me.' If
this had been the sense we should have had some such word as
'recentius' instead of 'nuperrime.' The argument of 'Supernatural
Religion' [Endnote 265:2], that 'in supposing that the writer may
have appropriately used the phrase thirty or forty years after the
time of Pius so much licence is taken that there is absolutely no
reason why a still greater interval may not be allowed,' is
clearly playing fast and loose with language, and doing so for no
good reason; for the only ground for assigning a later date is
that the earlier one is inconvenient for the critic's theory. The
other indications tally quite sufficiently with the date 170-190
A.D. Basilides, Valentinus, Marcion, the Marcionites, we know were
active long before this period. The Montanists (who appear under
the name by which they were generally known in the earlier
writings, 'Cataphryges') were beginning to be notorious, and are
mentioned in the letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons.
Miltiades was a contemporary of Claudius Apollinaris who wrote
against him [Endnote 266:1]. All the circumstances point to such a
date as that of Irenaeus, and the conception of the Canon is very
similar to that which we should gather from the great work
'Against Heresies.' If this does not agree with preconceived
opinions as to what the state of the Canon ought to have been, it
is the opinion that ought to be rectified accordingly, and not
plain words explained away.

I can see no sound objection to the date 170-180 A.D., but by
adding ten years to this we shall reach the extreme limit
admissible.

I do not know whether it is necessary to refer to the objection
from the absence of any mention of the first two Synoptic Gospels,
through the mutilated state of the document. It is true that the
inference that they were originally mentioned rests only 'upon
conjecture' [Endnote 266:2], but it is the kind of conjecture
that, taking all things into consideration--the extent to which
the evidence of the fragment in other respects corresponds with
the Catholic tradition, the state of the Canon in Irenaeus, the
relation of the evidence for the first Gospel in particular to
that for the others--can be reckoned at very little less than
ninety-nine chances out of a hundred.

To the same class belongs Dr. Donaldson's suggestion [Endnote 267:1]
that the passage which contains the indication of date may be an
interpolation. It is always possible that the particular passage
th