The author of "Supernatural Religion" repudiates the idea that Justin, in any of these quotations, makes use of our present Gospels. He examines these [so-called] quotations seriatim at considerable length, for the purpose of showing that Justin's variations from our present Gospels imply another source of information. He considers (and in this I cannot agree with him, though I shall, for argument's sake, yield the point) that—
"The hypothesis that these quotations are from the canonical gospels requires the acceptance of the fact that Justin, with singular care, collected from distant and scattered portions of these gospels a series of passages in close sequence to each other, forming a whole unknown to them, but complete in itself." ("Supernatural Religion," vol. i. p. 359)
I say I cannot agree with this, because I think that the extracts I have given have all the signs of a piece of patchwork by no means well put together, but I will assume that he is right in his view.
Here, then, we have, according to his hypothesis, another sermon of
Christ's, which, owing to the "close sequence" of its various passages,
and its completeness as a whole, must take its place alongside of the
Sermon on the Mount. Where does it come from?—
"The simple and natural conclusion, supported by many strong
reasons, is that Justin derived his quotations from a Gospel which
was different from ours, though naturally by subject and design it
must have been related to them." (Vol. i. p. 384.)
And in page 378 our author traces one of the passages of this "consecutive" discourse through an epistle ascribed to Clement of Rome to the "Gospel according to the Egyptians," which was in all probability a version of the "Gospel according to the Hebrews."
Here, then, is a Gospel, the Gospel to the Hebrews, which not only contained, as the author has shown, a harmony of the histories in SS. Matthew and Luke, so far, at least, as the Birth and Death of Christ are concerned, but also such a full and consecutive report of the moral teaching of Christ, that it may not unfitly be described as "a series of passages in close sequence to each other," collected "with singular care" "from distant and scattered portions of these Gospels." How, we ask, could such a Gospel have perished utterly? A Gospel, which, besides containing records of the historical and supernatural much fuller than any one of the surviving Gospels, contained also a sort of Sermon on the Mount, amalgamating in one whole the moral teaching of our Lord, ought surely (if it ever was in existence) to have won its place in the canon.
SECTION VIII.
THE PRINCIPAL WITNESS.—HIS TESTIMONY TO ST. JOHN.
We have now to consider the citations (or supposed citations) of Justin from the fourth Gospel. These, as I have mentioned, are treated by the author of "Supernatural Religion" separately at the conclusion of his work.