[------]; It is evident, therefore, that there are decided variations here, and that the passage of Athenagoras does not agree with either of the Synoptics. We have seen the persistent variation in the quotations from the "Sermon on the Mount" which occur in Justin,(1) and there is no part of the discourses of Jesus more certain to have been preserved by living Christian tradition, or to have been recorded in every form of Gospel. The differences in these passages from our Synoptic present the same features as mark the several versions of the same discourse in our first and third Gospels, and indicate a distinct source. The same remarks also apply to the next passage: [------] The omission of [------], "with her," is not accidental, but is an important variation in the sense, which we have already met with in the Gospel used by Justin Martyr.(4) There is another passage, in the next chapter, the parallel to which follows closely on this in the great Sermon as reported in our first Gospel, to which Canon Westcott does not refer, but which we must point out: [------] {104} [------] It is evident that the passage in the Apology is quite different from that in the "Sermon on the Mount" in the first Synoptic. If we compare it with Matt. xix. 9, there still remains the express limitation [------], which Athenagoras does not admit, his own express doctrine being in accordance with the positive declaration in his text. In the immediate context, indeed, he insists that even to marry another wife after the death of the first is cloaked adultery. We find in Luke xvi. 18, the reading of Athenagoras,(3) but with important linguistic variations: [------] It cannot, obviously, be rightly affirmed that Athenagoras must have derived this from Luke, and the sense of the passage in that Gospel, compared with the passage in Matthew xix. 9, on the contrary, rather makes it certain that the reading of Athenagoras was derived from a source combining the language of the one and the thought of the other. In Mark x. 11, the reading is nearer that of Athenagoras and confirms this conclusion; and the addition there of [------] "against her" after {195} [------], further tends to prove that his source was not that Gospel. We may at once give the last passage which is supposed to be a quotation from our Synoptics, and it is that which is affirmed to be a reference to Mark. Athenagoras states in almost immediate context with the above: "for in the beginning God formed one man and one woman."(1) This is compared with Mark x. 6: "But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female": [------]