It is perhaps hardly worth while to delay over the Epistle to Diognetus:  not that I do not believe the instances alleged by Tischendorf and Dr. Westcott [Endnote 295:1] to be in themselves sound, but because there exists too little evidence to determine the date of the Epistle, and because it may be doubted whether the argument for the use of the fourth Gospel in the Epistle can be expressed strongly in an objective form.  The allusions in question are not direct quotations, but are rather reminiscences of language.  The author of ‘Supernatural Religion’ has treated them as if they were the former [Endnote 296:1]; he has enquired into the context &c., not very successfully.  But such enquiry is really out of place.  When the writer of the Epistle says, ’Christians dwell in the world but are not of the world’ [Greek:  ouk xisi de ek tou kosmou] = exactly John xvii. 14; note peculiar use of the preposition); ’For God loved men for whose sakes He made the world ... unto whom He sent His only begotten Son’ (= John iii. 16, ’God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son’); ’How will you love Him who so beforehand loved you’ [Greek:  proagapaesanta]; cf. i John iv. 19, [Greek:  protos aegapaesen] ’He sent His Son as wishing to save ... and not to condemn’ ([Greek:  sozon ... krinon] of.  John iii. 16),—­the probability is about as great that he had in his mind St. John’s language as it would be if the same phrases were to occur in a modern sermon.  It is a real probability; but not one that can be urged very strongly.

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Of more importance—­indeed of high importance—­is the evidence drawn from the remains of earlier writers preserved by Irenaeus and Hippolytus.  There is a clear reference to the fourth Gospel in a passage for which Irenaeus alleges the authority of certain ‘Presbyters,’ who at the least belonged to an elder generation than his own.  There can be little doubt indeed that they are the same as those whom he describes three sentences later and with only a momentary break in the oblique narration into which the passage is thrown, as ‘the Presbyters, disciples of the Apostles.’  It may be well to give the language of Irenaeus in full as it has been the subject of some controversy.  Speaking of the rewards of the just in the next world, he says [Endnote 297:1]:—­

’For Esaias says, “Like as the new heaven and new earth which I create remain before me, saith the Lord, so your seed and your name shall stand.”  And as the Presbyters say, then too those who are thought worthy to have their abode in Heaven shall go thither, and some shall enjoy the delights of Paradise, while others shall possess the splendour of the City; for everywhere the Saviour shall be seen according as they shall be worthy who look upon Him. [So far the sentence has been in oratio recta, but here it becomes oblique.] And [they say] that there is this distinction in dwelling between those who bear fruit