d the presbyters of
the Asian Church, which would make it not improbable that the
Gospel was retained for some time by the latter within their own
private circle before it was given to the Church at large.

We have the express statement of Irenaeus [Endnote 269:1], who, if
he was born as is commonly supposed at Smyrna about 140 A.D., must
be a good authority, that the Apostle St. John lived on till the
times of Trajan (98-117 A.D.). If so, it is very possible that the
Gospel was not yet published, or barely published, when Clement of
Rome wrote his Epistle to the Corinthians. Neither, considering
its almost esoteric character and the slow rate at which such a
work would travel at first, should we be very much surprised if it
was not in the hands of Barnabas (probably in Alexandria) and
Hermas (at Rome). In no case indeed could the silence of these two
writers be of much moment, as in the Epistle of Barnabas the
allusions to the New Testament literature are extremely few and
slight, while in the Shepherd of Hermas there are no clear and
certain references either to the Old Testament or the New
Testament at all.

And yet there is a lively controversy round these two names as to
whether or not they contain evidence for the fourth Gospel, and
that they do is maintained not only by apologists, but also by
writers of quite unquestionable impartiality like Dr. Keim. Dr.
Keim, it will be remembered, argues against the Johannean
authorship of the Gospel, and yet on this particular point he
seems to be almost an advocate for the side to which he is
opposed.

'Volkmar,' he says [Endnote 270:1], 'has recently spoken of Barnabas
as undeniably ignorant of the Logos-Gospel, and explained the early
date assigned to his Epistle by Ewald and Weizsaecker and now also
by Riggenbach as due to their perplexity at finding in it no trace
of St. John. There is room for another opinion. However much it
may be shown that Barnabas gives neither an incident nor a single
sentence from the Gospel, that he is unacquainted with the conception
of the Logos, that expressions like 'water and blood,' or the
Old Testament types of Christ, and especially the serpent reared
in the wilderness as an object of faith, are employed by him
independently--for all this the deeper order of conceptions in
the Epistle coincides in the gross or in detail so repeatedly with
the Gospel that science must either assume a connection between
them, or, if it leaves the pr