assumed a position closely verging upon heresy. It is not necessary for us, however, to enter upon any exhaustive discussion of the date at which the Clementines were written; it is sufficient to show that there is no certain ground upon which a decision can be based, and that even an approximate conjecture can scarcely be reasonably advanced. Critics variously date the composition of the original Recognitions from about the middle of the second century to the end of the third, though the majority are agreed in placing them at least in the latter century.(1) They assign to the Homilies an origin at different dates within a period commencing about the middle of the second century, and extending to a century later.2 In the Homilies there are very numerous quotations {6} of sayings of Jesus and of Gospel history, which are generally placed in the mouth of Peter, or introduced with such formulae as: "The teacher said," "Jesus said," "He said," "The prophet said," but in no case does the author name the source from which these sayings and quotations are derived. That he does, however, quote from a written source, and not from tradition, is clear from the use of such expressions as "in another place [------](1) he has said," which refer not to other localities or circumstances, but another part of a written history.(2) There are in the Clementine Homilies upwards of a hundred quotations of sayings of Jesus or references to his history, too many by far for us to examine in detail here; but, notwithstanding the number of these passages, so systematically do they vary, more or less, from the parallels in our canonical Gospels, that, as in the case of Justin, Apologists are obliged to have recourse to the elastic explanation, already worn so threadbare, of "free quotation from memory" and "blending of passages" to account for the remarkable phenomena presented. It must, however, be evident that the necessity for such an apology at all shows the insufficiency of the evidence furnished by these quotations. De Wette says: "The quotations of evangelical works and histories in the pseudo-Clementine writings, from their nature free and inaccurate, permit only an uncertain conclusion to be {7}