which profess to be exact transcripts of the same original copy, how much more may we expect to find them enter into mere quotations that are often evidently made from memory, and for the sake of the sense, not the words.

In this instance however the verbal resemblance is very close.

As I have frequently said, to speak of certainties in regard to any isolated passage that does not present exceptional phenomena is inadmissible, but I have little moral doubt that the quotation was really derived from St.
Matthew, and there is quite a fair probability that it was made by Basilides himself.
The Hippolytean quotations, the ascription of which to Basilides or to his school we have left an open question, will assume a considerable importance when we come to treat of the external evidence for the fourth Gospel.

Bearing upon the Synoptic Gospels, we find an allusion to the star of the Magi and an exact verbal quotation (introduced with [Greek: to eiraemenon]) of Luke i.

35, [Greek: Pneuma hagion epeleusetai epi se, kai dunamis hupsistou episkiasei soi].