Again. “The Lord said, Be ye as lambs in the midst of wolves. Peter answered and said unto him, But what if the wolves shall rend the lambs? Jesus said unto Peter, The lambs fear not the wolves after their death; and ye also, do not ye fear them that kill you, and after that have nothing that they can do to you, but fear rather him who, after ye are dead, has power to cast your soul and body into hell fire.”[242]
This is clearly another version of the passage, Matt. x. 16-26. In one particular it is fuller than in the Canonical Gospel; it introduces St. Peter as speaking and drawing forth the exhortation not to fear those who kill the body only. But it is without the long exhortation contained in the 17-27th verses of St. Matthew.
Another saying from the same source is, “This, therefore, the Lord said, Keep the flesh chaste and the seal undefiled, and ye shall receive eternal life.”[243] The seal is the unction of confirmation completing baptism, and in the primitive Church united with it. It is the σφραγίς so often spoken of in the Epistles of St. Paul.[244]
Justin Martyr contributes another saying. We have already seen that in all likelihood he quoted from the Gospel of the Hebrews, or the Recollections of the Twelve, as he called it. He says, “On this account also our Lord Jesus Christ said, In those things in which I shall overtake you, in those things will I judge you.”[245] Clement of Alexandria makes the same quotation, slightly varying the words. Justin and Clement apparently both translated from the original Hebrew, but did not give exactly the same rendering of words, though they gave the same sense.
Clement gives us another saying, but does not say [pg 160] from what Gospel he drew it. “The Lord commanded in a certain Gospel, My secret is for me and for the children of my home.”[246]
3. The Origin of the Gospel of the Hebrews.
We come now to a question delicate, and difficult to answer—the Origin of the Gospel of the Hebrews; delicate, because it involves another, the origin of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark; difficult, because of the nature of the evidence on which we shall have to form our opinion.
Because the Gospel of the Hebrews is not preserved, is not in the Canon, it does not follow that its value was slight, its accuracy doubtful. Its disappearance is due partly to the fact of its having been written in Aramaic, but chiefly to that of its having been in use by an Aramaic-speaking community which assumed first a schismatical, then a heretical position, so that the disfavour which fell on the Nazarene body enveloped and doomed its Gospel as well.
The four Canonical Gospels owe their preservation to their having been in use among those Christian communities which coalesced under the moulding hands of St. John. Those parties which were reluctant to abandon their peculiar features were looked upon with coldness, then aversion, lastly abhorrence. They became more and more isolated, eccentric, prejudiced, impracticable. Whilst the Church asserted her catholicity, organized her constitution, established her canon, formulated her creed, adapted herself to the flux of ideas, these narrow [pg 161] sects spent their petty lives in accentuating their peculiarities till they grew into monstrosities; and when they fell and disappeared, there fell and disappeared with them those precious records of the Saviour's words and works which they had preserved.