of Justin. Twice he has "God" instead of "Father,"(1) and once he substitutes [——]—] for [——]—].(2) It is evident from the loose and fragmentary way in which Clement interweaves the passage with his text, that he is more concerned with the sense than the verbal accuracy of the quotation, but the result of his evidence is that he never departs from the Gospel order of "Father" and "Son," although he frequently makes use of [——]—] and also employs [——]—] in agreement with Justin and, therefore, he shows the prevalence of forms approximating to, though always presenting material difference from, the reading of Justin.
Epiphanius refers to this passage no less than ten times,(3) but he only quotes it fully five times, and upon each of these occasions with variations. Of the five times to which we refer, he thrice follows the order of the Gospels,(4) as he does likewise in another place where he does not complete the sentence.(5) On the remaining two occasions he adopts the same order as Justin, with variations from his reading, however, to which we shall presently refer;(6) and where he only partially quotes he follows the same order on other three occasions,(7) and in one other place the quotation is too fragmentary to allow us to distinguish the order.(8) Now in all of these ten quotations, with one exception, Epiphanius substitutes [——]—] for [——]—] at the commencement of the
passage in Matthew, and only thrice does he repeat the verb in the second clause as in that Gospel, and on these occasions he twice makes use of [——]—](1) and once of [——]—].(2) He once uses [——]—] with the same order as Justin, but does not complete the sentence.(3) Each time he completes the quotation, he uses [——]—] with the Gospel, and [——]—] with Justin,(4) but only once out of the five complete quotations does he insert [——]—] in the concluding phrase. It is evident from this examination, which we must not carry further, that Epiphanius never verbally agrees with the Gospel in his quotation of this passage and never verbally with Justin, but mainly follows a version different from both. It must be remembered,
however, that he is writing against various heresies, and it does not seem to us improbable that he reproduces forms of the passage current amongst those sects.
In his work against Marcion, Tertullian says: "With regard to the Father, however, that he was never seen, the Gospel which is common to us will testify, as it was said by Christ: Nemo cognovit patrem nisi filius,"(5) but elsewhere he translates "Nemo scit,"(6) evidently not fully appreciating the difference of [——]—].(7) The passage in Mar-cion's Gospel reads like Justin's: [——]—].(8) The use of [——]—] as applied to the Father and [——]—] as regards the Son in this passage is suggestive. Origen
almost invariably uses [——]—], sometimes adopting the order of the Gospels and sometimes that of Justin, and always employing [——]—].(1) The Clementine Homilies always read [——]—], and always follow the same order as Justin, presenting other and persistent variations from the form in the Gospels. [——]—] This reading occurs four times. The Clementine Recognitions have the aorist with the order of the Gospels.(4)
There only remain a few more lines to add to those already quoted to complete the whole of Dr. Westcott's argument regarding this passage. He continues and concludes thus: "If, indeed, Justin's quotations were made from memory, no transposition could be more natural; and if we suppose that he copied the passage directly from a manuscript, there is no difficulty in believing that he found it so written in a manuscript of the Canonical St. Matthew, since the variation is excluded by no internal improbability, while it is found elsewhere, and its origin is easily explicable."(5) It will be observed that Canon Westcott does not attempt any argument, but simply confines himself to suppositions. If such explanations were only valid, there could be no difficulty in believing anything, and every embarrassing circumstance would indeed be easily explicable.
The facts of the case may be briefly summed up as follows: Justin deliberately and expressly quotes from his Gospel, himself calling it "Gospel," be it observed, a