ch
with the Ignatian Epistles and the external evidence for which it
is so hard to resist, testifies to the fourth Gospel through the
so-called first Epistle. That this Epistle is really by the same
author as the Gospel is not indeed absolutely undoubted, but I
imagine that it is as certain as any fact of literature can be.
The evidence of style and diction is overwhelming [Endnote 277:1].
We may set side by side the two passages which are thought to be
parallel.

_Ep. ad Phil_. c. vii.

[Greek: Pas gar hos an mae homologae Iaesoun Christon en sarki
elaeluthenai antichristos esti; kai hos an mae homologae to
marturion tou staurou ek tou diabolou esti; kai hos an methodeuae
ta logia tou Kuriou pros tas idias epithumias, kai legae maete
anastasin maete krisin einai, outos prototokos esti tou Satana.]

1 _John_ vi. 2, 3.

[Greek: Pan pneuma ho homologei Iaesoun Christon en sarki
elaeluthota ek tou Theou estin. Kai pan pneuma ho mae homologei
tou Iaesoun ek tou Theou ouk estin, kai touto estin to tou
antichristou, k.t.l.]

This is precisely one of those passages where at a superficial
glance we are inclined to think that there is no parallel, but
where a deeper consideration tends to convince us of the opposite.
The suggestion of Dr. Scholten cannot indeed be quite excluded,
that both writers I have adopted a formula in use in the early
Church against various heretics' [Endnote 277:2]. But if such a
formula existed it is highly probable that it took its rise from
St. John's Epistle. This passage of the Epistle of Polycarp is the
earliest instance of the use of the word 'Antichrist' outside the
Johannean writings in which, alone of the New Testament, it occurs
five times. Here too it occurs in conjunction with other
characteristic phrases, [Greek: homologein, en sarki elaeluthenai,
ek tou diabolou]. The phraseology and turns of expression in these
two verses accord so entirely with those of the rest of the
Epistle and of the Gospel that we must needs take them to be the
original work of the writer and not a quotation, and we can hardly
do otherwise than see an echo of them in the words of Polycarp.

There is naturally a certain hesitation in using evidence for the
Epistle as available also for the Gospel, but I have little doubt
that it may justly so be used and with no real diminution of its
force. The chance that the Epistle had a separate author is too
small to be practically worth considering.

This then will