But no such proof exists.  “An accurate examination in detail of his citations,” says Semisch, Life of Justin Martyr, 4. 1, “has led to the result that this title”—­the Memoirs of the Apostles—­“designates the canonical gospels—­a result in no way less certain because again called in question in modern days.”

The agreement of his quotations with our present gospels is of such a character and extent as can be explained only from his use of them.  The variations are mainly due to his habit of quoting loosely from memory.  “Many of these citations,” says Kirchhofer, “agree, word for word, with the gospels; others with the substance, but with alterations and additions of words, with transpositions and omissions; others give the thought only in a general way; others still condense together the contents of several passages and different sayings, in which case the historic quotations are yet more free, and blend together, in part, the accounts of Matthew and Luke.  But some quotations are not found at all in our canonical gospels,” (see immediately below;) “some, on the contrary, occur twice or thrice.”  Quellensammlung, p. 89. note.  Two or three more important variations are, perhaps, due to the readings in the manuscripts employed by Justin, since the later church fathers, who, as we know, employed the canonical gospels, give the same variations.  Finally, Justin gives a few incidents and sayings not recorded in our present gospels.  As he lived so near the apostolic times he may well have received these from tradition; but if in any case he took them from written documents, there is no proof that he ascribed to such documents apostolic authority.  In one passage, he accurately distinguishes between what he gives from tradition or other written sources, and what from the apostolic records.  “When Jesus came,” he says, “to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, as he descended to the water, both was a fire kindled in the Jordan, and as he ascended from the water, the apostles of this very Christ of ours have written that the Holy Spirit as a dove lighted upon him.”  Dial., ch. 88.

It has been doubted whether certain references to the gospel of John can be found in Justin’s writings; but it seems plain that the following is a free quotation from chapter 3:3-5:  “For Christ said, Except ye be born again, ye shall by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven.  But that it is impossible that they who have once been born should enter into the wombs of those who bare them is manifest to all.”  Apol. 1. 61.  To affirm that a passage so peculiar as this was borrowed by both the evangelist John and Justin from a common tradition, is to substitute a very improbable for a very natural explanation.  Besides, Justin uses phraseology peculiar to John, repeatedly calling our Saviour “the Word of God,” and “the Word made flesh;” affirming that he “was in a peculiar sense begotten the only Son of God,” “an only begotten