Section 265
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234 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. epistle, as in the Acts. " But it is probable that the title, Paul the Apostle, was not prefixed to it. For as he wrote to the He brews, who had imbibed prejudices against him, and suspected him, he wisely guards against diverting them from the perusal, by giving his name." A little after this he observes : " But now as the blessed presbyter used to say, ' since the Lord who was the apostle of the Almighty, was sent to the Hebrews, Paul by rea son of his inferiority, as if sent to the Gentiles, did not subscribe himself an apostle of the Hebrews ; both out of reverence for the Lord, and because he wrote of his abundance to the Hebrews, as a herald and apostle of the Gentiles.' " Again, in the same work, Clement also gives the tradition respecting the order of .the gospels, as derived from the oldest presbyters, as follows : " He sayslhat those which contain the genealogies were written first ; hut that the gospel of Marls was occasioned in the following manner: * When Peter Had proclaimed the word publicly at Rome, and declared the gospel under the influence of the spirit ; as there was a great number present, they requested Mark, who had followed him from afar, and remembered well what he had said, to reduce these things to writing, and that after composing the gospel he gave it to those who requested it of him. Which, when Peter understood, he directly neither hindered nor encou raged it. But John, last of all, perceiving that what had refer ence to the body in the gospel of our Saviour, was sufficiently detailed, and being encouraged by his familiar friends, and urged by the spirit, he wrote a spiritual gospel.' " Thus far Clement. But again, the abovementioned Alexander mentions both Cle ment and Pantsenus, in a certain epistle to Origen, as men with whom he was familiarly acquainted. Thus he writes : " For this, thou knowest was the divine will, that the friendship which has existed between us from our ancestors, should remain unshaken, rather that it should grow warmer and firmer. For we well know those blessed fathers, that have trod the path before us. and to whom we ere long shall go. Pantamus, that truly blessed man, my master, also the holy Clement, who was both my mas ter and benefactor, and whoever there may be like them, by whom I have become acquainted with thee, my Lord and brother