-five are only slightly variant, while there are thirty-two in
which the variation is considerable. But in respect to variations from
the original in quotation, it should be remembered that familiarity often
leads to carelessness with regard to minute points. Justin, himself, out
of one hundred and sixty-two quotations from the Old Testament, has only
sixty-four exact, while forty-four are slightly variant, and fifty-four
decidedly so.”
If the reader, with the New Testament in hand, will make a comparison in
the examples which will be given, he can form his own judgment, which it
is conceived, will be no doubtful one. The substantial agreement is very
striking even when the language is not identical.
JUSTIN FROM ACTS.
“He was taken up into heaven while they beheld.” (Res., c. 9.)
Acts i. 9.
FROM MARK.
“But is it not absurd to say that these members will exist
after the resurrection from the dead, since the Saviour said,
‘They neither marry nor are given in marriage, but shall be as
the angels in heaven.’” (Res., c. 2.) Mark xi. 25.
“And that we ought to worship God alone, he thus persuadeth us:
‘The greatest commandment is, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy
God, and him only shalt thou serve with all thy heart, and with
all thy strength the Lord God that made thee.”’” (Ap. c. 16.)
Mark xii. 30.
“He says, ‘I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance.’” (Res., c. 8.) Mark ii. 17.
FROM LUKE.
The first three are parts of long quotations from the Sermon on
the Mount, principally as in Matthew (Ap. cc. 15, 16) Luke vi.:
28, 29, and Matthew vi.: 7, 8, 13.
4. “We are persuaded that every man ... will render account
according to the power he has received from God, as Christ
intimated when he said, ‘To whom God has given more, of him
shall more be required.’” (Ap. c. 17.) Luke xv. 48.
5. “And the angel of God who was sent to the same virgin at
that time brought her good news, saying, ‘Behold, thou shalt
conceive of the Holy Ghost, and shall bear a son, and he shall
be called the Son of the Highest. And thou shalt call his name
Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins,’ _as
they who have recorded[2] all that concerns our Saviour Jesus
Christ have taught_, whom we believe since by Isaiah also, whom
we have now adduced, the Spirit of prophecy declared that he
should be born as we intimated before.” (Ap. c. 33.) Luke i.
32, and Matthew i. 21.
6. “As our Lord himself says, ‘He that heareth me, heareth him
that sent me.’” (Ap. c. 63.) Luke x. 16.
7. “And again in other words he said, ‘I give unto you power to
tread on serpents, and on scorpions and on scolopendras, and on
all the might of the enemy.’” (Dial. c. 76.) Luke x. 19.
8. “For he exclaimed before his crucifixion: ‘The Son of Man
must suffer many things, and be rejected by the scribes and
pharisees and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’”
(Dial. c. 76.) Luke ix. 22.
9. “Just as our Lord also said: ‘They shall neither marry nor
be given in marriage, but shall be equal to the angels, the
children of the God of the resurrection.’” (Dial. c. 81.) Luke
xx. 35, 36.
10. “For he taught us to pray for our enemies also, saying,
‘Love your enemies; be kind and merciful as your heavenly
Father’ is, for we see that the Almighty God is kind and
merciful, causing his sun to rise on the unthankful and on the
righteous, and sending rain on the holy and on the wicked.”
(Dial. c. 96.) Luke vi. 35, and Matthew v. 45.
11. “But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel
Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit of
the Lord would come upon her and the power of the Highest would
overshadow her; wherefore also the Holy Thing begotten of her
is the Son of God; and she replied, ‘Be it unto me according to
thy word.’” (Dial. c. 100.) Luke i. 35, 38.
12. “For when Christ was giving up his spirit on the cross he
said: ‘Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit,’ _as I have
learned also from the Memoirs_.” (Dial. c. 105.) Luke xxiii. 46.
13. “He says, ‘The children of this world marry and are given
in marriage; but the children of the world to come neither
marry nor are given in marriage, but shall be like the angels
in heaven.’” (Res., c. 3.) Luke xx. 34, 35.
14. “And wishing to confirm this, when his disciples did not
know whether to believe he had truly risen in the body, and
were looking upon him and doubting, he said to them, ‘Ye have
not yet faith, see that it is I,’ and he let them handle him,
and showed them the prints of the nails in his hands. And when
they were by every kind of proof persuaded that it was himself
and in the body, they asked him to eat with them, that they
might thus still more accurately ascertain that he had in
verity risen bodily; and he did eat honeycomb and fish. And
when he had thus shown them that there is truly a resurrection
of the flesh, and wishing to show them this also, that it is
not impossible for flesh to ascend into heaven (as he had said
that our dwelling place is in heaven). ‘He was taken up into
heaven while they beheld,’ as he was in the flesh.” (Res., c.
9.) Luke xxiv. 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, and Acts i. 9.
Before presenting Justin, from the Fourth Gospel, the use of this Gospel
by his contemporaries will be considered.
In _Barnabas_ (c. 6) it is said that “He was to be manifested in flesh
and to sojourn among us.” (Com. John i. 14.) It is also said in c. 12,
in effect, that the brazen serpent was a type of Jesus. (Com. John iii.
14-18.) Another passage in c. 7, although not cited by the editors, is,
“Because they shall see him then in that day having a scarlet robe about
his body down to his feet; and they shall say, ‘is not this he whom we
once despised and _pierced_ and mocked and crucified?’” This _may_ have
had reference to what is recorded only in John, as Apollinaris,[3]
bishop of Hierapolis (_cir._ A.D. 170), afterward wrote: “The Son of God,
_pierced_ in the sacred side, who shed forth from his side the two things
again cleansing, water and blood, word and spirit.”
In _Diognetus_, c. 6, it is said that “Christians dwell in the world yet
are not of the world.” (Com. John xvii. 11, 14, 16.) In c. 11 it is said,
“This is he who was from the beginning” (Com. John i. 1); and in the same
chapter, “For who that is rightly taught and begotten by the loving Word,
would not seek to know accurately the things which have been clearly
shown by the Word to his disciples, to whom the Word being manifested has
revealed them.” (Com. John i. 14, 18.) There is but a single _quotation_
in this eloquent Letter, which is as in First Corinthians viii. 1,
“Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth.”
John alone speaks of Christ as the _door_, but the figure is often used
in _Hermas_, as, “You saw, he added, the multitude who were building the
tower? I saw them, sir, I said. Those, he said, are all glorious angels,
and by them accordingly is the Lord surrounded. And the gate is the Son
of God. This is the one entrance to the Lord. In no other way, then,
shall any one enter into him except through his Son.” (Simil. ix. 12.)
John x. This book of Hermas is an allegory in which an angel, in the
guise of a shepherd, gives instruction in the doctrines and duties that
were held and required by the Church. It has not a single _quotation_
from either the Old or New Testament. But as Dr. Chartris in “Canonicity”
(p. 137) well says: “The dignity, mission, and sufferings of God’s Son
are prominent in Hermas’ teaching, and remind us of the Fourth Gospel at
every turn.”
The supposed quotation by Papias, Fragment 5 (found in Irenæus), “In
my Father’s house are many mansions,” has been given in a previous
chapter.[A]
_Basilides_, according to Hippolytus, used as proof-texts the exact
passages found in John i. 9 and John ii. 4. Hippolytus first records the
comments of Basilides on the sentence in Genesis, _Let there be light_,
and then proceeds as follows: “And this, he says, is what is said in the
Gospels, ‘The true light which lighteth every man which cometh into the
world.’ And that each thing, he says, has its own seasons, the Saviour is
a sufficient witness when he says, ‘My hour is not yet come.’” Those who
deny that these quotations[4] were by Basilides, claim that Hippolytus
sometimes mixes up the opinions of the master of a school with those of
his followers, and so it is not certain that Basilides used these texts.
The learned author of “Canonicity,” recently published, p. 173, declares
that the difficulties in the way of ascribing those quotations to any
other than Basilides, are “enormous.” The reasoning of Matthew Arnold
(who is quite far from being rigidly orthodox) is so conclusive that we
give the substance of it: “If we take all the doubtful cases of the kind
and compare them with our present case, we shall find that it is not
one of them. It is not true that here where the name of Basilides has
just come before, and where no mention of his son or of his disciples
has intervened since, there is any such ambiguity as is found in other
cases.... The author in general uses the formula, _according to them_,
when he quotes from the school, and the formula, _he says_, when he
gives the dicta of the Master. And in this particular case he manifestly
quotes the dicta of Basilides, and no one who had not a theory to serve
would ever dream of doubting it. Basilides, therefore, about the year one
hundred and twenty-five of our own era, had before him the Fourth Gospel.”
_The Epistles of Ignatius_, whether the longer or shorter or Syriac, may
be of too doubtful genuineness, or rather, the extent as to which they
are genuine is too doubtful to be relied upon, although some of them
contain numerous quotations.
[1] The Logic of Christian Evidences. By G. Frederick Wright, Andover,
A.D. 1880, p. 190.
[2] Or, as Dr. Abbott translated it, as “those who have written Memoirs
of all things concerning our Saviour Jesus Christ, whom we believe,” etc.
Fourth Gospel, p. 21.
[3] As quoted (p. 43) in The Supernatural Origin of Christianity. By
George P. Fisher, Professor of Church History in Yale College (A.D. 1870).
[A] Chap. 3.
[4] Judge Waite does not even refer to these quotations except to quote
from Dr. Davidson in respect to Basilides in general, that “His supposed
quotations from the New Testament in Hippolytus are too precarious to be
trusted.” He does not seem to have known anything of Professors Arnold
and Fisher, or Dr. Abbot, not to mention other very _respectable_ writers
within the last ten years, who have regarded the use of the Fourth Gospel
by Basilides as sufficiently attested.