that the spirit in Jesus Christ had already appeared in Adam, and by a
species of transmigration passed through Moses and the Patriarchs and
prophets: "who from the beginning of the world, changing names and
forms, passes through Time [------] until, attaining his own seasons,
being on account of his labours anointed by the mercy of God, he shall
have rest for ever."(1) Just in the same way, therefore, as the Homilies
represent Jesus as quoting a prophecy of Moses, and altering it to a
personal declaration: "I am the prophet," &c., so here again they make
him adopt this saying of Moses and, "being the true prophet," declare:
"I am the gate or the way of life,"--inculcating the same commandments
of the law which the Gospel of the Homilies represents Jesus as coming
to confirm and not to abolish. The whole system of doctrine of the
Clementines, as we shall presently see, indicated here even by the
definition of "the true prophet," is so fundamentally opposed to that of
the fourth Gospel that there is no reasonable ground for supposing that
the author made use of it, and this brief saying, varying as it does
in language and sense from the parallel in that work, cannot prove
acquaintance with it. There is good reason to believe that the author
of the fourth Gospel, who most undeniably derived materials from earlier
Evangelical works, may have drawn from a source likewise used by the
Gospel according to the Hebrews, and thence many analogies might well
be presented with quotations from that or kindred Gospels.(2) We find,
further, this community of source in the fact,
{338}
that in the fourth Gospel, without actual quotation, there is a
reference to Moses, and, no doubt, to the very passage (Deut. xviii.
15), which the Gospel of the Clementines puts into the mouth of Jesus,
John v. 46: "For had ye believed Moses ye would believe me, for he wrote
of me." Whilst the Ebionite Gospel gave prominence to this view of the
case, the dogmatic system of the Logos Gospel did not permit of more
than mere reference to it.
The next passage pointed out as derived from the Johannine Gospel occurs
in the same chapter: "My sheep hear my voice." [------]
There was no more common representation amongst the Jews of the relation
between God and his people than that of a Shepherd and his Sheep,(1)
nor any more current expression than: hearing his voice. This brief
anonymous saying was in all probability derived from the same source
as the preceding,(2) which cannot be identified with the fourth Gospel.
Tradition, and the acknowledged existence of other written records of
the teaching of Jesus oppose any exclusive claim to this fragmentary
saying.
We have already discussed the third passage regarding the new birth in
connection with Justin,(3) and may therefore pass on to the last and
most important passage, to which we have referred as contained in the
concluding portion of the Homilies first published by Dressel in
{339}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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