of comparison we have broken up this quotation into these phrases, it is quite continuous in the Epistle. It must be evident to any one who carefully examines the parallel passages, that "the words of the Lord Jesus" in the Epistle cannot have been derived from our Gospels. Not only is there no similar consecutive discourse in them, but the scattered phrases which are pointed out as presenting superficial similarity with the quotation are markedly different both in thought and language. In it, as in the "beatitudes" of the "Sermon on the Mount" in the first Gospel, the construction is peculiar and continuous: "Do this.... in order that [--Greek--]"; or, "As [--Greek--]... so [--Greek--]" The theor of a combination of passages from memory, which is usually advanced to explain such quotations, cannot serve here, for thoughts and expressions occur in the passage in the Epistle which have no parallel at all in our Gospels, and such dismembered phrases as can be collected from our first and third Synoptics, for comparison with it, follow the course of the quotation in the ensuing order: Matt. v. 7, vi. 14, part of vii. 12, phrase without parallel, first part of vii. 2, phrase without parallel, last part of vii. 2; or, Luke vi. 36, last phrase of vi. 37, vi. 31, first phrase of vi. 38, first phrase of vi. 37, phrase without parallel, last phrase of vi. 38. The only question with regard to this passage, therefore, is whether the writer quotes from an unknown written source or from tradition. He certainly merely professes to repeat "words of the Lord Jesus," and does not definitely indicate a written record, but it is much more probable, from the context, that he quotes from a gospel now no longer extant than that he derives this teaching from oral tradition. He introduces the quotation {227}