We have digressed to a greater extent than we intended, but it is not unimportant to show the general character and tendency of the work we have been examining. The Clementine Homilies,--written perhaps about the end of the second century, which never name nor indicate any Gospel as the source of the author's knowledge of evangelical history, whose quotations of sayings of Jesus, numerous as they are, systematically differ from the parallel passages of our Synoptics, or are altogether foreign to them, which denounce the Apostle Paul as an impostor, enemy of the faith, and disseminator of false doctrine, and therefore repudiate his Epistles, at the same time equally ignoring all the other writings of the New Testament,--can scarcely be considered as giving much support to any theory of the early formation of the New Testament Canon, or as affording evidence even of the existence of its separate books. {38} 2. Among the writings which used formerly to be ascribed to Justin Martyr, and to be published along with his genuine works, is the short composition commonly known as the "Epistle to Diognetus." The ascription of this composition to Justin arose solely from the fact that in the only known MS. of the letter there is an inscription [------] which, from its connection, was referred to Justin.(1) The style and contents of the work, however, soon convinced critics that it could not possibly be written by Justin,(2) and although it has been ascribed by various isolated writers to Apollos, Clement, Marcion, Quadratus, and others, none of these guesses have been seriously supported, and critics are almost universally agreed in confessing that the author of the Epistle is entirely unknown. Such being the case, it need scarcely be said that the difficulty of assigning a date to the work with any degree of certainty is extreme, if it be not absolutely impossible to do so. This difficulty, however, is increased by several circumstances. The first and most important of these is the fact that the Epistle to Diognetus is neither quoted nor mentioned by any ancient {39} writer, and consequently there is no external evidence whatever to indicate the period of its composition.(1) Moreover, it is not only anonymous but incomplete, or, at least, as we have it, not the work of a single writer. At the end of Chapter x. a break is indicated, and the two concluding chapters are unmistakably by a different and later hand.(2) It is not singular, therefore, that there exists a wide difference of opinion as to the date of the first ten chapters, although all agree regarding the later composition of the concluding portion. It is assigned by critics to various periods ranging from about the end of the first quarter of the second century to the end of the third century or later,(3) whilst some denounce it as a mere modern forgery.(4) Nothing can be more insecure in one {40}