| | 9, 5, 3. | Hom. 17. | |18.  Num. 12.6. |}paraphrastic | | Ex. 33.11. |} combination.  Hom. 18. | |17.  Is. 40.26,27. |free quotation. | | Deut. 30.13. |ditto. 18.  Is. 1.3. | | | Is. 1.4. | | |

The example of the Clementine Homilies shows conspicuously the extremely deceptive character of the argument from silence.  All the quotations from the Old Testament found in them are taken from five Homilies (iii, xi, xvi, xvii, xviii) out of nineteen, although the Homilies are lengthy compositions, filling, with the translation and various readings, four hundred and fourteen large octavo pages of Dressel’s edition [Endnote 38:1].  Of the whole number of quotations all but seven are taken from two Homilies, iii and xvi.  If Hom. xvi and Hom. xviii had been lost, there would have been no evidence that the author was acquainted with any book of the Old Testament besides the Pentateuch; and, if the five Homilies had been lost, there would have been nothing to show that he was acquainted with the Old Testament at all.  Yet the loss of the two Homilies would have left a volume of three hundred and seventy-seven pages, and that of the five a volume of three hundred and fifteen pages.  In other words, it is possible to read three hundred and fifteen pages of the Homilies with five breaks and come to no quotation from the Old Testament at all, or three hundred and fifteen pages with only two breaks and come to none outside the Pentateuch.  But the reduced volume that we have supposed, containing the fourteen Homilies, would probably exceed in bulk the whole of the extant Christian literature of the second century up to the time of Irenaeus, with the single exception of the works of Justin; it will therefore be seen how precarious must needs be any inference from the silence, not of all these writings, but merely of a portion of them.

For the rest, the quotations in the Homilies may be said to observe a fair standard of exactness, one apparently higher than that in the genuine Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians; at the same time it should be remembered that the quotations in the Homilies are much shorter, only two reaching a length of three verses, while the longest quotations in the Epistle are precisely those that are most exact.  The most striking instance of accuracy of quotation is perhaps Gen. xv. 13-16 in Hom. iii. 43.  On the other hand, there is marked freedom in the quotations from Deut. iv. 34, x. 17, xiii. 1-3, xiii. 6. xxx. 15, Is. xl. 26, 27, and the combined passage, Num. xii. 6 and Ex. xxiii. 11.  There are several repetitions, but these occur too near to each other to permit of any inference.