enabling every reader to form his own opinion, we shall as briefly as possible state the facts of the case, and furnish materials for a full comprehension of the subject. Justin himself, as we have already stated, frequently and distinctly states that his information regarding Christian history and his quotations are derived from the Memoirs of the Apostles (ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν άπоσтóλov), to adopt the usual translation, although the word might more correctly be rendered "Recollections," or "Memorabilia." It has frequently been surmised that this name was suggested by the ἀπομνεμονεύματα Zwкρáтоus of Xenophon, but, as Credner has pointed out, the similarity is purely accidental, and to constitute a parallel the title should have been "Memoirs of Jesus." 1 The word ἀπομνημονεύματα is here evidently used merely in the sense of records written from memory, and it is so employed by Papias in the passage preserved by Eusebius regarding Mark, who, although he had not himself followed the Lord, yet recorded his words from what he heard from Peter, and who, having done so without order, is still defended for "thus writing some things as he remembered them” (οὕτως ἔνια γράψας ὡς ἀπεμνημόνευσεν). 2 In the same way Irenæus refers to the "Memoirs of a certain apostolic Presbyter" (ἀπομνημονεύματα ἀποστολικοῦ τινὸς πρεσβυτέρου)3 whose name he does not mention; and Origen still more closely approximates to Justin's use of the word when, expressing his theory regarding the Epistle to the Hebrews, he says that the thoughts are the Apostle's, but the phraseology and the composition are of one recording what the Apostle said (ἀπομνημονεύσαντός τινος τὰ ἀποστολικά),

1 Credner, Beiträge, i. p. 105.

2 Eusebius, H. E., iii. 39.

3 Euebius, H. E., v. 8.

2

and as of one writing at leisure the dictation of his master.1 Justin himself speaks of the authors of the Memoirs as οἱ ἀπομνημονεύσαντες, and the expression was then and afterwards constantly in use amongst ecclesiastical and other writers.3

This title, "Memoirs of the Apostles," however, although most appropriate to mere recollections of the life and teaching of Jesus, evidently could not be applied to works ranking as canonical Gospels, but in fact excludes such an idea; and the whole of Justin's views regarding Holy Scripture, prove that he saw in the Memoirs merely records from memory to assist memory.* He does not call them ypapai, but adheres always to the familiar name of ἀπομνημονεύματα, and whilst his constant appeals to a written source show very clearly his abandonment of oral tradition, there is nothing in the name of his records which can identify them with our Gospels.

Justin designates the source of his quotations ten times, the "Memoirs of the Apostles," 5 and five times he calls it simply the "Memoirs." He says, upon one occasion, that these Memoirs were composed "by his Apostles and their followers," " but except in one place, to which we have already referred, and which we shall

1 Eusebius, H. E., vi. 25.

2 Apol., i. 34.

3 Credner, Beiträge, i. p. 105 f., Gesch. N. T. Kanon, p. 12; Reuss, Hist. du Canon, p. 53 f.; Westcott, On the Canon, p. 95, note 1. The Clementine Recognitions (ii. 1), make the Apostle Peter say: In consuetudine habui verba domine mei, quæ ab ipso audieram revocare ad memoriam.

• Credner, Gesch. N. T. Kanon, p. 12 f.; Beiträge, i. p. 106 f.; Schwegler, Das nachap. Zeitalter, i. p. 226 f.

Apol. i. 66, 67, cf. i. 33; Dial. c. Tr., 88, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, and twice in 106.

Dial. 103, 105, thrice 107.

7 Ἐν γὰρ τοῖς ἀπομνημονεύμασι ἅ φημι ὑπὸ τῶν ἀποστόλων αὐτοῦ καὶ τῶν ἐκείνοις παρακολουθησάντων συντετάχθαι, κ.τ.λ. Dial. 103.

hereafter fully examine, he never mentions the author's name, nor does he ever give any more precise information regarding their composition. It has been argued that, in saying that these Memoirs were recorded by the Apostles and their followers, Justin intentionally and literally described the four canonical Gospels, the first and fourth of which are ascribed to Apostles, and the other two to Mark and Luke, the followers of Apostles; but such an inference is equally absurd and unfounded. The language itself forbids this explanation, for Justin does not speak indefinitely of Memoirs of Apostles and their followers, but of Memoirs of the Apostles, invariably using the article, which refers the Memoirs to the collective body of the Apostles. Moreover, the incorrectness of such an inference is manifest from the fact that circumstances are stated by Justin as derived from these Memoirs, which do not exist in our Gospels at all, and which, indeed, are contradictory to them. Vast numbers of spurious writings, moreover, bearing the names of Apostles and their followers, and claiming more or less direct apostolic authority, were in circulation in the early Church: Gospels according to Peter,3 to Thomas, to James,5 to Judas, according to the

1 Semisch, Die ap. Denkwürdigk. d. Märt. Just., p. 80 f.

2 Hilgenfeld, Die Evv. Justin's, p. 12 f.; cf. Ewald, Jahrb. bibl. Wiss., 1853-54, p. 59 f.; Bleek, Einl. N. T., p. 637, anm.

3 Eusebius, H. E., iii. 3, 25, vi. 12; Hieron., De Vir. Ill., 1; Origen, in Matth. x. 17.

4 Eusebius, H. E., iii. 25; Origen, Hom. i. in Lucam; Irenæus, Adv. Hær., i. 20; cf. Tischendorf, Evang. Apocr., 1853, proleg., p. xxxviii. ff. ; Wann wurden u. s. w., p. 89 f.; Hieron., Præf. in Matth.

Tischendorf, Evang. Apocr., proleg. p. xii. ff.; Epiphanius, Hær., lxxix., § 5, &c.

• Irenæus, Adv. Hær., i. 31, § 1; Epiphanius, Hær., xxxviii. § 1; Theodoret, Fab. Hær., i. 15.

Apostles, or according to the Twelve,' to Barnabas, to Matthias,3 to Nicodemus, &c., and ecclesiastical writers bear abundant testimony to the early and rapid growth of apocryphal literature." The very names of most of such apocryphal Gospels are lost, whilst of others we possess considerable information; but nothing is more certain than the fact, that there existed many works bearing names which render the attempt to interpret the title of Justin's Gospel as a description of the four in our canon a mere absurdity. The words of Justin evidently imply simply that the source of his quotations is the collective recollections of the Apostles, and those who followed them, regarding the life and teaching of Jesus.

The title "Memoirs of the Apostles" by no means indicates a plurality of Gospels. A single passage has been pointed out, in which the Memoirs are said to have been called evayyéλia in the plural: "For the Apostles in the Memoirs composed by them, which are called

1 Origen, Hom. i. in Lucam ; Hieron., Præf. in Matth., Adv. Pelagianos, iii. 1; Fabricius, Cod. Apocr. N. T., i. p. 339 f.

2 Decret. Gelasii, vi. § 10; Credner, Zur Gesch. d. Kanons, p. 215. • Origen, Hom. i. in Lucam; Eusebius, H. E., iii. 25, Decret. Gelasii, vi. 8; Credner, Zur Gesch. d. Kanons, p. 215; Hieron., Præf. in Matth.

If this be not its most ancient title, the Gospel is in the Prologue directly ascribed to Nicodemus. The superscription which this apocryphal Gospel bears in the form now extant, ὑπομνήματα τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Xpiorov, recalls the title of Justin's Memoirs. Tischendorf, Evang. Apocr., p. 203 f., cf. Proleg. p. liv. ff.; Fabricius, Cod. Apocr. N. T., i. p. 213 ff.; Thilo, Cod. Apocr. N. T., p. cxviii.-cxlii., p. 487 ff.

5 Luke i. 1; Irenæus, Adv. Hær., i. 20, § 1; Origen, Hom. i. in Lucam. Eusebius, H. E., iii. 3, 25, iv. 22, vi. 12; Fabricius, Cod. Apocr. N. T.; Philo, Cod. Apocr. N. T.; Tischendorf, Evang. Apocr.; cf. Milman, Hist. of Christianity, iii. p. 358 f., Decret. Gelasii, vi.; Credner, Zur Gesch. d. Kan., p. 215 f., Gesch. d. N. T. Kanon, p. 241 f., 279 f., 290 f., Beiträge, i. p. 107-268 ff.; Schwegler, Das nachap. Zeitalter, i. p. 52 ff., 77 f., 199 ff., 294 f.; De Wette, Lehrb. Einl. N. T., 1860, § 63 ff., §§ 73—74; Reuss, Gesch. h. Schr. N. T., §§ 245-280; Gieseler, Entst. schr. Evv., 1818, p. 8 ff.

Cf. Schwegler, Das nachap. Zeitalter, i. p. 233, anm. 3.

Gospels," &c. The last expression à Kaλeîraι evayyéλia, as many scholars have declared, is a manifest interpolation. It is, in all probability, a gloss on the margin of some old MS. which some copyist afterwards inserted in the text." If Justin really stated that the Memoirs were called Gospels, it seems incomprehensible that he should never call them so himself. In no other place in his writings does he apply the plural to them, but, on the contrary, we find Trypho referring to the "so-called Gospel," which he states that he has carefully read, and which, of course, can only be Justin's "Memoirs ;" and again, in another part of the same dialogue, Justin quotes passages which are written “ in the Gospel ”4 (ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ γέγραπται). The term "Gospel" is nowhere else used by Justin in reference to a written record.5 In no case, however, considering the numerous Gospels then in circulation, and the fact that many of these, different from the canonical Gospels, are known to have been exclusively used by distinguished contemporaries of Justin, and by various communities of Christians in that day, could such an expression be taken as a special indication of the canonical Gospels.6

1 Οἱ γὰρ ἀπόστολοι ἐν τοῖς γενομένοις ὑπ ̓ αὐτῶν ἀπομνημονεύμασιν, ἃ καλεῖται εὐαγγέλια. κ.τ.λ. Apol. i. 66.

2 An instance of such a gloss getting into the text occurs in Dial. 107, where in a reference to Jonah's prophecy that Nineveh should perish in three days, according to the version of the lxx. which Justin always quotes, there is a former marginal gloss "in other versions forty," incorporated parenthetically with the text.

3

τα ἐν τῷ λεγομένῳ εὐαγγελίῳ παραγγελματα κ.τ.λ. Dial. c. Tr. 10.

4 Dial. 100.

5 There is one reference, in the singular known to the Gospel, in the fragment De Resurr. 10, which is of doubtful authenticity.

• Credner argues that had Justin intended such a limitation, he must have said, â kaλeîtai rà réoσapa evayyeλia. Gesch. d. N. T. Kan. p. 10.