in Justin's writings; but it seems plain that
the following is a free quotation from chapter 3:3-5: "For
Christ said, Except ye be born again, ye shall by no means enter
into the kingdom of heaven. But that it is impossible that they
who have once been born should enter into the wombs of those who
bare them is manifest to all." Apol. 1. 61. To affirm that a
passage so peculiar as this was borrowed by both the evangelist
John and Justin from a common tradition, is to substitute a very
improbable for a very natural explanation. Besides, Justin uses
phraseology peculiar to John, repeatedly calling our Saviour
"the Word of God," and "the Word made flesh;" affirming that he
"was in a peculiar sense begotten the only Son of God," "an only
begotten One to the Father of all things, being in a peculiar
sense begotten of him as Word and Power, and afterwards made man
through the Virgin;" and calling him "the good Rock that sends
forth (literally, causes to _bubble forth_--compare John 4:14)
living waters into the hearts of those who through him have
loved the Father of all things, and that gives to all who will
the water of life to drink." These and other references to John
may be seen in Kirchhofer's Quellensammlung, pp. 146, 147.

8. Another early witness is _Papias_, who was bishop of Hierapolis, in
Phrygia, in the first half of the second century. He wrote "An
Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord," in five books. This work has
perished; but fragments of it, with notices of its contents, are
preserved to us by Eusebius and other writers. As Papias, according to
his own express testimony, gathered his materials, if not from apostles
themselves, yet from their immediate disciples, his statements are
invested with great interest. Of Matthew he says, Eusebius Hist. Eccl.,
5. 39, that he "wrote the oracles in the Hebrew dialect, and every one
interpreted them as he could." He speaks of this interpretation by each
one as he could as something past, implying that in his day our present
Greek gospel of Matthew (of the apostolic authority of which there was
never any doubt in the early churches) was in circulation, whether it
was or was not originally composed in Hebrew, a question on which
learned men are not agreed. Of Mark he affirms that, "having become
Peter's interpreter, he wrote down accurately as many things as he
remembered; not recording in order th