To this end he reproduces the precepts respecting chastity, respecting love to all, and communicating to the needy—­being kind and merciful—­not caring much for material things—­being patient and truthful—­and above all, being sincere.

He did not reproduce the precepts respecting prayer, simply because immoral men among the heathen worshipped their gods as devoutly as moral men did.  He did not reproduce the Lord’s prayer, because he would not consider that it belonged to the heathen, or the promises that God would hear prayer, simply because these would belong to Christians only.

Again, he evidently altered and curtailed what the heathen would not understand, as for instance, in quoting our Lord’s saying respecting “anger,” he quoted it very shortly, because to have quoted at length the gradations of punishment for being “angry without a cause,” for “calling a brother Raca” and “fool,” would have been almost unintelligible to those unacquainted with Jewish customs.

The author of “Supernatural Religion” repudiates the idea that Justin, in any of these quotations, makes use of our present Gospels.  He examines these [so-called] quotations seriatim at considerable length, for the purpose of showing that Justin’s variations from our present Gospels imply another source of information.  He considers (and in this I cannot agree with him, though I shall, for argument’s sake, yield the point) that—­

“The hypothesis that these quotations are from the canonical gospels requires the acceptance of the fact that Justin, with singular care, collected from distant and scattered portions of these gospels a series of passages in close sequence to each other, forming a whole unknown to them, but complete in itself.” ("Supernatural Religion,” vol. i. p. 359)

I say I cannot agree with this, because I think that the extracts I have given have all the signs of a piece of patchwork by no means well put together, but I will assume that he is right in his view.

Here, then, we have, according to his hypothesis, another sermon of Christ’s, which, owing to the “close sequence” of its various passages, and its completeness as a whole, must take its place alongside of the Sermon on the Mount.  Where does it come from?—­

“The simple and natural conclusion, supported by many strong reasons, is that Justin derived his quotations from a Gospel which was different from ours, though naturally by subject and design it must have been related to them.” (Vol. i. p. 384.)

And in page 378 our author traces one of the passages of this “consecutive” discourse through an epistle ascribed to Clement of Rome to the “Gospel according to the Egyptians,” which was in all probability a version of the “Gospel according to the Hebrews.”