e we might very well have had the adverb
[Greek: amemptos], all point the same way. These fine edges of the
quotation, so to speak, must needs have been rubbed off in the
course of transmission through several documents. But there is
not a trace of any other document that contained such a remark
upon the character of Zacharias.

This instance of a Synoptic quotation may, I think, safely be
depended upon.

Another allusion, a little lower down in the Epistle, which speaks
of the same Vettius Epagathus as 'having in himself the Paraclete
[there is a play on the use of the word [Greek: paraklaetos] just
before], the Spirit, more abundantly than Zacharias,' though in
exaggerated and bad taste, probably has reference to Luke i. 67,
'And Zacharias his father was filled with the Holy Ghost,' &c.

[Footnote: Mr. Mason calls my attention to [Greek: enduma
numphikon] in Sec. 13, and also to the misleading statement in
_S.R._ ii. p. 201 that 'no writing of the New Testament is
directly referred to.' I should perhaps have more fault to find
with the sentence on p. 204, 'It follows clearly and few venture
to doubt,' &c. I have assumed however for some time that the
reader will be on his guard against expressions such as these.]

CHAPTER XI.

PTOLEMAEUS AND HERACLEON--CELSUS--THE MURATORIAN FRAGMENT.

We are now very near emerging into open daylight; but there are
three items in the evidence which lie upon the border of the
debateable ground, and as questions have been raised about these
it may be well for us to discuss them.

We have already had occasion to speak of the two Gnostics
Ptolemaeus and Heracleon. It is necessary, in the first place, to
define the date of their evidence with greater precision, and, in
the second, to consider its bearing.

Let us then, in attempting to do this, dismiss all secondary and
precarious matter; such as (1) the argument drawn by Tischendorf
[Endnote 254:1] from the order in which the names of the disciples
of Valentinus are mentioned and from an impossible statement of
Epiphanius which seems to make Heracleon older than Cerdon, and
(2) the argument that we find in Volkmar and 'Supernatural
Religion' [Endnote 254:2] from the use of the present tense by
Hippolytus, as if the two writers, Ptolemaeus and Heracleon, were
contemporaries of his own in 225-235 A.D. Hippolytus does indeed
say, speaking of a division in the school of Valentinus, 'Those
who are of Italy, of whom is Her