ble here. On the
contrary, that Heracleon should have written a commentary on the
fourth Gospel falls in entirely with what Irenaeus says as to the
large use that was made of that Gospel by the Valentinians.

* * * * *

As we approach the end of the third and beginning of the fourth
quarter of the second century the evidence for the fourth Gospel
becomes widespread and abundant. At this date we have attention
called to the discrepancy between the Gospels as to the date of
the Crucifixion by Claudius Apollinaris. We have also Tatian, the
Epistle of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, the heathen Celsus
and the Muratorian Canon, and then a very few years later
Theophilus of Antioch and Irenaeus.

I imagine that there can be really no doubt about Tatian. Whatever
may have been the nature of the Diatessaron, the 'Address to the
Greeks' contains references which it is mere paradox to dispute. I
will not press the first of these which is given by Dr. Westcott,
not because I do not believe that it is ultimately based upon the
fourth Gospel, still less that there is the slightest contradiction
to St. John's doctrine, but because Tatian's is a philosophical comment
perhaps a degree too far removed from the original to be quite
producible as evidence. It is one of the earliest speculations as to
the ontological relation between the Father and the Son. In the
beginning God was alone--though all things were with Him potentially.
By the mere act of volition He gave birth to the Logos, who was the
real originative cause of things. Yet the existence of the Logos was
not such as to involve a separation of identity in the Godhead; it
involved no diminution in Him from whom the Logos issued. Having been
thus first begotten, the Logos in turn begat our creation, &c. The
Logos is thus represented as being at once prior to creation (the
Johannean [Greek: en archae]) and the efficient cause of it--which is
precisely the doctrine of the Prologue.

The other two passages are however quite unequivocal.

_Orat. ad Graecos_, c. xiii.

And this is therefore that saying: The darkness comprehends not
the light.

[Greek: Kai touto estin ara to eiraemenon Hae skotia to phos ou
katalambanei.]

_John_ i. 5.

And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness
comprehended it not.

[Greek: Kai to phos en tae skotia phainei, kai hae skotia auto ou
katelaben.]

On this there is the following comment i