(9) In the Testaments of tlte XII Patriarchs, a Jewish Christian puts into the mouths of the founders of the Jewish race Christian counsels and consolations. Sinker, who edits and trans- lates it for the Ante-Nicene Lib., places it at the end of the Ist or beginning of the 2nd cent. Many now regard it as a Jewish work edited for Christian readers. The Saviour is spoken of a^ Light of the world,' 'the Son of God, 'the only Son,' ' the Lamb of God,' and ' the Spirit of truth'; 'Sin unto death' (cf. 1 Jn 5") is referred to ; ' eating of the tree of life ' (Rev 2')^all phrases which reveal the presence of the Jobannine thought and expression.
(10) Tht Dxdacht of the Twtlvt Apostles may prove to be the most ancient of the post-apost. literature. It is referred to by Clement of Alex- andria, who cites it as 'Scripture.' The simplicity of the style and the entire absence of any refer- ence to the Ebionite or Gnostic heresies prove that it most have been antecedent to Irenaens or Justin.
The Ep. of Barnabas, which may have been written between A.D. 100 and 120, contains a confessed expansion of the earlier portions of the Didachi. A comparison of these related passages (see Bryennios' ed. of the Didacht and Schaff's Oldest Church Manual, where they are placed side by side, p. 228 fl".) has convinced almost all Eng. and Amer. scholars, as well as Zahn, Funk, Langen, of the priority of the Didachi.
The date of Herma,s' Shepherd is very variously estimated, but, as in the case of Barnabas, what is common to the two documents is most certainly earber than the Shepherd (Schafi", p. 233).
We are brought by the Didachi into thn midst of the movements of the early Church. It con- tains quotations from the Gospels of Mt md Lk. Tliougli we cannot say that the writer had the Fourtli Gospel in his liands, yet Hamack admits the striking connexion between the Eucharistic prayers of chs. 9 and 10 with Jn 6 and 17.
John (1") used the remarkable word taidiyuaef it denote the dwelling in (with) us of the ' Word made flesh.' See here Did. x. 2. Christ, ' / am the true Vine, and my Father is the husband- man ' : cf . Did. ix. 2, ' We give thanks to Thee, our Father, for the Holy Vine of Thy servant David, which Thou hast made known through Thy sen-ant Jesus.' Cf. also Jn 15" and 17*" with Did. ix. 2, 3 and x. 2. There are, moreover, striking resemblances between 1 Jn 2'- " and Did. X. 5, 6. Much of this teaching obviously jioiiits to a community familiar with Johannino teaching.
(U) The use which Hekmas is 6U|)iiosed to have made of the four Gospels, and his adojition of the phraseology of the Fourth, have been diligently investigated by Dr. C. Taylor in his Witness of Sermas to the Four Gospels, 1892. The argument turns on the special style and method of Hermas. He translates into some synonymous or symbolic expression ideas dill'er- entlj- phrased by Clemens II. Ancient IlomiJt/, the Didachi, or ad Diognetum. Thus in the Shepherd oT-yeXla dya6i/i takes the place of ciny- yiXiov. In Vision iii. and Similit. ix. the earliest suggestion of necessary fourfoldness of the Gospels corresponds with the fourfoldness with which all the universe is compacted [a theory found in Plato and Arist. A'ic. Eth. I. x. 11, rerpiyufot dvev xpdyov]. The four cherubic figures, the four pillars on which the Chri.st is seated, the Old and New Gate into the Symbolic Tower, are all sup- posed by Taylor to have been borrowed by Irena'us from Hermas, rather than the other way. The process by which the writer establishes scores of references by Hermas to the Fourth Gospel is a subtle one, and does not carry conviction, except perhaps as to the existence of the tetrad of Gospels a generation before Irenaeus wrought out the comparison.
External evidences of the use of the Fourth Gospel by the enemies of Christianity and by welt-knovm leaders of Gnostic heresies must not be passed over in this rapid recital. We will, in re\'iewing this ertdence, commence with the later testimonies, and press upwards through the century.
(1) Csiaus WM probably no other than OelsuB the friend of Lucian, an Epicurean. He was the author of the >.yyet itXr6r.i to which Orijjen replied in the 3rd cent. He waa a bitter enemy of the Christian faith, but from Origen'8 ^reat work it appears that he waa intimately acquainted with the four Gospels. He lived about a.d. 178, and thus shows not only that these worlu were be^nnnintj to be recognized as of paramount authority, but that they were known as such by heathen controversialists.
Oripen (c. Ctlgum, L 60) tells us that Celsus accused Christiana of believiuK that *the Son of God is come down from heaven' (see Jn SS' 8«). In i. 67 Origen quotes from Celsus, 'Thou bast made no manifestation, although they challenged thee in the temple to exhibit some unmistakable sign that thou wert Son of God ' (cf. Jn 219 loM). In i. 70 Celsus objected that the body of a God could not be thirsting at the well of Jacob, or eating broiled Bsh and honeycomb (Jn 46'-, Lk 24*2). U. 81 says that Celsus objected that Christians are in error who 'declare that the Logos is Son of God, when they present no pure and holy Logos, but a degraded man punished by scourging and crucifixion. In ii. 36 Celsus referred to the ichor flowing in Ctie veins of the crucified; which is a reflection of Jn 19^ sa. The Fourth Gospel must have been widely diffused for a heathen writer about A. I). 178 to have made this use of it.