Turning from these objections and comparing the Clementine quotation first with the text of St. Matthew and then with that of St. Luke, we cannot but be struck with its very close resemblance to the former and with the wide divergence of the latter.  The passage is one where almost every word and syllable might easily and naturally be altered—­as the third Gospel shows that they have been altered—­and yet in the Clementines almost every peculiarity of the Matthaean version has been retained.

Another quotation which shows the delicacy of these verbal relations is that which corresponds to Matt. vi. 32 (= Luke xii. 30):—­

Matt. vi. 32.

[Greek:  Oide gar ho pataer humon ho ouranios, hoti chraezete touton hapanton.]

Clem.  Hom. iii. 55.

[Greek:  [ephae] Oiden gar ho pataer humon ho ouranios hoti chraezete touton hapanton, prin auton axiosaete] (cp.  Matt. vi. 8).

Luke xii. 30.

[Greek:  Humon de ho pataer oiden hoti chraezete touton.]

The natural inference from the exactness of this coincidence with the language of Matthew as compared with Luke, is not neutralised by the paraphrastic addition from Matt. vi. 8, because such additions and combinations, as will have been seen from our table of quotations from the Old Testament, are of frequent occurrence.

The quotation of Matt. v. 45 (= Luke vi. 35) is a good example of the way in which the pseudo-Clement deals with quotations.  The passage is quoted as often as four times, with wide difference and indeed complete confusion of text.  It is impossible to determine what text he really had before him; but through all this confusion there is traceable a leaning to the Matthaean type rather than the Lucan, ([Greek:  [ho] pat[aer ho] en [tois] ouranois ... ton aelion autou anatellei epi agathous kai ponaerous]).  It does, however, appear that he had some such phrase as [Greek:  hueton pherei] or [Greek:  parechei] for [Greek:  brechei], and in one of his quotations he has the [Greek:  ginesthe agathoi] (for [Greek:  chraestoi]) [Greek:  kai oiktirmones] of Justin.  Justin, on the other hand, certainly had [Greek:  brechei].

The, in any case, paraphrastic quotation or quotations which find a parallel in Matt. vii. 13, 14 and Luke xiii. 24 are important as seeming to indicate that, if not taken from our Gospel, they are taken from another in a later stage of formation.  The characteristic Matthaean expressions [Greek:  stenae] and [Greek:  tethlimmenae] are retained, but the distinction between [Greek:  pulae] and [Greek:  hodos] has been lost, and both the epithets are applied indiscriminately to [Greek:  hodos].

In the narrative of the confession of Peter, which belongs to the triple synopsis, and is assigned by Ewald to the ’Collection of Discourses,’ [Endnote 174:1] by Weiss [Endnote 174:2] and Holtzmann [Endnote 175:1] to the original Gospel of St. Mark, the Clementine writer follows Matthew alone in the phrase [Greek:  Su ei ho huios tou zontos Theou].  The synoptic parallels are—­