Lost and Hostile Gospels

“And … Jesus himself declared that John was greater than all men and all the prophets.”313 The corresponding passage is in St. Matthew.314

The Beatitudes, or some of them, were in it. “He said, Blessed are the poor; and promised earthly rewards; and promised that those who maintain righteousness shall be satisfied with meat and drink.”315 “Our Master, inviting his disciples to patience, impressed on them the blessing of peace, which was to be preserved with the labour of patience… He charges (the believers) to have peace among themselves, and says to them, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the very sons of God.”316 “The Father, whom only those can see who are pure in heart.”317 Again strong similarity with slight difference. “He said, I am not come to send peace on earth, but a sword; and henceforth you shall see father separated from son, son from father, husband from wife, and wife from husband, mother from daughter, and daughter from mother, brother from brother, father-in-law from daughter-in-law, friend from friend.”318 This is fuller than the corresponding passage in St. Matthew.319

“It is enough for the disciple to be as his master.”320 “He mourned over those who lived in riches and luxury, and bestowed nothing upon the poor; showing that they must render an account, because they did not pity their neighbours, even when they were in poverty, whom they ought to love as themselves.”321 “In like manner he charged the Scribes and Pharisees during the last period of his teaching … with hiding the key of knowledge which they had handed down to them from Moses, by which the gate of the heavenly kingdom might be opened.”322 The key of knowledge occurs only in St. Luke's Gospel. Had the author of the Clementines any knowledge of that Gospel? I do not think so, or we should find other quotations from St. Luke. St. Matthew says, “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up (κλείετε) the kingdom of heaven.”323 St. Luke says, “Ye have taken away the key (τὴν κλεῖδα) of knowledge.”324 The author of the Clementines says, “Ye have hidden the key,” not “taken away.” I do not think, when the expression in St. Matthew suggests the “key,” that we need suppose that the author of the Recognitions quoted from St. Luke; rather, I presume, from his own Gospel, which in this passage resembled the words in St. Luke rather than those in St. Matthew, without, however, being exactly the same.325

“Every kingdom divided against itself shall not stand.”326 “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”327 The writer knew, in the same terms as St. Matthew, our Lord's sayings: “Give not that which is holy to dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine.”328 “Whosoever shall look upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her in his heart… If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members perish, rather than thy whole body be cast into hell-fire.”329

The woes denounced on the Scribes and Pharisees,330 and the saying that the Queen of the South should “rise in judgment against this generation,”331 are given in the Recognitions as in St. Matthew, as also that “the harvest is plenteous,”332 “that no man can serve two masters,”333 and the saying on the power of faith to move mountains.334

We have the parables of the goodly pearl,335 of the marriage supper,336 and of the tares,337 but also that of the sower,338 which does not occur in St. Matthew, but in St. Luke. This therefore was found in the Gospel used by the author of the Recognitions. There are two other apparent quotations from St. Luke: “I have come to send fire on the earth, and how I wish that it were kindled”;339 and the story of the rich fool.340 The first, however, is differently expressed from St. Luke. There are just two more equally questionable quotations: “Be ye merciful, as also your heavenly Father is merciful, who makes his sun to rise upon the good and the evil, and rains upon the just and the unjust.”341 We have the Greek in one of the Homilies.342 In St. Luke it runs, “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”343 In St. Matthew, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”344 Is it not clear that either the pseudo-Clement condensed the direction, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you,” into the brief maxim, “Be ye good and merciful,” – or that, and this is more probable, there were concurrent traditional accounts of our Lord's saying, and that St. Matthew, St. Luke, and the writer of the Gospel used by the pseudo-Clement, made use of independent texts in their compilations?

The next passage is a saying of our Lord on the cross, which is given in the Recognitions: “Father, forgive them their sin, for they know not what they do.”345 In the Homilies we have the original Greek: “Father, forgive them their sins, for they know not what they do.”346 Rufinus has unconsciously altered the text in translating it by making “sins” singular instead of plural.

It is not necessary to note the insignificant difference of the word ἅ in the Homily and the word τί in the Gospel. But who cannot see that the addition of the words, “their sins,” completely changes the thought of the Saviour? Jesus prays God to forgive the Jews the crime they commit in crucifying him, and not to pardon all the sins of their lives that they have committed. The addition of these two words not merely modify the thought; they represent another of an inferior order. They would not have been introduced into the text if the author of the Gospel used by the pseudo-Clement had had the Gospel of St. Luke before him. These words were certainly not derived from St. Luke; they are due to a separate recollection or tradition of the sayings of the Saviour on the cross. Those sayings we may well believe were cherished in the memory of the early disciples. Tradition always modifies, weakens, renders commonplace the noblest thoughts and most striking sayings, and colours the most original with a tint of triviality.347

We find in both the Recollections and Homilies a passage which has been thought to be a quotation from St. John: “Verily I say unto you, That unless a man is born again of water, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”348 Here, again, the hand of Rufinus is to be traced. The same quotation is made in the Homilies, and it stands there thus: “Verily I say unto you, Unless ye be born again of the water of life (or the living water) in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.”349

That the narrative of the interview with Nicodemus was in the Gospel of the Hebrews, we learned from Justin Martyr quoting it. We will place the parallel passages opposite each other:

1Recognitions vi. 9: “For thus hath the true prophet testified to us with an oath: Verily I say unto you,” &c. The oath is, of course, the Ἀμὴν, ἀμὴν.

The fragment in the Homilies clearly belongs to the same narrative as the fragment in Justin's Apology. Both are addressed in the second person plural, “Except ye be born again;” in the Gospel of St. John the first is, “Except a man be born again;” the second, “Except a man be born of water and spirit;” both in the third person singular. The form of the first answer in Justin differs from that in St. John: “he cannot enter the kingdom,” “he cannot see the kingdom.”

That these are independent accounts I can hardly doubt. The words, “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” are an obvious interpolation, perhaps a late one, in the text of the Homilies; for Rufinus would hardly have omitted to translate this, though he did allow himself to make short verbal alterations.

There is another apparent quotation from St. John in the fifth book of the Recognitions: “Every one is made the servant of him to whom he yields subjection.”350 But here again the quotation is very questionable. St. John's version of our Lord's saying is, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” St. Paul is much nearer: “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”351

The quotation in the Recognitions is not from St. Paul, for the author expressly declares it is a saying of our Lord. St. Paul could not have had St. John's Gospel under his eye when he wrote, for that Gospel was not composed till long after he wrote the Epistle to the Romans. He gives no hint that he is quoting a saying of our Lord traditionally known to the Roman Christians. He apparently makes appeal to their experience when he says, “Know ye not.” Yet this fragment of an ancient lost Gospel in the Clementine Recognitions gives another colour to his words; they may be paraphrased, “Know ye not that saying of Christ, To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are?” It appears, therefore, that this is an earlier recorded reminiscence of our Lord's saying than that of St. John.

There is one, and only one, apparent quotation from St. Paul in the Recognitions: “In God's estimation, he is not a Jew who is a Jew among men, nor is he a Gentile that is called a Gentile, but he who, believing in God, fulfils his law and does his will, though he be not circumcised.”352 St. Paul's words are: “He is not a Jew which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter.”

There is no doubt a resemblance between these passages. But it is probable that the resemblance is due solely to community of thought in the minds of both writers. It would be extraordinary if this were a quotation, for the author of the Recognitions nowhere quotes from any Epistle, not even from those of St. Peter; and that he, an Ebionite, should quote St. Paul, whose Epistles the Ebionites rejected, is scarcely credible.

The Recognitions mention the temptation: “The prince of wickedness … presumed that he should be worshipped by him by whom he knew that he was to be destroyed. Therefore our Lord, confirming the worship of one God, answered him, It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. And he, terrified by this answer, and fearing lest the true religion of the one and true God should be restored, hastened straightway to send forth into this world false prophets and false apostles and false teachers, who should speak, indeed, in the name of Christ, but should accomplish the will of the demon.”353 Here we have Christ indicated as the one who was to restore that true worship of God which Moses had instituted, but which the Ebionites, with their Essene ancestors, asserted had been defaced and corrupted by false traditions. And in opposition to this, the devil sends out false apostles, false teachers, to undo this work, calling themselves, however, apostles of Christ. There can be little doubt who is meant. The reference is to St. Paul, Silas, and those who accepted his views, in opposition to those of St. James and St. Peter.

In Homily xii. is a citation which seems to indicate the use of the third Canonical Gospel. At first sight it appears to be a combination of a passage of St. Matthew and a parallel passage of St. Luke. It is preceded in the Homily by a phrase not found in the Canonical Gospels, but which is given, together with what follows, as a declaration of the Saviour. The three passages are placed side by side for comparison:

1Τὰ ἀγαθὰ ἐλθεῖν δέι, μακάριος δὲ δι᾽ οὗ ἔρχεται ὅμοιως καὶ τὰ κακὰ ἀνάγκη ἐλθεῖν, οὐαι δὲ δι᾽ οὖ ἔρχεται.

The passage in the Homily is more complete than those in St. Matthew and St. Luke. The two Canonical Evangelists made use of imperfect fragments destitute of one member of the sentence. One cannot but wish to believe that our Lord pronounced a benediction on those who did good in their generation.

“There is amongst us,” says St. Peter in his second Homily, “one Justa, a Syro-Phoenician, a Canaanite by race, whose daughter was oppressed with a grievous disease. And she came to our Lord, crying out and entreating that he would heal her daughter. But he, being asked by us also, said, ‘It is not lawful to heal the Gentiles, who are like unto dogs on account of their using various meats and practices, while the table in the kingdom has been given to the sons of Israel.’ But she, hearing this, and begging to partake as a dog of the crumbs that fall from this table, having changed what she was (i. e. having given up the use of forbidden food), by living like the sons of the kingdom, obtained healing for her daughter as she asked. For she being a Gentile, and remaining in the same course of life, he would not have healed her had she persisted to live as do the Gentiles, on account of its not being lawful to heal a Gentile.”354

That the Ebionites perverted the words of our Lord to make them support their tenets on distinction of meats is obvious.

In the Clementine Homilies we have thrice repeated a saying of our Lord which we know of from St. Jerome and St. Clement of Alexandria, who speak of it as undoubtedly a genuine saying of Christ, “Be ye good money-changers.”355

This text is used by the author of the Clementines to prove the necessity of distinguishing between the gold and the dross in Holy Scripture. And to this he adds the quotation, “Ye do therefore err, not knowing the true things of the Scriptures; and for this reason ye are ignorant also of the power of God.”356

The following are some more fragments from the Clementine Homilies:

“He said, I am he of whom Moses prophesied, saying, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise unto you of your brethren, like unto me: him hear ye in all things; and whosoever will not hear the prophet shall die.”357 This saying of Moses is quoted by both St. Peter and St. Stephen in their addresses, as recorded in the Acts. It is probable, therefore, that our Lord had claimed this prophecy to have been spoken of him. But St. Luke had never heard that he had done so, as he makes no allusion to it in his Gospel or in the speeches he puts in the mouths of Peter and Stephen in the Acts.

“It is thine, O man, said he, to prove my words, as silver and money are proved by the exchangers.”358

“Give none occasion to the evil one.”359

Twice repeated we have the text, “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”360

In St. Matthew's Gospel (iv. 10) it runs, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

In the Clementines: “He alleged that it was right to present to him who strikes you on one cheek the other also, and to give to him who takes away your cloak your hood also, and to go two miles with him who compels you to go one.”361 This differs from the account in St. Matthew, by using for the word χιτῶνα, “tunic,” of the Canonical Gospel, the word μαφόριον, “hood.”

There are other passages identical with, or almost identical with, the received text in St. Matthew's Gospel, which it is not necessary to enter upon separately.

They are: Matt. v. 3, 8, 17, 18, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 41, vi. 8, 13, vii. 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 21, viii. 11, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, ix. 13, x. 28, 34, xi. 25, 27, 28, xii. 7, 26, 34, 42, xiii. 17, 39, xv. 13, xvi. 13, 18, xix. 8, 17, xxii. 2, 32, xxiii. 25, xxiv. 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, xxv. 41. In all, some fifty-five verses, almost and often quite the same as in St. Matthew's Gospel.

There is just one text supposed to be taken from St. Mark's Gospel, four from St. Luke's, and two from St. John's. But I do not think we are justified in concluding that these quotations are taken from the three last-named Canonical Gospels. That they are not taken from St. Luke we may be almost certain, for that Gospel was not received by the Judaizing Christians. When we examine the passages, the probability of their being quotations from the Canonical Gospels disappears.

We find, “He, the true Prophet, said, I am the gate of life; he that entereth through me entereth into life.”362 The words in St. John's Gospel are, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.”363 The idea is the same, but the mode of expression is different.

“Again he said, My sheep hear my voice.”364

The quotation from St. Mark is too brief for us to be able to form any well-founded opinion upon it. It is this: “But to those who were misled to imagine many gods, as the Scriptures say, he said, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God is one Lord.”365

No prejudice would exist among the Ebionites against the Gospel of St. Mark, but the Christology of the Johannine Gospel, its doctrine of the Logos, would not accord with their low views of Christ. The Ebionites who denied the Godhead of Jesus could hardly acknowledge as canonical a Gospel which contained the words, “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

1Homil. ix. 27.

Οὔτε οὗτος τι ἥμαρτεν, οὗτε οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ φανερωθῇ ἡ δύναμις τοῦ Θεοῦ τῆς ἀγνοίας ἰωμένη τὰ ἁμαρτήματα.

John. ix. 3.

Οὔτε οὗτος ἥμαρτεν, οὗτε οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα φανερωθῇ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ.

The resemblance is striking. Nevertheless I do not think we have a right to conclude that this passage in the Clementine Homilies is necessarily a citation from St. John.

The text is quoted in connection with the peculiar Ebionite doctrine of seasons and days already alluded to. When our Lord says that he heals the sins of ignorance, he is made in the Clementine Gospel to assert that the blindness of the man was the result of disregard by his parents of the new moons and sabbaths, not wilfully, but through ignorance. “The afflictions you mentioned,” says St. Peter in connection with this quotation, “are the result of ignorance, but assuredly not of wickedness. Give me the man who sins not, and I will show you the man who suffers not.”

But though this is the interpretation put on the words of our Lord by the Clementine Ebionite, it by no means flows naturally from them; it is rather wrung out of them.

The words, I think, mean that the blindness of the man is symbolical; its mystical meaning is ignorance. Our Lord by opening the eyes of the blind exhibits himself as the spiritual enlightener of mankind. He is come to unclose men's eyes to the true light that he sheds abroad in the world.

In St. John's Gospel, after having declared that blindness was not the punishment of sin in the man or his parents, our Lord continues, “I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Put this last declaration in connection with the saying, “I am come to heal the sins of ignorance,” and the connection of ideas is at once apparent. The blindness of the man is symbolical of the ignorance of the world. “I am the light of the world, and I have come to dispel the darkness of the ignorance of the world.” And so saying, “he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.”

A few important words in Christ's teaching had escaped the memory of St. John. But they had been noted down by some other apostle, and the recollections of the latter were embodied in the Gospel in use among the Ebionites.

The texts resembling passages in St. Luke are four, but all of them are found in St. Matthew's Gospel as well.

“Blessed is that man whom his Lord shall appoint to the ministry of his fellow-servants.”366

“The Queen of the South shall rise up with this generation, and shall condemn it; because she came from the extremities of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, a greater than Solomon is here, and ye do not believe him.

“The men of Nineveh shall rise up with this generation and shall condemn it, for they heard and repented at the preaching of Jonas: and behold, a greater is here, and no one believes.”367

The compiler of St. Matthew's Gospel had this striking passage in an imperfect condition. St. Luke had it with both its members. So had also the compiler of the Clementine Gospel. The wording is not exactly identical with that in St. Luke, but the difference is not material, “Ye do not believe him,” “And no one believes,” exist in the Ebionite, not in the Canonical text.

“For without the will of God, not even a sparrow can fall into a gin. Thus even the hairs of the righteous are numbered by God.”368

III. The Gospel Of St. Peter

Serapion, Bishop of Antioch, in 190, on entering his see, learned that there was a Gospel attributed to St. Peter read in the sacred services of the church of Rhosus, in Cilicia. Taking it for granted, as he says, that all in his diocese held the same faith, without perusing this Gospel, he sanctioned its use, saying, “If this be the only thing that creates difference among you, let it be read.”

But he was speedily made aware that this Gospel was not orthodox in its tendency. It favoured the opinions of the Docetae. It was whispered that if it had an apostolic parentage, it had heretical sponsors. Serapion thereupon borrowed the Gospel, read it, and found it was even as had been reported. “Peter,” said he, “we receive with the other apostles as Christ himself,” but this Gospel was, if not apocryphal as to its facts, at all events heretical as to its teaching.

Thereupon Serapion, regretting his precipitation in sanctioning the use of the Gospel, wrote a book upon it, “in refutation of its false assertions.”369

This book unfortunately has been lost, so that we are not able to learn much more about the Gospel. What was its origin? Was it a forgery from beginning to end? This is by no means probable.

The Gospel of St. Mark, as we have seen, was due to St. Peter, and by some went by the name of the Gospel of St. Peter. It was a Gospel greatly affected by the Docetae and Elkesaites. “Those who distinguish Jesus from Christ, and who say that Christ was impassible, but that Jesus endured the sufferings of his passion, prefer the Gospel of Mark,” says Irenaeus.370

It was likely that they should prefer it, for it began at the baptism, and this event it stated, or was thought to state, was the beginning of the Gospel; to Docetic minds an admission, an assertion rather, that all that preceded was of no importance; Jesus was but a man as are other men, till the plenitude of the Spirit descended on him. The early history might be matter of curiosity, but not of edification.

That matter is evil is a doctrine which in the East has proved the fertile mother of heresies. Those infected with this idea – and it is an idea, like Predestinarianism, which, when once accepted and assimilated, pervades the whole tissue of belief and determines its form and complexion – could not acknowledge frankly and with conviction the dogma of the Incarnation. That God should have part with matter, was as opposed to their notions as a concord of light with darkness. Carried by the current setting strongly that way, they found themselves landed in Christianity. They set to work at once to mould Christianity in accordance with their theory of the inherent evil in matter. Christ, an emanation from the Pleroma, the highest, purest wave that swept from the inexhaustible fountain of Deity, might overshadow, but could not coalesce with, the human Jesus. The nativity and the death of our Lord were repugnant to their consciences. They evaded these facts by considering that he was born and died as man, but that the bright overshadowing cloud of the Divinity, of the Christ, reposed on him for a brief period only; it descended at the baptism, it withdrew before the passion.