been any question on the subject. A
comparison of the other Synoptic parallels, and of the Septuagint
in the case of the quotation from Isaiah, will make the agreement
with the Matthaean text still more conspicuous. It is instructive
to notice the reproduction of the most characteristic features of
this text--[Greek: polis, meristheisa] ([Greek: ean meristhae]
Mark, [Greek: diameristheisa] Luke), [Greek: hoti Mousaes,
epetrepsen apolu[sai] t[as] gunaik[as], ou gegonen oitos,
aekurosate .. dia taen p., ophthalmon ... odontos, antistaenai to
ponaero, strepson], and the order and cast of sentence in all the
quotations. The first quotation, with [Greek: eph eautaen] and
[Greek: dunatai staenai], which may be compared (though, from the
context, somewhat doubtfully) with Mark, presents, I believe, the
only trace of the influence of any other text.

To what period in the life of Ptolemaeus this Epistle to Flora may
have belonged we have no means of knowing; but it is unlikely that
the writer should have used one set of documents at one part of
his life and another set at another. Viewed along with so much
confirmatory matter in the account of the Valentinians by
Irenaeus, the evidence may be taken as that of Ptolemaeus himself
rather than of this single letter.

2.

The question in regard to Celsus, whose attacks upon Christianity
called forth such an elaborate reply from Origen, is chiefly one
of date. To go into this at once adequately and independently
would need a much longer investigation than can be admitted into
the present work. The subject has quite recently been treated in a
monograph by the well-known writer Dr. Keim [Endnote 260:1], and,
as there will be in this case no suspicion of partiality, I shall
content myself with stating Dr. Keim's conclusions.

Origen himself, Dr. Keim thinks, was writing under the Emperor
Philip about A.D. 248. But he regards his opponent Celsus, not as
a contemporary, but as belonging to a past age (Contra Celsum, i.
8, vii. 11), and his work as nothing recent, but rather as having
obtained a certain celebrity in heathen literature (v. 3). For all
this it had to be disinterred, as it were, and that not without
difficulty, by a Christian (viii. 76).

Exact and certain knowledge however about Celsus Origen did not
possess. He leans to the opinion that his opponent was an
Epicurean of that name who lived 'under Hadrian and later' (i. 8).
This Epicurea