aef. 1; see also i. 3. 6: 'Not only do they attempt to
make their demonstrations from the Evangelical and Apostolic [writings]
by perverting the interpretations and falsifying the expositions [Greek:
exegeseis], but also from the law and the prophets; as ... being able to
wrest what is ambiguous into many [senses] by their exposition' [Greek:
dia tes exegeseos].

[161:1] Clem. Alex. _Strom._ vii. 17, p. 898.

[161:2] Compare also the language of Hippolytus respecting the books of
the Naassenes; _Haer._ v. 7, 'These are the heads of very numerous
discourses ([Greek: pollon panu logon]), which they say that James,'
etc.

[161:3] This same epithet 'foreign' ([Greek: allotrios]) is applied
several times in the Ignatian Epistles to the Gnostic teaching which the
writer is combating; _Rom._ inscr., _Trall._ 6, _Philad._ 3.

[161:4] Reasons are given by Dr Westcott in the fourth edition of his
_History of the Canon_ p. 288.

[Footnote 5] _Strom._ iv. 12, p. 599.

[162:1] The following passage in _Supernatural Religion_ is highly
instructive, as showing the inconsistencies involved in the author's
view (I. p. 485): 'It is not possible that he [Papias] could have found
it better to inquire "what John or Matthew, or what any other of the
disciples of the Lord ... say," if he had known of Gospels such as
ours,' ['and believed them to have been' inserted in the Complete
Edition] 'actually written by them, deliberately telling him what they
had to say. The work of Matthew which he mentions being, however, a mere
collection of discourses of Jesus, he might naturally inquire what the
Apostle himself said of the history of the Master.' Here the author
practically concedes the point for which I am contending, and which
elsewhere he resists; for he states that Papias as a sane man must, and
as a matter of fact did, prefer _a book_ to oral tradition. In other
words, he allows that when Papias disparages books (meaning Evangelical
records, such as the St Matthew of Papias was on _any_ showing), he
cannot intend all books of this class, but only such as our author
himself arbitrarily determines that he shall mean. This point is not at
all affected by the question whether the St Matthew of Papias did or did
not contain doings, as well as sayings, of Christ. The only escape from
these perplexities lies in supposing that a wholly different class of
books is intended, as I have explained in the text.

[163:1] _S.R._ I. p. 445. It is not