the personal difference with Peter to which Paul refers(1) is widened into the most bitter animosity. In the Epistle of Peter to James which is prefixed to the Homilies, Peter says, in allusion to Paul: "For some among the Gentiles have rejected my lawful preaching and accepted certain lawless and foolish teaching of the hostile man."(2) First expounding a doctrine of duality, as heaven and earth, day and night, life and death,(3) Peter asserts that in nature the greater things come first, but amongst men the opposite is the case, and the first is worse and the second better.(4) He then says to Clement that it is easy according to this order to discern to what class Simon (Paul) belongs, "who came before me to the Gentiles, and to which I belong who have come after him, and have followed him as light upon darkness, as knowledge upon ignorance, as health upon disease."(5) He continues: "If he had been known he would not have been believed, but now, not being known, he is wrongly believed; and though by his acts he is a hater, he has been loved; and although an enemy, he has been welcomed as a friend; and though he is death, he has been desired as a saviour; and though fire, esteemed as light; and though a deceiver, he is listened to as speaking the truth."(6) There is much more of this acrimonious abuse put into the mouth of Peter.(7) The indications that it is Paul who is really attacked under the name of Simon are much too clear to admit of doubt. In Hom. xi. 35, Peter, warning the Church against false
teachers, says: "He who hath sent us, our Lord and Prophet, declared to us that the evil one.... announced that he would send from amongst his followers apostles(1) to deceive. Therefore, above all remember to avoid every apostle, or teacher, or prophet, who first does not accurately compare his teaching with that of James called the brother of my Lord, and to whom was confided the ordering of the Church of the Hebrews in Jerusalem," &c., lest this evil one should send a false preacher to them, "as he has sent to us Simon preaching a counterfeit of truth in the name of our Lord and disseminating error."(2) Further on he speaks more plainly still. Simon maintains that he has a truer appreciation of the doctrines and teaching of Jesus because he has received his inspiration by supernatural vision, and not merely by the common experience of the senses,(3) and Peter replies: "If, therefore, our Jesus indeed was seen in a vision, was known by thee, and conversed with thee, it was only as one angry with an adversary.... But can any one through a vision be made wise to teach? And if thou sayest: 'It is possible,' then wherefore did the Teacher remain and discourse for a whole year to us who were awake? And how can we believe thy story that he was seen by thee? And how could he have been seen by thee when thy thoughts are contrary to his teaching? But if seen and taught by him for a single hour thou becamest an apostle:(4) preach his words, interpret his sayings, love his
apostles, oppose not me who consorted with him. For thou hast directly withstood me who am a firm rock, the foundation of the Church. If thou hadst not been an adversary thou wouldst not have calumniated me, thou wouldst not have reviled my teaching in order that, when declaring what I have myself heard from the Lord.
I might not be believed, as though I were condemned.... But if thou callest me condemned, thou speakest against God who revealed Christ to me,'"(1) &c. This last phrase: "If thou callest me condemned" [———] is an evident allusion to Galat. ii. II: "I withstood him to the face, because he was condemned" [———].
We have digressed to a greater extent than we intended, but it is not unimportant to show the general character and tendency of the work we have been examining. The Clementine Homilies,—written perhaps about the end of the second century, which never name nor indicate any Gospel as the source of the author's knowledge of evangelical history, whose quotations of sayings of Jesus, numerous as they are, systematically differ from the parallel passages of our Synoptics, or are altogether foreign to them, which denounce the Apostle Paul as an impostor, enemy of the faith, and disseminator of false doctrine, and therefore repudiate his Epistles, at the same time equally ignoring all the other writings of the New Testament,—can scarcely be considered as giving much support to any theory of the early formation of the New Testament Canon, or as affording evidence even of the existence of its separate books.
Among the writings which used formerly to be ascribed to Justin Martyr, and to be published along with his genuine works, is the short composition commonly known as the "Epistle to Diognetus." The ascription of this composition to Justin arose solely from the fact that in the only known MS. of the letter there is an inscription [———] which, from its connection, was referred to Justin.(1) The style and contents of the work, however, soon convinced critics that it could not possibly be written by Justin,(2) and although it has been ascribed by various isolated writers to Apollos, Clement, Marcion, Quadratus, and others, none of these guesses have been seriously supported, and critics are almost universally agreed in confessing that the author of the Epistle is entirely unknown.