Twice repeated we have the text, “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”[364]
In St. Matthew's Gospel (iv. 10) it runs, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
In the Clementines: “He alleged that it was right to present to him who strikes you on one cheek the other also, and to give to him who takes away your cloak your hood also, and to go two miles with him who compels you to go one.”[365] This differs from the account in St. Matthew, by using for the word χιτῶνα, “tunic,” of the Canonical Gospel, the word μαφόριον, “hood.”
There are other passages identical with, or almost identical with, the received text in St. Matthew's Gospel, which it is not necessary to enter upon separately.
They are: Matt. v. 3, 8, 17, 18, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 41, vi. 8, 13, vii. 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 21, viii. 11, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, ix. 13, x. 28, 34, xi. 25, 27, 28, xii. 7, 26, 34, 42, xiii. 17, 39, xv. 13, xvi. 13, 18, xix. 8, 17, xxii. 2, 32, xxiii. 25, xxiv. 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, xxv. 41. In all, some fifty-five verses, almost and often quite the same as in St. Matthew's Gospel.
There is just one text supposed to be taken from St. Mark's Gospel, four from St. Luke's, and two from St. John's. But I do not think we are justified in concluding that these quotations are taken from the three last-named Canonical Gospels. That they are not taken [pg 215] from St. Luke we may be almost certain, for that Gospel was not received by the Judaizing Christians. When we examine the passages, the probability of their being quotations from the Canonical Gospels disappears.
We find, “He, the true Prophet, said, I am the gate of life; he that entereth through me entereth into life.”[366] The words in St. John's Gospel are, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.”[367] The idea is the same, but the mode of expression is different.
“Again he said, My sheep hear my voice.”[368]
The quotation from St. Mark is too brief for us to be able to form any well-founded opinion upon it. It is this: “But to those who were misled to imagine many gods, as the Scriptures say, he said, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God is one Lord.”[369]
No prejudice would exist among the Ebionites against the Gospel of St. Mark, but the Christology of the Johannine Gospel, its doctrine of the Logos, would not accord with their low views of Christ. The Ebionites who denied the Godhead of Jesus could hardly acknowledge as canonical a Gospel which contained the words, “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”