that it is compiled from them and not derived, as it
stands, from another source. As an illustration, let us for a moment
suppose the 'Gospel according to Luke' to have been lost, like the
'Gospel according to the Hebrews' and so many others. In the works
of one of the Fathers we discover the following quotation from an
unnamed evangelical work: 'And he said unto them ([Greek: elegen de
pros autous]): 'The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are
few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he would send
forth labourers into his harvest. Go your ways ([Greek: hupagete]):
behold, I send you forth as lambs ([Greek: arnas]) in the midst of
wolves.' Following the system adopted in regard to Justin and
others, apologetic critics would of course maintain that this was a
compilation from memory of passages quoted from our first
Gospel--that is to say, Matt ix, 37: 'Then saith he unto his
disciples ([Greek: tote legei tois mathetais autou]), The harvest,'
&c.; and Matt. x. 16: 'Behold, I ([Greek: ego]) send you forth as
sheep' ([Greek: probata]) in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore,'
&c., which, with the differences which we have indicated, agree. It
would probably be in vain to argue that the quotation indicated a
continuous order, and the variations combined to confirm the
probability of a different source, and still more so to point out
that, although parts of the quotation, separated from their context,
might, to a certain extent, correspond with scattered verses in the
first Gospel, such a circumstance was no proof that the quotation
was taken from that and from no other Gospel. The passage, however,
is a literal quotation from Luke x. 2-3, which, as we have assumed,
had been lost.

"Again, still supposing the third Gospel no longer extant, we might
find the following quotation in a work of the Fathers: 'Take heed to
yourselves ([Greek: eautois]) of the leaven of the Pharisees, which
is hypocrisy ([Greek: hetis estin hupocrisis]). For there is
nothing covered up ([Greek: sunkekalummenon]) which shall not be
revealed, and hid, which shall not be known.' It would, of course,
be affirmed that this was evidently a combination of two verses of
our first Gospel quoted almost literally, with merely a few very
immaterial slips of memory in the parts we note, and the explanatory