[Greek: Ou pantes chorousi ton logon touton, eisi gar eunouchoi oi men ek genetaes oi de ex anankaes.]
Matt. xix. 11, 12.
[Greek: Ou pantes chorousi ton logon touton, all' ois dedotai, eisin gar eunouchoi oitines ek kiolias maetros egennaethaesan outos, kai eisin eunouchoi oitines eunouchisthaesan hupo ton anthropon, k.t.l.]
The reference of this to St. Matthew is far from being so 'preposterous' [Endnote 192:1] as the critic imagines. The use of the word [Greek: chorein] in this sense is striking and peculiar: it has no parallel in the New Testament, and but slight and few parallels, as it appears from the lexicons and commentators, in previous literature. The whole phrase is a remarkable one and the verbal coincidence exact, the words that follow are an easy and natural abridgment. On the same principles on which it is denied that this is a quotation from St. Matthew it would be easy to prove a priori that many of the quotations in Clement of Alexandria could not be taken from the canonical Gospels which, we know, are so taken.
The fact that this passage is found among the Synoptics only in St. Matthew must not count for nothing. The very small number of additional facts and sayings that we are able to glean from the writers who, according to 'Supernatural Religion,' have used apocryphal Gospels so freely, seems to be proof that our present Gospels were (as we should expect) the fullest and most comprehensive of their kind. If, then, a passage is found only in one of them, it is fair to conclude, not positively, but probably, that it is drawn from some special source of information that was not widely diffused.
The same remarks hold good respecting another quotation found in
Epiphanius, which also comes under the general head of [Greek:
Basileidianoi], though it is introduced not only by the singular
[Greek: phaesin] but by the definite [Greek: phaesin ho agurtaes].
Here the Basilidian quotation has a parallel also peculiar to St.
Matthew, from the Sermon on the Mount.
Epiph. Haer. 72 A.
[Greek: Mae bagaete tous margaritas emprosthen ton choiron, maede dote to hagion tois kusi.]
Matt vii. 6.
[Greek: Mae dote to hagion tois kusin, maede bagaete tous
margaritas humon emprosthen ton choiron.] The excellent
Alexandrine cursive I, with some others, has [Greek: dóte] for
[Greek: dôte]