therefore, we should be bound to conclude that it must have been from the Apocalypse. The correction of the Septuagint version, which has thus been traced back as far as a.d. 68 when the Apocalypse was composed, was noticed by Jerome in his Commentary on the text;(1) and Aquila, a contemporary of Irenæus, and later Symmachus and Theodotion, as well as others, similarly adopted [———]. Ten important MSS., of the Septuagint, at least, have the reading of Justin and of the Apocalypse, and these MSS. likewise frequently agree with the other peculiarities of Justin's text. In all probability, as Credner, who long ago pointed out all these circumstances, conjectured, an emendation of the rendering of the LXX. had early been made, partly in Christian interest and partly for the critical improvement of the text,(2) and this amended version was used by Justin and earlier Christian writers. Ewald(3)3 and some others suggest that probably [———] originally stood in the Septuagint text. Every consideration is opposed to the dependence of Justin upon the fourth Gospel for the variation.(4)
The next and last point advanced by Tischendorf is a passage in Apol. i. 61, which is compared with John iii.
3—5, and in order to show the exact character of the two passages, we shall at once place them in parallel columns:—[———]
This is the most important passage by which apologists endeavour to establish the use by Justin of the
fourth Gospel, and it is that upon which the whole claim may be said to rest. We shall be able to appreciate the nature of the case by the weakness of its strongest evidence. The first point which must have struck any attentive reader, must have been the singular difference of the language of Justin, and the absence of the characteristic peculiarities of the Johannine Gospel. The double "verily, verily," which occurs twice even in these three verses, and constantly throughout the Gospel(1), is absent in Justin; and apart from the total difference of the form in which the whole passage is given (the episode of Nicodemus being entirely ignored), and omitting minor differences, the following linguistic variations occur: Justin has: [———]
Indeed it is almost impossible to imagine a more complete difference, both in form and language, and it seems to us that there does not exist a single linguistic trace by which the passage in Justin can be connected with the fourth Gospel. The fact that Justin knows nothing of the expression [———] ("born from above"), upon which the whole statement in the fourth Gospel turns, but uses a totally different word, [———] (born again),
