bas has used the precise word
[Greek: klaetoi] just before; indeed it is the very point on which
his argument turns, 'because we are called do not let us therefore
rest idly upon our oars; Israel was called to great privileges,
yet they were abandoned by God as we see them; let us therefore
also take heed, for, as it is written, many are called but few
chosen.' I confess I find it difficult to conceive anything more
relevant, and equally so to see any special relevancy, in the
vague general statement 'Many were created but few shall be
saved.'

But even if it were not so, if it were really a question between
similarity of context on the one hand and identity of language on
the other, there ought to be no hesitation in declaring that to be
the original of the quotation in which the language was identical
though the context might be somewhat different. Any one who has
studied patristic quotations will know that context counts for
very little indeed. What could be more to all appearance remote
from the context than the quotation in Heb. i. 7, 'Who maketh his
angels spirits and his ministers a flaming fire'? where the
original is certainly referring to the powers of nature, and means
'who maketh the winds his messengers and a flame of fire his
minister;' with the very same sounds we have a complete inversion
of the sense. This is one of the most frequent phenomena, as our
author cannot but know [Endnote 73:1].

Hilgenfeld, in his edition of the Epistle of Barnabas, repels
somewhat testily the imputation of Tischendorf, who criticises him
as if he supposed that the saying in St. Matthew was not directly
referred to [Endnote 73:2]. This Hilgenfeld denies to be the case.
In regard to the use of the word [Greek: gegraptai] introducing
the quotation, the same writer urges reasonably enough that it
cannot surprise us at a time when we learn from Justin Martyr that
the Gospels were read regularly at public worship; it ought not
however to be pressed too far as involving a claim to special
divine inspiration, as the same word is used in the Epistle in
regard to the apocryphal book of Enoch, and it is clear also from
Justin that the Canon of the Gospels was not yet formed but only
forming.

The clause, 'Give to every one that asketh of thee' [Greek: panti
to aitounti se didou], though admitted into the text of c. xix by
Hilgenfeld and Weizsaecker, is wanting in the Sinaitic MS., and the
comparison with Luke vi. 30 or Matt. v.