The material used by both communities, the motive actuating both communities, were the same; the results were consequently similar. That they were not absolutely identical was the consequence of their having been compiled independently. Thus the resemblance was sufficient to make St. Jerome suppose the Hebrew Gospel to be the same as the Greek first Gospel; nevertheless, the differences were as great as has been pointed out in the preceding pages. II. The Clementine Gospel. We have now considered all the fragments of the Gospel of the Hebrews that have been preserved to us in the writings of Justin Martyr, Origen, Jerome and Epiphanius. But there is another storehouse of texts and references to a Gospel regarded as canonical at a very early date by the Nazarene or Ebionite Church. This storehouse is that curious collection of the sayings and doings of St. Peter, the Clementine Recognitions and Homilies. That the Gospel used by the author or authors of the Clementines was that of the Hebrews cannot be shown; but it is probable that it was so. The Clementines were a production of the Judaizing party in the Primitive Church, and it was this party which, we know, used the Gospel of the Twelve, or of the Hebrews. The doctrine in the Clementine Recognitions and Homilies bears close relations to that of the Jewish Essenes. The sacrificial system of the Jewish Church is rejected. It was not part of the revelation to Moses, but a tradition of the elders.(290) Distinction in meats is an essential element of religion. Through unclean meats devils enter into men, and produce disease. To eat of unclean meats places men in the power of evil spirits, who lead them to idolatry and all kinds of wickedness. So long as men abstain from these, so long are the devils powerless against them.(291) The observance of times is also insisted on—times at which the procreation of children is lawful or unlawful; and disease and death result from neglect of this distinction. “In the beginning of the world men lived long, and had no diseases. But when through carelessness they neglected the observance of the proper times ... they placed their children under innumerable afflictions.”(292) It is this doctrine that is apparently combated by St. Paul.(293) He relaxes the restraints which Nazarene tradition imposed on marital intercourse. The rejection of sacrifices obliged the Nazarene Church to discriminate between what is true and false in the Scriptures; and, with the Essenes, they professed liberty to judge the Scriptures and reject what opposed their ideas. Thus they refused to acknowledge that “Adam was a transgressor, Noah drunken, Abraham guilty of having three wives, Jacob of cohabiting with two sisters, Moses was a murderer,” &c.(294)