But we are carried back one step further still.  It is not only Ptolemaeus but Ptolemaeus and his party ([Greek:  hoi peri Ptolemaion]) [Endnote 256:1].  There has been time for Ptolemaeus to found a school within a school of his own; and his school has already begun to express its opinions, either collectively or through its individual members.

In this way the real date of Ptolemaeus seems still to recede, but I will not endeavour any further to put a numerical value upon it which might be thought to be prejudiced.  It will be best for the reader to fill up the blank according to his own judgment.

Heracleon will to a certain extent go with Ptolemaeus, with whom he is persistently coupled, though, as he is only mentioned once by Irenaeus, the data concerning him are less precise.  They are however supplemented by an allusion in the fourth book of the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria (which appears to have been written in the last decade of the century) to Heracleon as one of the chief of the school of Valentinus [Endnote 257:1], and perhaps also by a statement of Origen to the effect that Heracleon was said to be a [Greek:  gnorimos] of Valentinus himself [Endnote 257:2].  The meaning of the latter term is questioned, and it is certainly true that it may stand for pupil or scholar, as Elisha was to Elijah or as the Apostles were to their Master; but that it could possibly be applied to two persons who never came into personal contact must be, I cannot but think, very doubtful.  This then, if true, would throw back Heracleon some little way even beyond 160 A.D.

From the passage in the Stromateis we gather that Heracleon, if he did not (as is usually inferred) write a commentary, yet wrote an isolated exposition of a portion of St. Luke’s Gospel.  In the same way we learn from Origen that he wrote a commentary upon St. John.

We shall probably not be wrong in referring many of the Valentinian quotations given by Irenaeus to Ptolemaeus and Heracleon.  By the first writer we also have extant an Epistle to a disciple called Flora, which has been preserved by Epiphanius.  This Epistle, which there is no reason to doubt, contains unequivocal references to our first Gospel.

Epistle to Flora.  Epiph.  Haer. 217 A.

[Greek:  oikia gar ae polis meristheisa eph’ heautaen hoti mae dunatai staenai [ho sotaer haemon apephaenato].]

Ibid. 217 D.

[Greek:  [ephae autois hoti] Mousaes pros taen sklaerokardian humon epetrepse to apoluein taen gunaika autou.  Ap’ archaes gar ou gegonen houtos.  Theos gar (phaesi) sunezeuxe tautaen taen suzugian kai ho sunezeuxen ho kurios, anthropos (ephae) mae chorizeto.]

Ibid. 218 D.

[Greek:  ho gar Theos (phaesin) eipe tima ton patera sou kai taen maetera sou, hina eu soi genaetai; humeis de (phaesin) eiraekate (tois presbuterois legon), doron to Theo ho ean ophelaethaes ex emou, kai aekurosate ton nomon tou Theou, dia taen paradosin humon ton presbuteron.  Touto de Haesaias exephonaesen eipon; ho laos houtos tois cheilesi me tima hae de kardia auton porro apechei ap’ emou.  Mataen de sebontai me, didaskontes didaskalias, entalmata anthropon.]