Some of these points are not of any great importance.  The reference to the Acts of Pilate should in all probability be taken along with the parallel reference to the census of Cyrenius, in which Justin asserts that the birth of Jesus would be found registered.  Both appear to be based, not upon any actual document that Justin had seen, but upon the bold assumption that the official documents must contain a record of facts which he knew from other sources [Endnote 107:1].  In regard to Cyrenius he evidently has the Lucan version in his mind, though he seems to have confused this with his knowledge that Cyrenius was the first to exercise the Roman sovereignty in Judaea, which was matter of history.  Justin seems to be mistaken in regarding Cyrenius as ‘procurator’ [Greek:  epitropou] of Judaea.  He instituted the census not in this capacity, but as proconsul of Syria.  The first procurator of Judaea was Coponius.  Some of Justin’s peculiarities may quite fairly be explained as unintentional.  General statements without the due qualifications, such as those in regard to the massacre of the children and the conduct of the disciples in Gethsemane, are met with frequently enough to this day, and in works of a more professedly critical character than Justin’s.  The description of the carpenter’s trade and of the crowd at the Crucifixion may be merely rhetorical amplifications in the one case of the general Synoptic statement, in the other of the special statement in St. Mark.  A certain fulness of style is characteristic of Justin.  That he attributes the genealogy to Mary may be a natural instance of reflection; the inconsistency in the Synoptic Gospels would not be at first perceived, and the simplest way of removing it would be that which Justin has adopted.  It should be noticed however that he too distinctly says that Joseph was of the tribe of Judah (Dial. 78) and that his family came from Bethlehem, which looks very much like an unobliterated trace of the same inconsistency.  It is also noticeable that in the narrative of the Baptism one of the best MSS. of the Old Latin (a, Codex Vercellensis) has, in the form of an addition to Matt. iii. 15, ’et cum baptizaretur lumen ingens circumfulsit de aqua ita ut timerent omnes qui advenerant,’ and there is a very similar addition in g1 (Codex San-Germanensis).  Again, in Luke iii. 22 the reading [Greek:  ego saemeron gegennaeka se] for [Greek:  en soi eudokaesa] is shared with Justin by the most important Graeco-Latin MS. D (Codex Bezae), and a, b, c, ff, l of the Old Version; Augustine expressly states that the reading was found ’in several respectable copies (aliquibus fide dignis exemplaribus), though not in the older Greek Codices.’

There will then remain the specifying of Arabia as the home of the Magi, the phrase [Greek:  kathezomenos] used of John on the banks of the Jordan, the two unparallelled sentences, and the cave of the Nativity.  Of these the phrase [Greek:  kathezomenos], which occurs in three places, Dial. 49, 51, 88, but always in Justin’s own narrative and not in quotation, may be an accidental recurrence; and it is not impossible that the other items may be derived from an unwritten tradition.