ight seem to incline the other way, does appear
to favour the conclusion that Clement used our present Canonical
Gospels.

2.

There is not, so far as I am aware, any reason to complain of the
statement of opinion in 'Supernatural Religion' as to the date of
the so-called Epistle of Barnabas. Arguing then entirely from
authority, we may put the _terminus ad quem_ at about 130
A.D. The only writer who is quoted as placing it later is Dr.
Donaldson, who has perhaps altered his mind in the later edition
of his work, as he now writes: 'Most (critics) have been inclined
to place it not later than the first quarter of the second
century, and all the indications of a date, though very slight,
point to this period' [Endnote 71:1].

The most important issue is raised on a quotation in c. iv, 'Many
are called but few chosen,' in the Greek of the Codex Sinaiticus
[Greek: [prosechomen, maepote, hos gegraptai], polloi klaetoi,
oligoi de eklektoi eurethomen.] This corresponds exactly with
Matt. xxii. 14, [Greek: polloi gar eisin klaetoi, oligoi de
eklektoi]. The passage occurs twice in our present received text
of St. Matthew, but in xx. 16 it is probably an interpolation.
There also occurs in 4 Ezra (2 Esdras) viii. 3 the sentence, 'Many
were created but few shall be saved' [Endnote 71:2]. Our author
spends several pages in the attempt to prove that this is the
original of the quotation in Barnabas and not the saying in St.
Matthew. We have the usual positiveness of statement: 'There can
be no doubt that the sense of the reading in 4 Ezra is exactly
that of the Epistle.' 'It is impossible to imagine a saying more
irrelevant to its context than "Many are called but few chosen" in
Matt. xx. 16,' where it is indeed spurious, though the relevancy
of it might very well be maintained. In Matt. xxii. 14, where the
saying is genuine, 'it is clear that the facts distinctly
contradict the moral that "few are chosen."' When we come to a
passage with a fixed idea it is always easy to get out of it what
we wish to find. As to the relevancy or irrelevancy of the clause
in Matt. xxii. 14 I shall say nothing, because it is in either
case undoubtedly genuine. But it is surely a strange paradox to
maintain that the words 'Many were created but few shall be saved'
are nearer in meaning to 'Many are called but few chosen' than the
repetition of those very words themselves. Our author has
forgotten to notice that Barna