ines. The use of
the word [Greek: chorein] in this sense is striking and peculiar:
it has no parallel in the New Testament, and but slight and few
parallels, as it appears from the lexicons and commentators, in
previous literature. The whole phrase is a remarkable one and the
verbal coincidence exact, the words that follow are an easy and
natural abridgment. On the same principles on which it is denied
that this is a quotation from St. Matthew it would be easy to
prove _a priori_ that many of the quotations in Clement of
Alexandria could not be taken from the canonical Gospels which, we
know, _are_ so taken.

The fact that this passage is found among the Synoptics only in
St. Matthew must not count for nothing. The very small number of
additional facts and sayings that we are able to glean from the
writers who, according to 'Supernatural Religion,' have used
apocryphal Gospels so freely, seems to be proof that our present
Gospels were (as we should expect) the fullest and most
comprehensive of their kind. If, then, a passage is found only in
one of them, it is fair to conclude, not positively, but probably,
that it is drawn from some special source of information that was
not widely diffused.

The same remarks hold good respecting another quotation found in
Epiphanius, which also comes under the general head of [Greek:
Basileidianoi], though it is introduced not only by the singular
[Greek: phaesin] but by the definite [Greek: phaesin ho agurtaes].
Here the Basilidian quotation has a parallel also peculiar to St.
Matthew, from the Sermon on the Mount.

_Epiph. Haer_. 72 A.

[Greek: Mae bagaete tous margaritas emprosthen ton choiron, maede
dote to hagion tois kusi.]

_Matt_ vii. 6.

[Greek: Mae dote to hagion tois kusin, maede bagaete tous
margaritas humon emprosthen ton choiron.] The excellent
Alexandrine cursive I, with some others, has [Greek: dote] for
[Greek: dote]

The transposition of clauses, such as we see here, is by no means
an infrequent phenomenon. There is a remarkable instance of it--to
go no further--in the text of the benedictions with which the
Sermon on the Mount begins. In respect to the order of the two
clauses, 'Blessed are they that mourn' and 'Blessed are the meek,'
there is a broad division in the MSS. and other authorities. For
the received order we find [Hebrew: aleph;], B, C, 1, the mass of
uncials and cursives, b, f, Syrr. Pst. and Hcl., Memph., Arm.,
Aeth.; for the reversed orde