made to this work in an old Latin argument prefixed to the Gospel in a MS. of the ninth century, which says: “The Gospel of John was revealed and given to the churches by John while he still remained in the body, as one named Papias of Hierapolis, a beloved disciple of John, related in his five books of expositions ”’.
The testimony of heretics is equally decisive. From the decade A.D. 160-170 we receive a significant witness in the commentary on the Gospel of John by Heracleon, a pupil or companion of Valentinus,* (γνώριµον is Origen’s word). Mr. Brooke, who edited the extant portions of this commentary for Armitage Robinson’s Texts and Studies, arrives at the conclusion that it must be dated shortly after the death of Valentinus, that is to say, not much later than A.D. 160. ‘The rise of commentaries shows an advanced stage in the history of the text of the Fourth Gospel” (Lightfoot, Bzbl. Essays, p. 111). And the reason for Heracleon’s choosing this Gospel as the subject of a commentary is that Valentinus and his school borrowed from it much of their phraseology, and hoped by putting their own interpretation on it to gain currency for their views. We have, then, this remarkable circumstance that shortly after the middle of the second century the Fourth Gospel occupied such a position of authority in the Church that the Gnostics con- sidered it of importance to secure its voice in favour of their views. No wonder that even Volkmar should exclaim: “Ah! Great God! if between Α.Ρ. 125 and 155 a commentary was composed on John’s Gospel such as that of which Origen has preserved considerable extracts, what yet remains to be discussed? It is very certain that it is all over with the critical thesis of the composition of the Fourth Gospel in the middle of the second century.” ?
But there is evidence that even an earlier Gnostic teacher made use of this Gospel. Hippolytus (Philos., vii., 22), in giving an account of the opinions of Basileides, who flourished at Alexandria about the year A.D. 125, quotes him in the following terms: “ This,” says he (t.e., Basileides), “is that which is said in the Gospels, ‘That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world’ ”. The words are cited precisely as they stand in the Fourth Gospel, and as they are not words of Jesus, which might have been handed down through some other channel, but words of the evangelist himself, they prove that the Gospel existed before the year a.p. 125, The attempt to evade this conclusion by the suggestion that
1 Valentinus himself used “ integro instrumento,” the whole N.T. as Tertullian received it. Tert., Praescr., 38. 2 See Reynolds, Pulpit Com., p. 20.