[——]—]
In Matthew xxvi. 39 this part of the prayer is more like the reading of Justin: "Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me "—[——]—] but that Gospel has nothing of the sweat of agony, which excludes it from consideration. In another place Justin also quotes the prayer in the Garden as follows: "He prayed, saying: 'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;' and besides this, praying, he said: 'Not as I wish, but as thou willest.'"(2) The first phrase in this place, apart from some transposition of words, agrees with Matthew; but even if this reading be preferred of the two, the absence of the incident of the sweat of agony from the first Gospel renders it impossible to regard it as the source; and, further, the second part of the prayer which is here
given differs materially both from the first and third Gospels.
[——]—]
The two parts of this prayer, moreover, seem to have been separate in the Memoirs, for not only does Justin not quote the latter portion at all in Dial. 103, but here he markedly divides it from the former. Justin knows nothing of the episode of the Angel who strengthens Jesus, which is related in Luke xxii. 43. There is, however, a still more important point to mention: that although verses 43, 44 with the incidents of the angel and the bloody sweat are certainly in a great number of MSS., they are omitted by some of the oldest Codices, as for instance by the Alexandrian and Vatican MSS.(1) It is evident that in this part Justin's Memoirs differed from our first and third Gospels much in the same way that they do from each other.
In the same chapter Justin states that when the Jews went out to the Mount of Olives to take Jesus, "there was not even a single man to run to his help as a guiltless person."(2) This is in direct contradiction to all the Gospels,(3) and Justin not only completely ignores the episode of the ear of Malchus, but in this passage
1 In the Sinaitic Codex they are marked for omission by a
later hand. Lachmann brackets, and Drs. Westcott and Hort
double-bracket them. The MS. evidence may bo found in detail
in Scrivener's Int. to Crit. N. T. 2nd ed. p. 521, stated in
the way which is most favourable for the authenticity.
excludes it, and his Gospel could not have contained it.(1) Luke is specially marked in generalizing the resistance of those about Jesus to his capture: "When they which were about him saw what would follow, they said unto him: Lord, shall we smite with the sword? And a certain one of them smote the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear."(2) As this episode follows immediately after the incident of the bloody sweat and prayer in the Garden, and the statement of Justin occurs in the very same chapter in which he refers to them, this contradiction further tends to confirm the conclusion that Justin employed a different Gospel.