exactly as we have
them. Tatian's harmony, like so many others of the early evangelical
histories, was silent on the miraculous birth, and commenced only with
the public ministration. The text was in other places different, so much
so that Theodoret accuses Tatian of having mutilated the Gospels; but of
this Theodoret had probably no better means of judging than we have. The
'Diatessaron' has been long lost, and the name is the only clue to its
composition.

Of far more importance than either Justin or Tatian are such writings as
remain of the immediate successors of the apostles--Barnabas, Clement of
Rome, Polycarp, and Ignatius: it is asserted confidently that in these
there are quotations from the Gospels so exact that they cannot be
mistaken.

We will examine them one by one.

In an epistle of Barnabas there is one passage--it is the only one of
the kind to be found in him--agreeing word for word with the Synoptical
Gospels, 'I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.'
It is one of the many passages in which the Greek of the three
evangelists is exactly the same; it was to be found also in Justin's
'Memoirs;' and there can be no doubt that Barnabas either knew those
Gospels or else the common source--if common source there was--from
which the evangelists borrowed. More than this such a quotation does not
enable us to say; and till some satisfactory explanation has been
offered of the agreement between the evangelists, the argument can
advance no further. On the other hand, Barnabas like St. Paul had other
sources from which he drew his knowledge of our Lord's words. He too
ascribes words to Him which are not recorded by the evangelists, [Greek:
houto phesin Iesous; hoi thelontes me idein kai hapsasthai mou tes
basileias opheilousi thlibentes kai pathontes labein me]. The thought is
everywhere in the Gospels, the words nowhere, nor anything like them.

Both Ignatius and Polycarp appear to quote the Gospels, yet with them
also there is the same uncertainty; while Ignatius quotes as genuine an
expression which, so far as we know, was peculiar to a translation of
the Gospel of the Ebionites--'Handle me and see, for I am not a spirit
without body,' [Greek: hoti ouk eimi daimonion asomaton].

Clement's quotations are still more free, for Clement nowhere quotes the
text of the evangelists exactly as it at present stands; often he
approaches it extremely close; at times the agreement is rather in
mean