This hypothesis too is open to the very great objection that so authoritative a work, if it existed, should have left absolutely no other trace behind it.

So far as the title is concerned, the 'Memoirs of the Apostles' may be either a single work or an almost indefinite number.

In one place Justin says that the Memoirs were composed 'by His Apostles and their followers' [Endnote 90:1], which seems to agree remarkably, though not exactly, with the statement in the prologue to St.Luke.In another he says expressly that the Memoirs are called Gospels ([Greek: ha kaleitai euangelia]) [Endnote 90:2].

This clause has met with the usual fate of parenthetic statements which do not quite fall in with preconceived opinions, and is dismissed as a 'manifest interpolation,' a gloss having crept into the text from the margin.

It would be difficult to estimate the exact amount of probability for or against this theory, but possible at any rate it must be allowed to be; and though the _prima facie_ view of the genuineness of the words is supported by another place in which a quotation is referred directly 'to the Gospel,' still too much ought not perhaps to be built on this clause alone.
* * * * * A convenient distinction may be drawn between the material and formal use of the Gospels; and the most satisfactory method perhaps will be, to run rapidly through Justin's quotations, first with a view to ascertain their relation to the Canonical Gospels in respect to their general historical tenor, and secondly to examine the amount of verbal agreement.