In another place Justin quotes a passage in the history of Christ’s birth, as delivered by Matthew and John, and fortifies his quotation by this remarkable testimony:  “As they have taught, who have written the history of all things concerning our Saviour Jesus Christ; and we believe them.”  Quotations are also found from the Gospel of Saint John.  What moreover seems extremely material to be observed is, that in all Justin’s works, from which might be extracted almost a complete life of Christ, there are but two instances in which he refers to anything as said or done by Christ, which is not related concerning him in our present Gospels:  which shows, that these Gospels, and these, we may say, alone, were the authorities from which the Christians of that day drew the information upon which they depended.  One of these instances is of a saying of Christ, not met with in any book now extant.+

_________

+ “Wherefore also our Lord Jesus Christ has said, In whatsoever I shall find you, in the same I will also judge you.”  Possibly Justin designed not to quote any text, but to represent the sense of many of our Lord’s sayings.  Fabrieius has observed, that this saying has been quoted by many writers, and that Justin is the only one who ascribes it to our Lord, and that perhaps by a slip of his memory.  Words resembling these are read repeatedly in Ezekiel; “I will judge them according to their ways;” (chap. vii. 3; xxxiii. 20.) It is remarkable that Justin had just before expressly quoted Ezekiel.  Mr. Jones upon this circumstance founded a conjecture, that Justin wrote only “the Lord hath said,” intending to quote the words of God, or rather the sense of those words in Ezekiel; and that some transcriber, imagining these to be the words of Christ, inserted in his copy the addition “Jesus Christ.”  Vol. 1. p. 539. _________

The other of a circumstance in Christ’s baptism, namely, a fiery or luminous appearance upon the water, which, according to Epiphanius, is noticed in the Gospel of the Hebrews:  and which might be true:  but which, whether true or false, is mentioned by Justin, with a plain mark of diminution when compared with what he quotes as resting upon Scripture authority.  The reader will advert to this distinction:  “and then, when Jesus came to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, as Jesus descended into the water, a fire also was kindled in Jordan:  and when he came up out of the water, (the apostles of this our Christ have written), that the Holy Ghost lighted upon him as a dove.”

All the references in Justin are made without mentioning the author; which proves that these books were perfectly notorious, and that there were no other accounts of Christ then extant, or, at least, no other so received and credited as to make it necessary to distinguish these from the rest.

But although Justin mentions not the author’s name, he calls the books, “Memoirs composed by the Apostles;” “Memoirs composed by the Apostles and their Companions;” which descriptions, the latter especially, exactly suit with the titles which the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles now bear.