We will examine them one by one.

In an epistle of Barnabas there is one passage—it is the only one of the kind to be found in him—agreeing word for word with the Synoptical Gospels, 'I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.' It is one of the many passages in which the Greek of the three evangelists is exactly the same; it was to be found also in Justin's 'Memoirs;' and there can be no doubt that Barnabas either knew those Gospels or else the common source—if common source there was—from which the evangelists borrowed. More than this such a quotation does not enable us to say; and till some satisfactory explanation has been offered of the agreement between the evangelists, the argument can advance no further. On the other hand, Barnabas like St. Paul had other sources from which he drew his knowledge of our Lord's words. He too ascribes words to Him which are not recorded by the evangelists, οὑτω φησιν Ιησους· οἱ θελοντες με ιδειν και ἁψασθαι μου της βασιλειας οφειλουσι θλιβεντες και παθοντες λαβειν με. The thought is everywhere in the Gospels, the words nowhere, nor anything like them.

Both Ignatius and Polycarp appear to quote the Gospels, yet with them also there is the same uncertainty; while Ignatius quotes as genuine an expression which, so far as we know, was peculiar to a translation of the Gospel of the Ebionites—'Handle me and see, for I am not a spirit without body,' ὁτι ουκ ειμι δαιμονιον ασωματον.

Clement's quotations are still more free, for Clement nowhere quotes the text of the evangelists exactly as it at present stands; often he approaches it extremely close; at times the agreement is rather in meaning than words, as if he were translating from another language. But again Clement more noticeably than either of the other apostolic Fathers cites expressions of our Lord of which the evangelists knew nothing.

For instance—

'The Lord saith, "If ye be with me gathered into my bosom, and do not after my commandments, I will cast you off, and I will say unto you, Depart from me, I know you not, ye workers of iniquity."'

And again:—

'The Lord said, "Ye shall be as sheep in the midst of wolves." Peter answered and said unto Him, "Will the wolves then tear the sheep?" Jesus said unto Peter, "The sheep need not fear the wolves after they (the sheep) be dead: and fear not ye those who kill you and can do nothing to you; but fear Him who after you be dead hath power over soul and body to cast them into hell-fire."'

In these words we seem to have the lost link in a passage which appears in a different connection in St. Matthew and St. Luke. It may be said, as with Justin Martyr, that Clement was quoting from memory in the sense rather than in the letter; although even so it is difficult to suppose that he could have invented an interlocution of St. Peter. Yet no hypothesis will explain the most strange words which follow:—

'The Lord being asked when His kingdom should come, said, "When two shall be one, and that which is without as that which is within, and the male with the female neither male nor female."'