in the evidence of Irenæus, Clement, and Tertullian, who, they tell us, were the greatest thinkers of their age, incapable of deception, possessed of information lost to us, and watched by theological opponents, who would have assuredly detected and denounced unauthorised acceptance of an unattested gospel.

What is the value of these arguments? The honesty of the Ante-Nicene Fathers is beyond suspicion, but it is the honesty of credulity. If, however, the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel is contingent on their veracity, and we vindicate their honour by acceptance of the Gnostic evangelist, are their modern witnesses to character also prepared to receive at their hands the Book of Enoch as the work of an antediluvian patriarch, and the Epistle of Clement as the veritable autogram of an inspired apostle, attesting the legend of the phoenix as the archetype of the Resurrection?

If the Ante-Nicene Fathers were the greatest thinkers of their age, depth of thought in those days meant nothing more than confirmation of foregone conclusions, by reasoning from unattested facts. Thus, Tertullian affirms the impiety of wearing coloured garments, and sustains Divine disapproval by inferring that, otherwise, Providence would supply us with coloured materials from the backs of blue and scarlet sheep. He also assumes that hair is nourished by the substance of the brain, and thence infers that the whole head of hair is of luxuriant or scanty growth, in proportion to the supply of brain 2-an alarming conclusion for some of us, whose attenuated locks thus betray our imbecility! If men, who reasoned thus, were pre1 On Female Dress, chap. viii. 2 On the Soul, chap. li.

sented with a fourth gospel, in the name of an apostle, the contents of which gave form and substance to their own aspirations towards the deification of Jesus, whether would they more probably have credulously accepted this confirmation of their hopes, or hastened to test its authenticity by a sceptical criticism tending to the detection and exposure of the literary forgery?

Did proximity of time to the Galilean drama give even the writers of the second century more authentic data for forming reliable conclusions than are possessed by theologians of this nineteenth century? Let Irenæus, who in his youth had met with the venerable Polycarp, answer the question. He tells us that, according to the evidence of elders who received their information direct from John and the other Apostles, the life of Jesus extended over a period of at least fifty years. If the first Christian writer who names the fourth gospel is thus deceived by traditional gossip respecting so simple a fact as the age attained by the Messiah, can his doubtful facilities for verifying the authorship of John override the internal evidence which indicates the presence of a Gnostic mysticism, impossible in a Galilean apostle?

But was Pseudo-John accepted by the contemporaries of his first disciples? On the contrary, Tertullian candidly admits his rejection by a majority of Christians through their denunciation of the polytheism involved in the doctrine of the Logos. And, if we are deprived of more direct proof of their loyalty to the primitive faith, we must seek the explanation in the destruction of their literature by the Trinitarians of a later generation, who anathematised primitive orthodoxy as heresy, in harmony with the Gnostic fiction that Justin, Irenæus,

Clement, and Tertullian were the orthodox theologians of the second century. But the absence of the Divinity of Jesus from the primitive faith could not be concealed even in the fourth century; and we accordingly find Athanasius, the supposed apostle of Trinitarianism, endeavouring to explain this anomaly by saying that all the Jews were so decidedly of opinion that their Messiah was to be merely a man like themselves, that the Apostles were necessarily extremely cautious in disclosing the doctrine of the proper divinity of Christ!' Is not this an apologetic admission of Galilean Unitarianism? And yet, it is the language of the man in whose name modern orthodoxy condemns to eternal perdition all who now believe in the original teaching of the Apostles! Well may we ask, in blank amazement, whether human souls were lost in that fatal interval of silence when truths essential to salvation were diplomatically concealed from perishing Humanity? Or were men held guiltless until a General Council, overshadowed by imperial power, had so clearly defined the Divinity of Jesus, that sceptics could no longer claim immunity from the dread results of episcopal imprecation?

The question yet remains, why was not Pseudo-John rejected by the numerous Gnostic sects denounced by Irenæus? For the obvious reason that they joyfully accepted and confidently appealed to the fourth Gospel as the apostolic attestation of the Eonic system of divinity.

Some modern theologians affirm that, although first named by Irenæus, there are sufficient traces of the fourth Gospel found in antecedent authors to assign it an earlier date. Thus, we are referred to the following

passage, which we quote from the Syriac version of the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans: 'I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, and I seek his blood, which is incorruptible love.' But in the same epistle, the author referring to his impending martyrdom, says, 'I am the wheat of God, and I am ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may become the pure bread of God.' This form of metaphor, therefore, belongs to the author, but if it is associated with the language of Pseudo-John, the Ignatian epistles have been too freely handled by literary forgers to assign a date to the publication of the fourth Gospel.

We are next referred, for further traces of Johannine phraseology, to the anonymous author of the epistle to the unknown Docetus; as, for instance, when he says, 'Christians live in the world, but are not of the world,' and He sent his only-begotten Son as loving not condemning.' But as this writer, whilst claiming to be the disciple of Apostles, stands self-convicted of deception by his contempt for the Mosaic dispensation, his consequently undated epistle furnishes no clue to the era of Johannine authorship.

A more important coincidence occurs in Justin Martyr: Christ said, "Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." But, as Justin sustains the identity of Jesus with the ideal Logos of Plato, in absolute independence of Johannine theosophy, he was obviously ignorant of the fourth Gospel in its present form; and the exceptional passage in question, therefore, simply indicates the currency of traditional sayings of Jesus, available for any Christian

1 1 Apol. lxi.

writer of the second century, or possibly, the existence of some other gospel, from which Pseudo-John selected. materials for fusion with his ideal Gnosticism.

Orthodox theologians further say: The fourth Gospel was undoubtedly recognised, in the last quarter of the second century, as the work of John; if it is alleged that the author is not John, we demand an explanation of its existence and reception at that period as the work of the apostle.' We answer, the Book of Enoch was accepted in the second century as the work of Enoch; if, therefore, orthodox theologians of the nineteenth century reject its antediluvian origin, let them forthwith name the veritable author, and explain the success of this literary forgery. This line of argument is equally applicable to a wide range of pseudonymous literature, from the Wisdom of Solomon to the Apocalypse of John; but, passing to a later date, we merely add, do orthodox theologians believe in the Athanasian authorship of the anathematic Creed, and if not, can they explain its introduction into the faith of Christendom on apparently false pretences?

Notwithstanding the hopelessness of rationally assigning an apostolic date to the fourth Gospel, faith triumphs where reason fails, and modern piety accepts this evangelical fiction as the veritable autogram of the apostle John. Grant that faith is right and reason wrong, to what conclusions do we attain through a Johannine gospel? Its author had been the friend and companion of Jesus, witnessing a noble life which, in its simple submission to the will of the Deity, disclosed no trace of pretension to Divinity; but having settled at