In many other points Justin's "Memoirs of the Apostles" differ from our gospels.
"For an ass's foal was standing at a certain entrance to a village, tied to a vine." Our gospels know nothing about the vine incident when they narrate the story of Christ's entry to Jerusalem. Justin says that Jesus wrought amongst yokes and ploughs. Of this our gospels know nothing.
He says, too, that Jesus was born in a cave. (Trypho, ch. lxxviii.) The First Gospel of the Infancy confirms him here.
"The Magi from Arabia came to Bethlehem and worshipped the child." (H. Trypho, ch. lxxviii.) Here again Justin is plainly using some other gospel. Our gospels know nothing of the Magi coming from Arabia.
There is one passage used in the conventional defence to show that Justin knew the fourth gospel also, but Dr. Abbott, in the "Encyclopædia Britannica," holds that this is impossible.
"Except ye be born again, verily ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."
It is so obvious that baptism is a new birth, that the Brahmins have been the "twice born" from time immemorial. The Buddhist Abhisheka too is called the "whole birth." Baptism must have been compared to a birth in the young Christian Church from an early date. And if Justin had known Christ's explanations about the birth from water and the Spirit, he could have scarcely wandered on like this. "Now, that it is impossible for those who have once been born to re-enter the wombs of those that bear them, is evident to all."
But there is a more overwhelming argument. Justin was a Platonic philosopher converted to Christianity, as he thought. But in the view of the sober Dr. Lamson, he brought with him into the fold Philo's doctrine of the Logos. It does not appear in Christianity until his date. This Logos, according to Justin and to Philo, was a distinct being, a second God. And in Justin's dialogue with Trypho, he tries to prove all this, enlisting three times into his argument the passage, "No man knoweth the Father but the Son." (Varied in Matt. xi. 27). Is it conceivable that if he had had at his command the opening verses of the fourth gospel, and believed them to be by an apostle of Christ, he would have spared Trypho the infliction of them? The poor Jew would have heard of nothing else.
But a new witness has surged up, coming, as it were, from the tomb. I allude to the fragment of the Gospel of Peter. Justin writes:—
"For also, as said the prophet, mocking him, they placed him on a tribunal, and said, Give judgment to us." Our gospels know nothing of the incident of the tribunal, nor of the mocking speech recorded by Justin. "Let him who raised the dead save himself." Now, the newly-discovered Gospel of Peter says that they did place Christ on the judgment-seat in mockery. It affirms also at the end that it was inspired by the twelve disciples, just like the Gospel of the Hebrews.