17/53 (2) The passage before us is also of greater length than is usual in Clement's free quotations. I doubt whether as long a piece of discourse can be found treated with equal freedom, unless it is the two doubtful cases in c. (3) It will not fail to be noticed that the passage as it stands in Clement has a roundness, a compactness, a balance of style, which give it an individual and independent appearance. Fusions effected by an unconscious process of thought are, it is true, sometimes marked by this completeness; still there is a difficulty in supposing the terse antitheses of the Clementine version to be derived from the fuller, but more lax and disconnected, sayings in our Gospels. |