Another passage is a phrase from the "Lord's Prayer," which occurs in Hom. xix. 2: "But also in the prayer which he commended to us, we have it said: Deliver us from the evil one" [———]. It need scarcely be said, however, that few Gospels can have been composed without including this prayer, and the occurrence of this short phrase demonstrates nothing more than the mere fact, that the author of the Homilies was acquainted with one of the most universally known lessons of Jesus, or made use of a Gospel which contained it. There would have been cause for wonder had he been ignorant of it.
The only other passage which agrees literally with our Gospels is also a mere fragment from the parable of the Talents, and when the other references to the same parable are added, it is evident that the quotation is not from our Gospels. In Hom. iii. 65, the address to the good servant is introduced: "Well done, good and faithful servant" [———], which agrees
with the words in Matt. xxv. 21. The allusion to the parable of the talents in the context is perfectly clear, and the passage occurs in an address of the Apostle Peter to overcome the modest scruples of Zaccheus, the former publican, who has been selected by Peter as his successor in the Church of Caesarea when he is about to leave in pursuit of Simon the Magician. Anticipating the possibility of his hesitating to accept the office, Peter, in an earlier part of his address, however, makes fuller allusions to the same parable of the talents, which we must contrast with the parallel in the first Synoptic. "But if any of those present, having the ability to instruct the ignorance of men, shrink back from it, considering only his own ease, then let him expect to hear:"
[—Table—]
The Homily does not end here, however, but continues in words not found in our Gospels at all: "And reasonably: 'For,' he says, 'it is thine, O man, to put my words as silver with exchangers, and to prove them as money/"(1) This passage is very analogous to another saying of Jesus, frequently quoted from an apocryphal Gospel, by the author of the Homilies, to which we shall hereafter more particularly refer, but here merely point out: "Be ye approved money-changers" [———].(2) The variations from the parallel passages in the first and third Gospels, the peculiar application of the parable to the words of Jesus, and the addition of a saying not found in our Gospels, warrant us in denying that the quotations we are considering can be appropriated by our canonical Gospels, and, on the contrary, give good reason for the conclusion, that the author derived his knowledge of the parable from another source.
There is no other quotation in the Clementine Homilies which literally agrees with our Gospels, and it is difficult, without incurring the charge of partial selection, to illustrate the systematic variation in such very numerous passages as occur in these writings. It would be tedious and unnecessary to repeat the test applied to the quotations of Justin, and give in detail the passages from the Sermon on the Mount which are found in the Homilies. Some of these will come before us presently, but with regard to the whole, which are not less than fifty, we may broadly and positively state that they all more or less differ from our Gospels. To take the
severest test, however, we shall compare those further passages which are specially adduced as most closely following our Gospels, and neglect the vast majority which most widely differ from them. In addition to the passages which we have already examined, Credner(1) points out the following. The first is from Hom. xix. 2.(2) "If Satan cast out Satan he is divided against himself: how then can his kingdom stand?" In the first part of this sentence, the Homily reads, [———] for the [———] of the first Gospel, and the last phrase in each is as follows:—