to add that no source is indicated for the reminiscence. Ewald assigns
this part of our first Gospel originally to the Spruchsammlung,(1) and
even apart from the variations presented in the Epistle there is nothing
to warrant exclusive selection of our first Gospel as the source of the
saying. The remaining passages we subjoin in parallel columns.
None of these passages are quotations, and they generally present such
marked linguistic variations from the parallel
{270}
passages in our first Gospel, that there is not the slightest ground
for specially referring them to it. The last words cited are introduced
without any appropriate context. In no case are the expressions
indicated as quotations from, or references to, any particular source.
They may either be traditional, or reminiscences of some of the numerous
Gospels current in the early Church, such as the Gospel according to the
Hebrews. That the writer made use of one of these cannot be doubted. In
the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, c. iii., there occurs a quotation from an
apocryphal Gospel to which we have already, in passing, referred: "For I
know that also after his resurrection he was in the flesh, and I believe
he is so now. And when he came to those who were with Peter, he said to
them: Lay hold, handle me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit,
[--Greek--]. And immediately they touched him and believed, being convinced
by his flesh and spirit." Eusebius, who quotes this passage, says that
he does not know whence it is taken.(2) Origen, however, quotes it from
a work well known in the early Church, called "The Doctrine of Peter,"
[--Greek--];(3) and Jerome found it in the "Gospel according to the
Hebrews," in use among the Nazarenes,(4) which he translated, as we
shall hereafter sec. It was, no doubt, in both of those works. The
narrative, Luke xxiv. 39 f., being neglected, and an apocryphal Gospel
used here, the inevitable inference is clear and very suggestive. As it
is certain that this quotation was taken from a source
{271}
different from our Gospels, there is reason to suppose that the other
passages which we have cited are reminiscences of the same work. The
passage on the three mysteries in the Epistle to the Ephesians, c. xix.,
is evidently another quotation from an uncanonical source.(1)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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