Justin Martyr (100-165 C.E.) is an especially interesting case because his apologetic writings are fairly early, from the middle of the 2nd century, long before the existence of any canon. Justin's writings frequently contain passages reminiscent of passages from the canonical gospels but his quo-tations deviate signif i cantly from them and he does not mention them by name. He calls his source or sources "Memoirs of the Apostles" and not Gospels, a word he uses only three times. As Koester says, "considering the large amount of quotations and references to gospel materials, this is surpris-ing" (Ancient 40).
In his study on Justin, Bellinzoni concludes that Justin does not actually quote the separate canonical gospels. Instead he quotes harmonized parallel materials from Matthew, Mark and Luke but not John, with the say-ings of Jesus always occurring in a few groups rather than singly, and "the harmonistic texts used by Justin as his source for the sayings of Jesus are part of a tradition that had great inf l uence on the later manuscript tradition of Matthew, Mark and Luke". In addition, there is evidence in Justin's writ-ings for the use of catechisms and manuals for instruction against heresies (Bellinzoni 140-141). Clearly there was no authoritative text of the gospels in Justin's time and one can justly conclude that no Christian author of the fi rst half of the second century or before quotes the Gospels or their reputed authors.
As with Justin, 2nd century non-canonical Christian writings do not appear to be quoting the four gospels directly either. Johnson says:
"An examination of the way in which these writings treat our four Gospels shows that gospel materials are still in the making in the second century...
Conf l ation of the gospels is the rule...There are occasional `corrections' and contradictions...New stories are occasionally composed or, at least, come to light... Teaching materials are created in rich profusion...When stories are not created de novo, legendary details are frequently added to older narratives to heighten the human interest...The teaching of Jesus from the older gospels is sometimes `spiritualized' or allegorized...The new gospel material ref l ects an active, rather than a contemplative, church life...Obviously, the churches exercise little hierarchical control over the writing of books" (Sherman John-son Stray 45-48). The Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, written in Greek, are an example of how such writings, like Justin, cite sayings of Jesus not from any recognizable gospel passages but "often with conf l ated or harmonized features...The fact that all are short sayings of Jesus suggest that the source was a `Logiensammlung'...rather than a more complete harmony of the four gospels such as Tatian later composed" (Kline 239-240).
When we come to Clement of Alexandria (150-215 CE), we do see ci-tations from the Gospels, but with very different wordings
In his study on Justin, Bellinzoni concludes that Justin does not actually quote the separate canonical gospels. Instead he quotes harmonized parallel materials from Matthew, Mark and Luke but not John, with the say-ings of Jesus always occurring in a few groups rather than singly, and "the harmonistic texts used by Justin as his source for the sayings of Jesus are part of a tradition that had great inf l uence on the later manuscript tradition of Matthew, Mark and Luke". In addition, there is evidence in Justin's writ-ings for the use of catechisms and manuals for instruction against heresies (Bellinzoni 140-141). Clearly there was no authoritative text of the gospels in Justin's time and one can justly conclude that no Christian author of the fi rst half of the second century or before quotes the Gospels or their reputed authors.
As with Justin, 2nd century non-canonical Christian writings do not appear to be quoting the four gospels directly either. Johnson says:
"An examination of the way in which these writings treat our four Gospels shows that gospel materials are still in the making in the second century...
Conf l ation of the gospels is the rule...There are occasional `corrections' and contradictions...New stories are occasionally composed or, at least, come to light... Teaching materials are created in rich profusion...When stories are not created de novo, legendary details are frequently added to older narratives to heighten the human interest...The teaching of Jesus from the older gospels is sometimes `spiritualized' or allegorized...The new gospel material ref l ects an active, rather than a contemplative, church life...Obviously, the churches exercise little hierarchical control over the writing of books" (Sherman John-son Stray 45-48). The Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, written in Greek, are an example of how such writings, like Justin, cite sayings of Jesus not from any recognizable gospel passages but "often with conf l ated or harmonized features...The fact that all are short sayings of Jesus suggest that the source was a `Logiensammlung'...rather than a more complete harmony of the four gospels such as Tatian later composed" (Kline 239-240).
When we come to Clement of Alexandria (150-215 CE), we do see ci-tations from the Gospels, but with very different wordings
And so forth. Detlev Koepke, the Jesus of the gospel of Thomas - page 434-5.
Currently a Discussion going on there with a few already in it - you know the drill