now no longer extant,(1) and more especially not when, in the same writings, there are other quotations from sources different from our Gospels. Whether regarded as historical records or as writings embodying the mere tradition of the early Christians, our Gospels cannot be recognized as the exclusive depositaries of the genuine sayings and doings of Jesus. So far from the common possession by many works, in early times, of sayings of Jesus in closely similar form being either strange or improbable, the really remarkable phenomenon is that such material variation in the report of the more important historical teaching should exist amongst them. But whilst similarity to our Gospels in passages quoted by early writers from unnamed sources cannot prove the use of our Gospels, variation from them would suggest or prove a different origin, and at least it is obvious that anonymous quotations which do not agree with our Gospels cannot in any case necessarily indicate their existence. We shall in the course of the following pages more fully illustrate this, but such a statement is requisite at the very outset from the too general practice of referring every quotation of historical sayings of Jesus exclusively to our Gospels, as though they were the only sources of such matter which had ever existed.
It is unnecessary to add that, in proportion as we remove from apostolic times without positive evidence of the existence and authenticity of our Gospels, so does the value of their testimony dwindle away. Indeed, requiring as we do clear, direct, and irrefragable evidence of the integrity, authenticity, and historical character of these Gospels, doubt or obscurity on these points must inevitably be fatal to them as sufficient testimony,—if
they could, under any circumstances be considered sufficient testimony,—for miracles and a direct Divine Revelation like ecclesiastical Christianity.
We propose to examine first, the evidence for the three Synoptics and, then, separately, the testimony regarding the fourth Gospel.
CHAPTER I. CLEMENT OF ROME—THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS—THE PASTOR OF HERMAS
The first work which presents itself for examination is the so-called first Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, which, together with a second Epistle to the same community, likewise attributed to Clement, is preserved to us in the Codex Alexandrinus,(1) a MS. assigned by the most competent judges to the second half of the fifth, or beginning of the sixth century, in which these Epistles follow the books of the New Testament. The second Epistle, which is evidently not epistolary, but the fragment of a Homily,(2) although it thus shares with the first the honour of a canonical position in one of the most ancient codices of the New Testament, is not mentioned at all by the earlier fathers who refer to the first;(3)
