Another disturbing influence, which will affect especially the quotations in the Gospels, is the possibility, perhaps even probability, that many of these are made, not directly from either Hebrew or LXX, but from or through Targums.  This would seem to be the case especially with the remarkable applications of prophecy in St. Matthew.  It must be admitted as possible that the Evangelist has followed some Jewish interpretation that seemed to bear a Christian construction.  The quotation in Matt. ii. 6, with its curious insertion of the negative ([Greek:  oudamos elachistae] for [Greek:  oligostos]), reappears identically in Justin (Dial. c. 78).  We shall probably have to touch upon this quotation when we come to consider Justin’s relations to the canonical Gospels.  It certainly seems upon the face of it the more probable supposition that he has here been influenced by the form of the text in St. Matthew, but he may be quoting from a Targum or from a peculiar text.

Any induction, then, in regard to the quotations from the LXX version will have to be used with caution and reserve.  And yet I think it will be well to make such an induction roughly, especially in regard to the Apostolic Fathers whose writings we are to examine.

* * * * *

The quotations from the Old Testament in the New have, as it is well known, been made the subject of a volume by Mr. McCalman Turpie [Endnote 20:1], which, though perhaps not quite reaching a high level of scholarship, has yet evidently been put together with much care and pains, and will be sufficient for our purpose.  The summary result of Mr. Turpie’s investigation is this.  Out of two hundred and seventy-five in all which may be considered to be quotations from the Old Testament, fifty-three agree literally both with the LXX and the Hebrew, ten with the Hebrew and not with the LXX, and thirty-seven with the LXX and not with the Hebrew, making in all just a hundred that are in literal (or nearly literal, for slight variations of order are not taken into account) agreement with some still extant authority.  On the other hand, seventy-six passages differ both from the Hebrew and LXX where the two are together, ninety-nine differ from them where they diverge, and besides these, three, though introduced with marks of quotation, have no assignable original in the Old Testament at all.  Leaving them for the present out of the question, we have a hundred instances of agreement against a hundred and seventy-five of difference; or, in other words, the proportion of difference to agreement is as seven to four.

This however must be taken with the caution given above; that is to say, it must not at once be inferred that because the quotation differs from extant authority therefore it necessarily differs from all non-extant authority as well.  It should be added that the standard of agreement adopted by Mr. Turpie is somewhat higher than would be naturally held to be sufficient to refer a passage to a given source.  His lists must therefore be used with these limitations.