member that our
Lord and Teacher, as commanding us, said: Keep the mysteries for me, and
the sons of my house" ("Hom." xix. chap. 20). "And Peter said: If,
therefore, of the Scriptures some are true and some are false, our
Teacher rightly said: 'Be ye good money-changers,' as in the Scriptures
there are some true sayings and some spurious" ("Hom." ii. chap. 51; see
also iii. chap. 50. and xviii. chap. 20). This saying of Christ is found
in many of the Fathers. "To those who think that God tempts, as the
Scriptures say he [Jesus] said: 'The tempter is the wicked one, who also
tempted himself'" ("Hom." iii. chap. 55).

Of the Clementine "Homilies" Mr. Sanday remarks, "several apocryphal
sayings, and some apocryphal details, are added. Thus the Clementine
writer calls John a 'Hemerobaptist,' _i.e.,_ member of a sect which
practised daily baptism. He talks about a rumour which became current in
the reign of Tiberius, about the 'vernal equinox,' that at the same time
a King should arise in Judaea who should work miracles, making the blind
to see, the lame to walk, healing every disease, including leprosy, and
raising the dead; in the incident of the Canaanite woman (whom, with
Mark, he calls a Syrophoenician) he adds her name, 'Justa,' and that of
her daughter 'Bernice.' He also limits the ministry of our Lord to one
year" ("Gospels in the Second Century," pp. 167, 168). But it is
needless to multiply such passages; three or four would be enough to
prove our position: whence were they drawn, if not from records
differing from the Gospels now received? We, therefore, conclude that in
the numerous Evangelical passages quoted by the Fathers, which are not
in the Canonical Gospels, we find _evidence that the earlier records
were not the Gospels now esteemed Canonical._

I. _That the books themselves show marks of their later origin._ We
should draw this conclusion from phrases scattered throughout the
Gospels, which show that the writers were ignorant of local customs,
habits, and laws, and therefore could not have been Jews contemporary
with Jesus at the date when he is alleged to have lived. We find a clear
instance of this ignorance in the mention made by Luke of the census
which is supposed to have brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem
immediately before the birth of Jesus. If Jesus was born at the time
alleged "the Roman census in question must have been made either under
Herod the Great, or at the commencement of the reign