context which forcibly recalls the passage of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which has just been quoted, and apparent allusions to it are found in the Sibylline Books and early Christian literature.(1) Credner has pointed out that the marked use which was made of fire or lights at Baptism by the Church, during early times, probably rose out of this tradition regarding the fire which appeared in Jordan at the baptism of Jesus.(2) The peculiar form of words used by the heavenly voice according to Justin and to the Gospel according to the Hebrews was also known to several of the Fathers.(3) Augustine mentions that some MSS. in his time contained that reading in Luke iii. 22, although without the confirmation of more ancient Greek codices.(4) It is still extant in the Codex Bezæ (D). The Itala version adds to Matthew iii. 15: "and when he was baptized a great light shone round from the water, so that all who had come were afraid" (et cum baptizaretur, lumen ingens circumfulsit de aqua, ita ut timerent omnes qui advenerant); and again at Luke iii. 22 it gives the words of the voice in a form agreeing at least in sense with those which Justin found in his Memoirs of the Apostles. {323} These circumstances point with certainty to an earlier original corresponding with Justin, in all probability the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and to the subsequent gradual elimination of the passage from the Gospels finally adopted by the Church for dogmatic reasons, as various sects based on the words doctrines which were at variance with the ever-enlarging belief of the majority.(1) Then Justin states that the men of his time asserted that the miracles of Jesus were performed by magical art [--Greek--], "for they ventured to call him a magician and deceiver of the people."(2) This cannot be accepted as a mere version of the charge that Jesus cast out demons by Beelzebub, but must have been found by Justin in his Memoirs.(3) In the Gospel of Nicodemus or Acta Pilati, the Jews accuse Jesus before Pilate of being a magician,(4) coupled with the assertion that he casts out demons through Beelzebub the prince of the demons; and again they simply say: "Did we not tell thee that he is a magician?"(5) We shall presently see that Justin actually refers to certain acts of Pontius Pilate in justification of other assertions regarding the trial of Jesus.(6) In the Clementine Recognitions, moreover, the same charge is made by one of the Scribes, who says that Jesus did not perform his miracles as a prophet, but as a magician.(7) {324} Oelsus makes a similar charge,(1) and Lactantius refers to such an opinion as prevalent among the Jews at the time of Jesus,(2) which we find confirmed by many passages in Talmudic literature.(3) There was indeed a book called "Magia Jesu Christi," of which Jesus himself, it was pretended, was the author.(4)