Was "Jesus" a "bastard" & the Church tried to Cover it up with the VirginBirth Stories?, page 7

Greetings again, Logician:

Thanks for your post: (and thanks to all who sent me their fulsome compliments to my U2U this week !)

This is going to be fun� but I�m going to have to divide my posts into 3 parts today, sorry !!

You raise some issues that require some detailed discussion which cannot simply be brushed aside with a few words.

You have certainly mis understood a great deal of what I have been posting over the past 4 months, and I will have to spend some time re-explaining myself (not an easy task on these threadlets)

Also you seem to claim (contrary to all available evidence) that the NT was substantially �complete� by AD 100 which is patently false, and then claim to bolster this ridiculous notion by dragging in Clement of Rome, whose quotations (by the way) OFTEN DO NOT IN ANY WAY MATCH the material in the gospels you now read in English translation.

So you are (consciously or un-consciously) misrepresenting basic facts.

I will give you some notorious examples of Clement of Rome�s quotation of �scripture� a little later today---enough at any rate to show how INCORRECT your wild assumption that the gospel and oracular material contained what Christians today call NT (especially the gospel material) was in any way �fixed� or �set for good� in written Greek form before AD 180.

From the earliest patristic quotations of the NT, the text was CLEARLY NOT SET BUT VERY FLUID for the first 75 years of its existence (i.e. AD 80 to AD 155) as is the case with most manuscript traditions where the greatest changes to the text occur in the earliest stages�but more of this later...

I do hope people on this thread are reading both ends of our �discussion� very carefully since I hope to clarify some points which seems to have left you a little muddled on a few things (which happens a lot on these threads where there just isn�t enough room to post every single nuance�).

Here�s what Robert Funk had to say about these topics being not widely discussed by the masses:

"The public is poorly informed of the assured results of critical scholarship, although those results are commonly taught in colleges, universities and seminaries. In this vacuum, drugstore books and slick magazines play on the fears and ignorance of the uniformed."

Unfortunately some of your comments (though not all--I'll be fair !) fall into this category of mis-information and possibly even dis-information (i.e. some people within Church organizations have deliberately tried to deceive �the masses� with half-truths, which I hope some of these will be dispelled on these threads--and you've been repeating this disinformation for a while now, which you may not even be aware of...i.e. parotting half-truths from what others repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat until people start to accept them as facts etc.)

You might want to read some of my earlier posts again, since half of your comments in your last thread shows that you did not fully understand what I was trying to say�or its import....for example, when I said the narratives were joined early on in the formation of the gospel tradition my point was that LOGIA found in the 4 approved gospels (i.e. specific Greek words or oracles translated out of their original Galilean Aramaic utterances and placed into the mouth of Iesous) were JOINED to haggadic midrashic narratives fairly early on in the formation of the later tradition, as part of a more primitive gospel tradition derived from Messianic proof texts etc. (first orally then in their later written forms in Greek)---

My comments had nothing whatsoever to do with positing a belief that the modern council approved 4 canonical gospels in Greek now being read represent the earlier 1st century �Didache� (or �the original Nazorean preaching of the 12�) at all--the evidence all points away from that premise.

What we recognise as "gospel material" did not gel into its present form until the later half of the 2nd century AD---before that it was "open season" as far as a fixed canonocal text is concerned...and this is one thing most bible believing Christians simply cannot deal with (mainly emotionally) since they want to think their texts came down in one piece from heaven on a platter.

Notice what the discoverer of 4th century AD Codex Sinaiticus said:

�I have found that this MS was edited and redacted by at least three different and consecutive scribal hands��

This evaluation (and impression) from the discoverer of the text should give you a clue as to what we are dealing with here.

The Fourth �Canonically Approved Gospel� ("John") gives ample evidence of 2nd century--and not 1st century--- ideology which was far removed from the 2nd temple period of the time of the �Iesous� of his Nazorean Gospel message (oral, not written) where it is assumed in the text that �Jews� are somehow divorced from his group in time and place and are regarded in some strange way as a wholly separate group-�almost as if the Iesous of the 4th Gospel was living in the 2nd century after the breaking away of the Christian movement after Israel was ground to powder by Rome, and the depiction is at times is almost as if he wasn�t even a Jew himself

(e.g. �According to YOUR Law�� etc.) . But alas, another thread, another time�

Suffice it to say that what �Christians� read today as �gospel material� in the Greek texts (worked roughly into modern English etc.) are in fact 2nd and 3rd century �heavily edited constructs of orthodoxy� which derive from late manuscripts mainly from the 4th century AD (post Nicaea) and the earlier fragments already show that the texts were not uniform in their later stages compared to their earlier ones.

Why would you try to (deliberately?) mis-construe my meaning like you did on the last posting?

I believe you have confused a lot of people on this thread by this kind of thing, so please re-read my comments again before posting answers back.

Moreover, in general, you�re also going to have to try and not read too much into my language on these �abbreviated� discussions which by their very nature lend themselves to shortcuts and sometimes even technical jargon.

For example, the reason I didn�t happen to use the phrase �Council approved Gospels� every single time I was referring to the 4 canonical �gospels�in my last post was not because I did not feel the description apt (it is) but simply because I was trying to type in a hurry�in other words, I certainly did not mean to suggest that I have backed off that phrase in the least, since it should be manifestly obvious to anyone familiar with the material (even in English) that we are dealing with �official Roman Catholic Church documents� and not purely historical writings of outsiders.

I use the term only to remind people on this thread that the gospels that they read �as holy scripture� are the product of a few bishops voting at some very raucous councils (who spent most of their time �anathemising� other rival councils)�but that�s another thread, I�m afraid.

What did not conform to later 2nd and 3rd century �orthodoxy� was knifed out of the text.

The more heavily used (�read�) texts in the major cities in which they were �read in churches� (i.e. as part of a LITURGICAL FUNCTION) were gradually adjusted over time accordingly�not all at the same time, but whenever later orthodox officials had the political clout to carry out manuscript copy changes.

This was particularly the case after Iranaeus the Bishoip of Lyon around AD 160 (who reacted so strongly against Marcion�s theologies)

But don�t think for a moment that I am in anyway backing off this nickname for the �gospels�, I certainly am not, and I hope you do not read too much into my shorthand.

However, I will re-instate the phrase back into the discussion, since you insist !

And don�t forget the 4 �Council approved canonical Gospels� were just the representatives of 4 of the largest and most powerful political church centres in the early Church (Ephesus, Rome, Antioch and possibly Alexandria etc.)

However all 4 �council approved-canonical� gospels in all the watered down English translations today are ipso facto �council approved (�canon� means �rule� or �guide�, �canonical� means �that which follows the Rule or Guideline (i.e. of the prevailing Orthodoxy of whatever councils met and argued and which the majority eventually �approved� them for practical �reading in the Churches�)

Try to remember the purpose of the �4 council approved Gospels� was �midrashically functional and liturgical� in scope, not �purely historical� renderings of �history� in the modern sense of the word------although all four �council approved Gospels� contain some kernels of history, albeit very muddled and politically-whitewashed as well as heavilly kaleidescoped into liturgical framing

(e.g. the synoptic habit of placing the Cleasning of the Temple into �holy week� during Passover in March/April, much like the 5 day Spring Feast of Attis in Rome ---rather than in Sept/Oct at Tabernacles, or all those curious 3-hour segmentations of Mark�s Passion narrative which seems to have grown out of a long cycle of dramatic liturgy divided into near 3 hour segments:

e.g.
�And it was the 3rd hour and they crucified him�at the 6th hour darkness covered the land�and the 9th hour Iesous cried with a loud voice�� etc. All this three-hour time divisions seems the product of the evangelist working in a liturgical kaleidoscoping framework , not the "historian" writing facts of a case�and we can see other examples of this in all four of the �canonical and council-approved� gospels. Again, another thread, I'm afraid.

The dozens of other �non-council approved Gospels� that also were believed as holy scriptures by various churches all floating around the Empire between AD 120 and AD 400

(e.g. the gospel of the Hebrews, the Gospel of the Nazoreans, the Gospel of Truth, The Gospel of Phillip, the Gospel of Judas Didumos Thomas etc.) many of which were based on traditions (oral and written) which actually predate the �approved� 4 gospels (although unfortunately the copies and fragments of these documents are often much later period and often translated out of the Greek into other languages such as Coptic, thereby watering down the language a further step in the chain) simply did not have the political backing of major cult centers as say, Ephesus or Alexandria or Antioch or Rome, and after Nicaea (one of several �councils�) were rejected in the West mainly on purely doctrinal (and political) grounds.

Sometimes all a modern day scholar has at his disposal (thanks for Christian Book Burnings) are hypothetical reconstructions of parts of these earlier (than Nicea) �non council approved gospels� from the sometimes mangled quotations of their detractors (e.g. Clement of Alexandria who quotes a passage from the �Secret Gospel of Mark� which circulated among the Carpocratians in the 230s AD), and included a passage which was knifed out of our present Gospel of Mark.

Other discoveries since Nag Hammadi in the future may well clarify the contents of some of these rival �non council approved� gospels, especially in these post Dead Sea Scroll era where people might be more willing to publish any new found material e.g. on the Internet for sharing with qualified experts�we can only hope.

Here is anexample of an excised portion of the originally longer text of the Secret Gospel of Mark (written in Mark�s peculiar style of baby-Greek, bad grammar and all, and which seems to have the ring of authenticity, despite it being pasted into the back leaf of a 16th century library book):

You�ll perhaps recall the fragmented story in Mark�s gospel (among so many fragmented stories in Mark�s gospel !) about a �naked young man� who ran away without his baptismal sheet at the Arrest on the Hill when Iesous had armed his disciples during The Pesach Insurrection of AD 36.

This fragmentary naked-male character in Mark chapter 14 originally must have had more material about him in the Gospel of Mark at one time in its history (but subsequently knifed out by Church authorities or perhaps fell out as the result of damaged copies, as with the ending of Mark at 16:8) judging from his mysterious appearance in the council approved and cleansed version you read today in Mark

(notice that he has an equally mysterious dis-appearance in Mark 14 as well or as Dorothy Gail in Munchkinland said, �My !! People come and go so quickly here�!!�)

From the an 18th century Greek Shorthand account of a fragment of a Letter of Clement of Alexandria to Theodore (found at the Monastery of Mar Saba east of Jerusalem by Morton Smith in 1958)

"Immediately after the section which begins And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem and continues to after three days he will rise [Mk 10:32-34], there follows, as their text of Mark�s Gospel goes like this:

QUOTE (from the non-Council Approved Portion of The Secret Gospel of Mark)

�And they come to Bethany. And there was a woman there, whose brother had died. And she came and fell down before Jesus and said to him: Son of David, have mercy on me.

But the disciples rebuked her. And in anger iesous goes away with her into the garden where the tomb was; and immediately a loud voice was heard from the tomb; and Iesous went forward and rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb.

And immediately he went in where the young man was, stretched out his hand and raised him up, grasping him by the hand. But the young man looked upon Iesous and loved him, and began to entreat him that he might be with him.(cf: Moses and his 70 elders who �were to be with him�)

And when they had gone out from the tomb, they went into the young man's house; for he was rich. And after six days Jesus instructed him; and in the evening the young man came to him, clothed only in a linen cloth upon his naked [body].

And he remained with him that night; for Jesus was teaching him the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. And from there he went away and returned to the other bank of the Jordan."

Clement�s letter to his prot�g� was to show that the Carpocratian belief in homosexual baptism was not based on the Secret Gospel of Mark (�For I find even in their own gospel scriptures that is no passages which state naked man on top of naked man�,etc. he writes)

There is another (much shorter) snippet of this same longer version of Mark that Clement came across again quoted by Clement of Alexandria as well.

After the words And he comes to Jericho [Mk 10:46a] the Carpocrations have only the following phrase:

'And there was the sister of the young man whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome; and Jesus did not receive them'

In this copy in 18th century Greek Shorthand of an old tattered Greek MSS now apparently lost (or suppressed by authorities!), Clement in the main body of his letter to Theodore states the following belief system, which kind of tells you the way the early church handled �facts� i.e. that the �historical-truth of certain matters must never be disclosed to the masses..even under oath��!!!

"For even if some should state something absolutely true, as I have said already, lovers of the Truth should not, even so, ever agree with them...

To those who would argue with us, one must never give way in the slightest.

Nor, when they put forward their false doctrines, should one ever concede that there ever existed a Secret Gospel of Mark � or that it was written by Mark at all---but should vehemently deny it even under Oath.

For the truth of certain matters must never be disclosed to the masses of men."

This from a Bishop--!!!!!------i.e. one in �ecclesiastical� authority, you know, the kind of people who take to knifing things out of texts they feel are not quite in line with their own orthodoxy.

Bart Erhman has a couple of new books out you would do well to read (you can get them on Amazon.com) entitled Lost Scriptures (Bart D. Erhman ) 2003 Oxford U. Press ISBN: 0195141822 also another book by the same author entitled �Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew�.

These shed some helpful light on the subject for the layman who cannot read Greek or Hebrew and you would do well to read both books to get some more background on this complex subject which you insist on oversimplifying.

It might help you avoid �jumping to fundamentalist conclusions� or make unsupported and clich�d statements of blatant factual errors like stating as factual that Clement of Rome in any way quoted the same Greek texts of the gospels in AD 100 in the same form you are reading them in your KJV---when the gospel material he himself quotes are wildly different in wording and content

(especially when he handles and quotes words and phrases placed into the mouth of Iesous which are in fact very different in dozens of instances from anything in your bibles today, giving us clues that what �passed for gospel material� at the beginning of the 2nd century (i.e. around AD 110)WAS VASTLY DIFFERENT from what passed for �more proto-orthodox� (post Iranaeus) gospel material at the END of the 2nd century (e.g. after 180 AD).
e.g.

The homily known as 2 Clement also contains variations in quotations of the scriptures.

Consider the following passage, which comes from a gospel but is not found in any of the gospels known to us:

Ye shall be as sheep in the midst of wolves. And Peter answering, said to him: What if: the wolves should scatter the sheep?

Jesus saith to Peter: The sheep shall not fear the wolves after they kill them; ye also shall not fear those who shall kill you and cannot do anything against you, but ye shall fear him who hath power after your death to cast soul and body into the hell of fire.

The sentiments are generally found in gospels but not as they are here.

2 Clement attributes the following saying to Jesus also:

"If ye are gathered to me in my bosom and do not my commandments, I shall cast you out and shall say to you: Depart from me, workers of iniquity; I know not whence ye are.

Of course, this passage resembles the Sermon on the Mount, but if the passage is from Matthew, it is a different form of Matthew than what we now have.

What happened in the middle of all that time between AD 110 and 180 AD (say around 155 AD) was the appearance of Marcion�s Canon of Inspired Scripture [and Iraeneus� refutation of Marcion�s Canon] and the solidification of �proto-Orthodox� canon and pre-Nicene doctrinal niceities�which meant written and circulating books had to be �adjusted� to conform to the new doctrine �or else�.

[By the way, ref: mixing apples and oranges, something you tend to do on these threads] the tiny p52 fragment is a random piece from the Fourth gospel (�John�) and not a piece of �Luke� �

So why did you even bring up �Luke�s wording� in a discussion of p52 (�John�s wording�) which has no direct relevance one way or the other ?

Mixing and matching gospel material willy nilly will only cloud the issues, but we�ll talk a little bit more about that subject later�]

Stay tuned for the 2nd part�lots more to come !

[edit on 23-11-2004 by Amadeus]

Hello once again, Logician---

I�m sorry you seem so befuddled by my last post which seems to have caused you some consternation (perhaps you should read some of my previous posts over a few times and let them sink in�that method seems to have helped a great number of others on these threads in the past who later write to me to say they �finally got it!!�)

I�ll put down your evident confusion to �too much NEW information� (but�dare I say it---- not enough Greek and Hebrew�!)

I will certainly try and break down some of the more complex arguments about the evolution of the �gospel tradition� into smaller, more discrete sections so you won�t get so muddled---if you really want me to.

(By the way, I was glancing over some of your earlier complaints�.and I never said I disliked the Greek Septuaginta LXX, only that the presupposed Hebrew Vorlage Underlay to the Greek OT of the Septuaginta-LXX (some of which was found at Qumran) is textually DIFFERENT by 23% on average with the later Masoretic (�Jamnia-Javneh AD 90 Council approved�) Hebrew text read by �Jews� and �Christians� today:

In other words, the early Greek speaking Christians were PRE-SUPPOSING A WHOLLY DIFFERENT OLD TESTAMENT TEXT TYPE than the one modern Christians use (more aligned with the Qumran types)

If you want some textual examples I can furnish some of these for you in English on another post: in the meantime, check out the Book of Jeremiah in the Greek Septuaginta LXX----- it is 13 chapters SHORTER than the �Javneh Jamnia AD 90 council approved� Masoretic Text (only one small example) so please do not think for a moment the LXX and the MT are different translations of the same text---- they are not).

Again, I was under the impression that you would have been aware of these major scribal-textual family differences in the Old Testament Hebrew traditions

(quite shockingly brought to light when the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered at Qumran beginning in December 1946, especially when they started to examine in detail everything the Bedouin found in Caves 1, 4 and 11)�but then again it would help if you could read Greek and Hebrew�!)

Your evident confusion of the basic facts of the transmission of this material might explain some of your apparent exasperation�which by the way is something quite common for people who only have a superficial knowledge of the texts of the �4 council approved� gospels (or the whole NT for that matter) and who can only tackle them in English translation�and who are deluded enough into thinking that Clement of Rome was miraculously somehow able to quote the �New Testament� in the form in which you now read it.

Now�.from what you seem to be saying in your last post:

You would like me to �prove� the widely held scholarly contention that the contents of the �4 canonical and council approved� Gospels did not achieve their recogniseable form until after 170 AD

(i.e. until after the time of Iranaeus� condemnation of Marcion) and the emergence of �proto orthodoxy� which culminated in the year 325 in the �official� council of Nicaea and the voting procedure to approve the 4 �canonical� gospels�

Imagine a PRE IRANAEUS PERIOD (pre 140 AD) and then a POST IRANAEUS PERIOD (say anything after 160 AD) : What passed for "gospel" texts in the PRE period was quite different from the changes that took place during and after the Post IRANAEUS period, the main impetus being the Marcionite churches and their "knifing of scripture" which was not acted upon, but REACTED upon by the proto-Orthodox biships of the 2nd and 3rd century AD

So if we want to see what a PRE-IRANAEUS gospel looked like, we can take a quick look at �Gospel citations� by the socalled Apostolic "fathers" e.g. Clement of Rome (active from around AD 88 to c. AD 100) , or Ignatius of Antioch (active c. 71 AD to c.110 AD) and Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna (c. AD 69 - c. AD 155) --all of these persons were active between AD 90 and AD 130---i.e. in the �dark tunnel period� before Iranaeus and his cronies got their sticky proto-orthodox fingers on the material to �refute the arch-heretic Marcion�: so their so-called �gospel� citations will prove (or disprove) whether or not a firm �canonically fixed� gospel tradition in the Greek was set or still �fluid� before AD 160.

Let�s start with Clement of Rome to see if his curious citations of �Gospel material� will tell us what the Gospels looked like in his day�
Here�s a quick quote from Metzger, no mean authority on the texts of the NT:

�There was as yet no conception of the duty of exact quotation from books that were not yet in the full sense canonical. Consequently, it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to ascertain which New Testament books were known to early Christian writers; our evidence does not become clear until the end of second century."

[Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament: Its Origin, Significance & Development pp. 72-73.]

We can see at a glance some clear evidence of the fluidity of the tradition of this New Testament gospel material (and don't forget ORALITY, which is the process of transmission of teaching by word of mouth, see the end of this thread)...

Suffice to to say that it doesn�t exactly take a rocket scientist to see the difference between the PRE IRANAEUS citations and the POST IRANAEUS citations---that is, unless one is living in a perpetual state of denial like so many �Christians� on these threads seem to be at times...!!

EXAMPLE ONE (from around AD 95) 1 Clem 13:1b-2 which kind of reminds one of Matthew 7:1-2

'For thus He spake: saying, show mercy, that ye may be shown mercy unto you: forgive, that it may be forgiven to you. As ye behave to others, so also will they behave to you. As ye give, so shall ye get. As ye judge, so shall ye be judged. As ye show kindness, so shall kindness be showed unto you. With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured withal to you.'

Not exactly verbatim Gospel Greek is it?

If Clement was aware of the later 4 canonical gospels, why does he not quote from them as an existing text tradition rather than from loose paraphrases or even from oral tradition?

Why is he not eager to quote from the �canonical� gospels and the NT letters of Paul? (NB: nearly all his citations are from the Old Testament and more specifically, the Greek LXX)

Although the words may sound familiar, no single sentence in the passage is an exact quotation from any known Gospel canonical or otherwise�

�It is very difficult to believe that Clement in calling for his readers to 'remember the words of our Lord Jesus'--thus apparently words with which the Corinthians were expected to be very familiar----has in mind sayings found in the Synoptics when two of the sayings are expressed in words which find no parallel in the canonical gospels at all��

(Joseph Linehard, The Bible, the Church, and Authority pp 31-32).

Donald Hagner summarizes this fact in his 'The Use of Old and New Testaments in Clement of Rome' p. 332 (1973):

'While it seems difficult to deny that Clement of Rome, writing in AD 95, was acquainted with the Synoptic Gospels, his epistle (I Clement) provides us with little positive indication of a direct acquaintance with the familiar versions.'

Of the remaining five maxims listed in the Clement �citation�, none agrees verbatim with any of the known Synoptics in the �council approved� gospels, and two are in fact very different in form from their Synoptic parallels.

Only three of the maxims look as though they could have come from anything like the �canonically approved� �Synoptic� Gospels.

So to make the spurious claim that this early quote comes from a knowledge of what Christians read in their �council approved� gospels is totally without foundation. The gospel material was still in the gelling phase until well into the 140s AD

EXAMPLE TWO : 1 Clement�s Citation of something like Matthew (18:3-4 and 26:24)

"Remember the Words of our Lord Jesus Christ, how he said,

"Woe to that man [by whom offences come]: For it were better for him that he had never been born, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my Elect Ones. Yea, it were better for him that a Millstone should be hung about [ him?] and he should be sunk into the depths of the sea, than if he should cast a stumbling-block before any one of my Little Ones.�

Notice all the extra words Clement quotes here (e.g. �elect ones�, �little ones� ) and the absence of the referenece to �the Son of Man�---all happily placed into the mouth of Iesous---and Clement�s citation may well reflect a more primitive version of these logia than what appears in the �canonical� and council approved gospels-------in other words, the tradition had not yet jelled into firm and widely accepted writing format around AD 100. Ands yet you seem to think the NT was "substantially completed" by AD 100:

To which I must add, "well, maybe the boilerplate for perhaps 70% of the material that was later used in the "council approved" NT was almost ready in overall substance by AD 100, but the sauce had not been very much by that time in terms of actual firm Greek texts: they still had to undergo some massive changes in wording before they begin to resemble what you are reading today in your council approved NT..."

For example, compare the above citation from about AD 95 or so with the later �council approved� version of Matt 18: 3-4 and 26:24

"Woe to the world because of offences! For it is inevitable that offences come; but woe to that man through whom the offences comes! For whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it is better for him that a great millstone be hung around his neck, and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born��

Clement could hardly have had direct textual access to what was later a �canonical� gospel when he wrote those citations :

All Clement could have had had in front of him at the time were sayings collections, since the �canonical� gospels had not yet gelled into any recogniseable form during Clement�s lifetime (i.e. in any form which we read today, that is.)

His Sayings of Iesous book might well have resembled something like the Greek Gospel of Thomas (some fragments exist of this early logia handbook collection of Saying (The Gospel �of Judas Didumos Thomas�) but the longer version was translated out of Greek into Coptic, and found at Nag Hammadi in 1945)

In fact, the import of what later was poured into the 4th century council approved gospels� can be seen to be quoted or referred to by these persons-------but their quotations (introduced by such phrases as �as our Lord said� rather than �even as it is written in the gospel of Mattthew etc.) are not word for word following any Greek canonical gospel currently read today but in different recensions of the sayings of Iesous which are moreover often expressed in oblique terms as if the final wording of the sayings in the �council approved� 4 Canonical Gospels had not yet been decided upon.

EXAMPLE THREE (from 2 Clement 5:2-4 which seems to be taken from a stranger version of �Matthew�):

�For the Lord said, �You will be like lambs among wolves,� But Peter replied by saying, �What if the wolves tear the lambs to pieces?� Jesus said to Peter, �After death the lambs should not fear the wolves, nor should you fear those who kill you and can do nothing more to you. But fear him who, when you are dead, has power over soul and body to cast them into the flames of hell.�

Clement rather than using the customary formula for citing a writing, uses the the phrase "remember the words of the Lord Jesus" instead. This is because around AD 100 there were no written gospels in wide circulation that he could use authoritatively.

Clement even sometimes quotes from unknown sources as �inspired scripture� in citations from around AD 95

(1 Clement 17) "for it has been written, Cleave to the saints, for they that cleave to them shall be sanctified."

Remember, this is less than 1% of the total bishopric citations of �gospel material� in the pre IRANAEUS period (prior to AD 160) and as you should be able to see, most of which does not align very closely with what is considered part of the 4 modern �canonical� and "council approved" gospels.

What all this suggests of course is that in AD 100 what passed for �gospel material� and what passed in AD 180 for gospel material (resembling more towards the �canonical 4�) were quite different animals in terms of an exact text as recognised as authoritative scripture in any way, shape or form.

Generally we can see that there are fragments of some canonical Epistles which lie embedded in the citations of pre 160 AD persons like Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius and Justin Martyr etal. but their language with respect to the words of Iesous is thoroughly leavened with the Apostolic diction and they may be quoting the earlier oral sources of the gospels rather than the �council approved canonical� gospels themselves.

Sometime the words of Iesous are given, but rarely do these words match the �canonical� and council approved gospel utterances for Iesous: and there is no decisive evidence that these people recognized a fixed canon of scripture outside of the NT as a distinctly defined body of writings;

The language of the Canonical Gospels is frequently quoted but not word for word following any Greek canonical gospel currently read today but in different recensions of the sayings often expressedin oblique terms as if the final wording of the sayings in the �council approved� 4 Canonical Gospels had not yet been decided upon.

Papias (�a man of tiny intellect� to quote Eusebeius) is said to have preferred the oral method of learning material that was later worked up into �gospels�, rather than the written word:

�For, unlike the many, I did not take pleasure in those who have so very much to say, but in those who teach the Truth; nor in those who utter strange commandments, but in those (who record) such as were given from the Lord to the Faith, and are derived from the Truth itself. . .
For I did not think that I could get so much profit from the contents of books as from the utterances of a living and abiding voice..� (24. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3,39.)

Are you "getting" any of this, or do you need more? There's so much evidence on these "non canonical" citations it could easily cover 10 postings or more....!