Before passing on, we may, in the briefest way possible, refer to one or
two other passages, with the view of further illustrating the character
of the quotations in this Epistle. There are many passages cited which
are not found in the Old Testament, and others which have no parallels
in the New. At the beginning of the very chapter in which the words
which we have just been considering occur, there is the following
quotation: "It-is written: Cleave to the holy, for they who cleave
to them shall be made holy,"(1) the source of which is unknown. In a
previous chapter the writer says: "And our Apostles knew, through our
Lord Jesus Christ, that there will be contention regarding the name,
[--Greek--], office, dignity?) of the episcopate."(2) What was the writers
authority for this statement? We find Justin Martyr quoting, as an
express prediction of Jesus: "There shall be schisms and heresies,"(3)
which is not contained in our gospels, but evidently derived from an
uncanonical source,(4) a fact rendered more apparent by the occurrence
of a similar passage in the Clementine Homilies, still more closely
bearing upon our Epistle: "For there shall be, as the Lord said,
false apostles, false prophets, heresies, desires for supremacy."(5)
Hegesippus also speaks in a similar way: "From these came the
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false Christs, false prophets, false apostles who divided the unity of
the Church."(l) As Hegesippus, and in all probability Justin Martyr, and
the author of the Clementines made use of the Gospel according to the
Hebrews, or to Peter, it is most probable that these Gospels contained
passages to which the words of the Epistle may refer.(2) It may be well
to point out that the author also cites a passage from the Fourth Book
of Ezra, ii. 16:(3) "And I shall remember the good day, and I shall
raise you from your tombs."(4) Ezra reads: "Et resuscitabo mor-tuos de
locis suis et de monumentis educam illos," &c. The first part of the
quotation in the Epistle, of which we have only given the latter clause
above, is taken from Isaiah xxvi. 20, but there can be no doubt that the
above is from this apocryphal book,(5) which, as we shall see, was much
used in the early Church.
2.
We now turn to the so-called "Epistle of Barnabas," another interesting
relic of the early Church, many points in whose history have
considerable analogy with that of the Epistle of pseudo-Clement. The
letter itself bears no author's name, is not dated from any place, and
is not addressed to any special community. Towards the
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