gnorance and not from any wicked action.' This is
perfectly compatible with every word of the Johannean narrative.
The concluding clause of the quotation is merely a paraphrase of
the original (no part of the quotation professes to be exact),
bringing out a little more prominently the special point of the
argument. There is ample room for this. The predetermined object
of the miracle, says St. John, was to display the works of God,
and the Clementine writer specifies the particular work of God
displayed--the mercy which heals the evil consequences of
ignorance. If there is anything here at all inconsistent with the
Gospel it would be interesting to know (and we are not told) what
was the kind of original that the author of the Homily really had
before him.

A further discussion of this passage I should hardly suppose to be
necessary. Nothing could be more wanton than to assign this
passage to an imaginary Gospel merely on the ground alleged. The
hypothesis was less violent in regard to the Synoptic Gospels,
which clearly contain a large amount of common matter that might
also have found its way into other hands. We have evidence of the
existence of other Gospels presenting a certain amount of affinity
to the first Gospel, but the fourth is stamped with an idiosyncracy
which makes it unique in its kind. If there is to be this freedom
in inventing unknown documents, reproducing almost verbatim the
features of known ones, sober criticism is at an end.

That the Clementine Homilies imply the use of the fourth Gospel
may be considered to be, not indeed certain in a strict sense of
the word, but as probable as most human affairs can be. The real
element or doubt is in regard to their date, and their evidence
must be taken subject to this uncertainty.

* * * * *

It is perhaps hardly worth while to delay over the Epistle to
Diognetus: not that I do not believe the instances alleged by
Tischendorf and Dr. Westcott [Endnote 295:1] to be in themselves
sound, but because there exists too little evidence to determine
the date of the Epistle, and because it may be doubted whether the
argument for the use of the fourth Gospel in the Epistle can be
expressed strongly in an objective form. The allusions in question
are not direct quotations, but are rather reminiscences of
language. The author of 'Supernatural Religion' has treated them
as if they were the former [Endnote 296:1]; he has enquired int