which appear between the Gospels
themselves. When we compare an extract in Justin with the parallel
passage in St. Matthew, we find often that it differs from St. Matthew
just as St. Matthew differs from St. Luke, or both from St. Mark--great
verbal similarity--many paragraphs agreeing word for word--and then
other paragraphs where there is an alteration of expression, tense,
order, or arrangement.

Again, just as in the midst of the general resemblance between the
Synoptical Gospels, each evangelist has something of his own which is
not to be found in the others, so in these 'Memoirs of the Apostles'
there are facts unknown to either of the evangelists. In the account
extracted by Justin from 'the Memoirs,' of the baptism in the Jordan,
the words heard from heaven are not as St. Matthew gives them--'Thou art
my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'--but the words of the psalm,
'Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee;' a reading which,
singularly enough, was to be found in the Gospel of the Ebionites.

Another curious addition to the same scene is in the words [Greek: kai
pur anephthe en Iordane], 'and a fire was kindled in Jordan.'

Again, Justin Martyr speaks of our Lord having promised 'to clothe us
with garments made ready for us if we keep his commandments'--[Greek:
kai aionion basileian pronoesai]--whatever those words may precisely
mean.

These and other peculiarities in Justin may be explained if we suppose
him to have been quoting from memory. The evangelical text might not as
yet have acquired its verbal sanctity; and as a native of Palestine he
might well have been acquainted with other traditions which lay outside
the written word. The silence as to names, however, remains unexplained;
and as the facts actually stand there is the same kind of proof, and no
more, that Justin Martyr was acquainted with St. Matthew and St. Luke as
there is that one of these evangelists made extracts from the other, or
both from St. Mark. So long as one set of commentators decline to
recognise the truth of this relation between the Gospels, there will be
others who with as much justice will dispute the relation of Justin to
them. He too might have used another Gospel, which, though like them,
was not identical with them.

After Justin Martyr's death, about the year 170, appeared Tatian's
'Diatessaron,' a work which, as its title implies, was a harmony of four
Gospels, and most likely of _the_ four; yet again not