No great weight, though perhaps some fractional quantity, can be ascribed to the statement that Jesus healed those who were maimed from their birth ([Greek:  tous ek genetaes paerous] [Endnote 280:2]).  The word [Greek:  paeros] is used specially for the blind, and the fourth Evangelist is the only one who mentions the healing of congenital infirmity, which he does under this same phrase [Greek:  ek genetaes], and that of a case of blindness (John ix. 1).  The possibility urged in ‘Supernatural Religion,’ that Justin may be merely drawing from tradition, may detract from the force of this but cannot altogether remove it, especially as we have no other trace of a tradition containing this particular.

Tischendorf [Endnote 280:3] lays stress on a somewhat remarkable phenomenon in connection with the quotation of Zech. xvi. 10, ‘They shall look on him whom they pierced.’  Justin gives the text of this in precisely the same form as St. John, and with the same variation from the Septuagint, [Greek:  opsontai eis hon exekentaesan] for [Greek:  epiblepsontai pros me anth hon katorchaesanto]—­a variation which is also found in Rev. i. 7.  Those who believe that the Apocalypse had the same author as the Gospel, naturally see in this a confirmation of their view, and it would seem to follow that Justin had had either one or both writings before him.  But the assumption of an identity of authorship between the Apocalypse and the Gospel, though I believe less unreasonable than is generally supposed, still is too much disputed to build anything upon in argument.  We must not ignore the other theory, that all three writers had before them and may have used independently a divergent text of the Septuagint.  Some countenance is given to this by the fact that ten MSS. of the Septuagint present the same reading [Endnote 281:1].  There can be little doubt however that it was in its origin a Christian correction, which had the double advantage of at once bringing the Greek into closer conformity to the Hebrew, and of also furnishing support to the Christian application of the prophecy.  Whether this correction was made before either the Apocalypse or the Gospel were written, or whether it appeared in these works for the first time and from them was copied into other Christian writings, must remain an open question.

The saying in Apol. i. 63, ’so that they are rightly convicted both by the prophetic Spirit and by Christ Himself, that they knew neither the Father nor the Son’ ([Greek:  oute ton patera oute ton uion egnosan]), certainly presents a close resemblance to John xvi. 3, [Greek:  ouk egnosan ton patera oude eme].  But a study of the context seems to make it clear that the only passage consciously present to Justin’s mind was Matt. xi. 27.  Dr. Keim thinks that St. John supplied him with a commentary oh the Matthaean text; but the coincidence may be after all accidental.

But the most important isolated case of literary parallelism is the well-known passage in Apol. i. 61 [Endnote 281:2].