r, 'Blessed are the meek' and 'Blessed
are they that mourn,' are ranged D, 33, Vulg., a, c, f'1, g'1, h,
k, l, Syr. Crt., Clem., Orig., Eus., Bas. (?), Hil. The balance is
probably on the side of the received reading, as the opposing
authorities are mostly Western, but they too make a formidable
array. The confusion in the text of St. Luke as to the early
clauses of the Lord's Prayer is well known. But if such things are
done in the green tree, if we find these variations in MSS. which
profess to be exact transcripts of the same original copy, how
much more may we expect to find them enter into mere quotations
that are often evidently made from memory, and for the sake of the
sense, not the words. In this instance however the verbal
resemblance is very close. As I have frequently said, to speak of
certainties in regard to any isolated passage that does not
present exceptional phenomena is inadmissible, but I have little
moral doubt that the quotation was really derived from St.
Matthew, and there is quite a fair probability that it was made by
Basilides himself.

The Hippolytean quotations, the ascription of which to Basilides
or to his school we have left an open question, will assume a
considerable importance when we come to treat of the external
evidence for the fourth Gospel. Bearing upon the Synoptic Gospels,
we find an allusion to the star of the Magi and an exact verbal
quotation (introduced with [Greek: to eiraemenon]) of Luke i. 35,
[Greek: Pneuma hagion epeleusetai epi se, kai dunamis hupsistou
episkiasei soi]. Both these have been already discussed with
reference to Justin. All the other Gospels in which the star of
the Magi is mentioned belong to a later stage of formation than
St. Matthew. The very parallelism between St. Matthew and St. Luke
shows that both Gospels were composed at a date when various
traditions as to the early portions of the history were current.
No doubt secondary, or rather tertiary, works, like the
Protevangelium of James, came to be composed later; but it is not
begging the question to say that if the allusion is made by
Basilides, it is not likely that at that date he should quote any
other Gospel than St. Matthew, simply because that is the earliest
form in which the story of the Magi has come down to us.

The case is stronger in regard to the quotation from St. Luke. In
Justin's account of the Annunciation to Mary there was a
coincidence with the Protevangelium and a variation