Of the Clementine “Homilies” Mr. Sanday remarks, “several apocryphal sayings, and some apocryphal details, are added.  Thus the Clementine writer calls John a ‘Hemerobaptist,’ i.e., member of a sect which practised daily baptism.  He talks about a rumour which became current in the reign of Tiberius, about the ‘vernal equinox,’ that at the same time a King should arise in Judaea who should work miracles, making the blind to see, the lame to walk, healing every disease, including leprosy, and raising the dead; in the incident of the Canaanite woman (whom, with Mark, he calls a Syrophoenician) he adds her name, ‘Justa,’ and that of her daughter ‘Bernice.’  He also limits the ministry of our Lord to one year” ("Gospels in the Second Century,” pp. 167, 168).  But it is needless to multiply such passages; three or four would be enough to prove our position:  whence were they drawn, if not from records differing from the Gospels now received?  We, therefore, conclude that in the numerous Evangelical passages quoted by the Fathers, which are not in the Canonical Gospels, we find evidence that the earlier records were not the Gospels now esteemed Canonical.

I. That the books themselves show marks of their later origin. We should draw this conclusion from phrases scattered throughout the Gospels, which show that the writers were ignorant of local customs, habits, and laws, and therefore could not have been Jews contemporary with Jesus at the date when he is alleged to have lived.  We find a clear instance of this ignorance in the mention made by Luke of the census which is supposed to have brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem immediately before the birth of Jesus.  If Jesus was born at the time alleged “the Roman census in question must have been made either under Herod the Great, or at the commencement of the reign of Archelaus.  This is in the highest degree improbable, for in those countries which were not reduced in formam provinciae, but were governed by regibus sociis, the taxes were levied by these princes, who paid a tribute to the Romans; and this was the state of things in Judaea prior to the deposition of Archelaus....  The Evangelist relieves us from a further inquiry into this more or less historical or arbitrary combination by adding that this taxing was first made when Cyrenius (Quirinus) was Governor of Syria [Greek:  haegemoneuontos taes Surias Kuraeniou] for it is an authenticated point that the assessment of Quirinus did not take place either under Herod or early in the reign of Archelaus, the period at which, according to Luke, Jesus was born.  Quirinus was not at that time Governor of Syria, a situation held during the last years of Herod by Lentius Saturninus, and after him by Quintilius Varus; and it was not till long after the death of Herod that Quirinus was appointed Governor of Syria.  That Quirinus undertook a census of Judaea we know certainly from Josephus, who, however, remarks that he was sent to execute this measure when Archelaus’ country was laid to the province of Syria (compare “Ant.,” bk. xvii. ch. 13, sec. 5; bk. xviii. ch. 1, sec. 1; “Wars of the Jews,” bk. ii. ch. 8, sec. 1; and ch. 9, sec. 1) thus, about ten years after the time at which, according to Matthew and Luke, Jesus must have been born” (Strauss’s “Life of Jesus,” vol. i., pp. 202-204).