Whilst, however, with the sole exception of the simple statement of the Baptist that he was not the Christ, which in all the accounts is clearly involved in the rest of the reply, there is no analogy whatever between the parallel in the fourth Gospel and the passage in Justin, many important circumstances render it certain that Justin did not derive his narrative from that source. We have already(1) fully discussed the peculiarities of Justin's account of the Baptist, and in the context to the very passage before us there are details quite foreign to our Gospels which show that Justin made use of another and different work. When Jesus stepped into the water to be baptized a fire was kindled in the Jordan, and the voice from heaven makes use of words not found in our Gospels; but both the incident and the words are known to have been contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews and other works. Justin likewise states, in immediate continuation of the passage before us, that Jesus was considered the son of {301} Joseph the carpenter, and himself was a carpenter and accustomed to make ploughs and yokes.(1) The Evangelical work of which Justin made use was obviously different from our Gospels, therefore, and the evident conclusion to which any impartial mind must arrive is, that there is not only not the slightest ground for affirming that Justin quoted the passage before us from the fourth Gospel, from which he so fundamentally differs, but every reason on the contrary to believe that he derived it from a Gospel different from ours.(2) The next point advanced by Tischendorf is, that on two occasions he speaks of the restoration of sight to persons born blind,3 the only instance of which in our Gospels is that recorded, John ix. 1. The references in Justin are very vague and general. In the first place he is speaking of the analogies in the life of Jesus with events believed in connection with mythological deities, and he says that he would appear to relate acts very similar to those attributed to Æsculapius when he says that Jesus "healed the lame and paralytic, and the maimed from birth [------], and raised the dead."(4) In the Dialogue, again referring to Æsculapius, he says that Christ "healed those who were from birth and according to the flesh blind [------], and deaf, and lame."(5) In the fourth Gospel {302}