inues, 'admit the uncertainty [6:2].' As it
will be my misfortune hereafter to dispute not a few propositions which
'most critics' are agreed in maintaining, it is somewhat reassuring to
find that they are quite indifferent to the most elementary demands of
grammar [6:3].

The passage just discussed has a vital bearing on the main question at
issue, the date of the Fourth Gospel. The second example which I shall
take, though less important, is not without its value. As in the former
instance our author showed his indifference to moods, so here he is
equally regardless of tenses. He is discussing the heathen Celsus, who
shows an acquaintance with the Evangelical narratives, and whose date
therefore it is not a matter of indifference to ascertain. Origen, in
the preface to his refutation of Celsus, distinctly states that this
person had been long dead ([Greek: ede kai palai nekron]). In his first
book again he confesses his ignorance who this Celsus was, but is
disposed to identify him with a person of the name known to have
flourished about a century before his own time [7:1]. But at the close
of the last book [7:2], addressing his friend Ambrosius who had sent him
the work, and at whose instance he had undertaken the refutation, he
writes (or rather, he is represented by our author as writing) as
follows:--

'Know, however, that Celsus has promised to write another treatise
after this one.... If, therefore, he has not fulfilled his promise
to write a second book, we may well be satisfied with the eight
books in reply to his Discourse. If however, he has commenced and
finished this work also, seek it and send it in order that we may
answer it also, and confute the false teaching in it etc.' [7:3]

On the strength of the passage so translated, our author supposes that
Origen's impression concerning the date of Celsus had meanwhile been
'considerably modified', and remarks that he now 'treats him as a
contemporary'. Unfortunately however, the tenses, on which everything
depends, are freely handled in this translation. Origen does not say,
'Celsus _has promised_,' but 'Celsus _promises_' ([Greek:
epangellomenon]), _i.e._ in the treatise before him, for Origen's
knowledge was plainly derived from the book itself. And again, he does
not say 'If he _has not fulfilled_ his promise to write', but 'If he
_did not write_ as he undertook to do' ([Greek: egrapsen
huposchomenos]); nor 'if he _has comm