t. xiii. 1-3,
5, 9 are quoted in the order Deut. xiii. 1-3, 9, 5, 3,--and
elsewhere. The composition of a passage from different places in
the same book, or more often from places in different books, such
as would be the case if Clement was following Matthew, frequently
occurs in his quotations from the Old Testament. (3) We have no
positive evidence of the presence of this passage in any non-
extant Gospel. (4) Arguments from the manner of quoting the Old
Testament to the manner of quoting the New must always be to a
certain extent _a fortiori_, for it is undeniable that the
New Testament did not as yet stand upon the same footing of
respect and authority as the Old, and the scarcity of MSS. must
have made it less accessible. In the case of converts from
Judaism, the Old Testament would have been largely committed to
memory in youth, while the knowledge of the New would be only
recently acquired. These considerations seem to favour the
hypothesis that Clement is quoting from our Gospels.

But on the other hand it may be urged, (1) that the parallel
adduced by Dr. Lightfoot, the story of Rahab, is not quite in
point, because it is narrative, and narrative both in Clement and
the other writers of his time is dealt with more freely than
discourse. (2) The passage before us is also of greater length
than is usual in Clement's free quotations. I doubt whether as
long a piece of discourse can be found treated with equal freedom,
unless it is the two doubtful cases in c. viii and c. xxix. (3) It
will not fail to be noticed that the passage as it stands in
Clement has a roundness, a compactness, a balance of style, which
give it an individual and independent appearance. Fusions effected
by an unconscious process of thought are, it is true, sometimes
marked by this completeness; still there is a difficulty in
supposing the terse antitheses of the Clementine version to be
derived from the fuller, but more lax and disconnected, sayings in
our Gospels. (4) It is noticed in 'Supernatural Religion' [Endnote
65:1] that the particular phrase [Greek: chraesteusthe] has at
least a partial parallel in Justin [Greek: ginesthe chraestoi kai
oiktirmones], though it has none in the Canonical Gospels. This
may seem to point to a documentary source no longer extant.

Doubtless light would be thrown upon the question if we only knew
what was the common original of the two Synoptic texts. How do
they come to be so like and yet so different a