an hundred fold and those who bear sixty and those who bear thirty, some of whom shall be carried off into the Heavens, some shall stay in Paradise, and some shall dwell in the City.  And for this reason, [they say that] the Lord declared ([Greek:  eipaekenai]) that in my Father’s [realm] are many mansions; for all things [are] of God, who gives to all the fitting habitation:  even as His Word saith (ait), that to all is allotted by the Father as each is or shall be worthy.  And this is (est) the couch upon which they shall recline who are bidden to His marriage supper.  That this is (esse) the order and disposition of the saved, the Presbyters, disciples of the Apostles, say,’ etc.

That Irenaeus is here merely giving the ‘exegesis of his own day,’ as the author of ‘Supernatural Religion’ suggests [Endnote 297:2], is not for a moment tenable.  Irenaeus does indeed interpose for two sentences (Omnia enim... ad nuptias) to give his own comment on the saying of the Presbyters; but these are sharply cut off from the rest by the use of the present indicative instead of the infinitive.  There can be no question at all that the quotation ’in My Father’s realm are many mansions’ [Greek:  en tois ton Patros mon monas einai pollas] belongs to the Presbyters, and there can be but little doubt that these Presbyters are the same as those spoken of as ‘disciples of the Apostles.’

Whether they were also ‘the Presbyters’ referred to as his authority by Papias is quite a secondary and subordinate question.  Considering the Chiliastic character of the passage, the conjecture [Endnote 298:1] that they were does not seem to me unreasonable.  This however we cannot determine positively.  It is quite enough that Irenaeus evidently attributes to them an antiquity considerably beyond his own; that, in fact, he looks upon them as supplying the intermediate link between his age and that of the Apostles.

* * * * *

Two quotations from the fourth Gospel are attributed to Basilides, both of them quite indisputable as quotations.  The first is found in the twenty-second chapter of the seventh book of the ‘Refutation,’ ’That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world [Endnote 298:2] ([Greek:  aen to phos to alaethinon, o photizei panta anthropon erchomenon eis ton kosmon] = John i. 9), and the second in the twenty-seventh chapter, ’My hour is not yet come’ ([Greek:  oupo aekei aeora mon] = John ii. 4).  Both of these passages are instances of the exegesis by which the Basilidian doctrines were defended.

The real question is here, as in regard to the Synoptics, whether the quotations were made by Basilides himself or by his disciples, ‘Isidore and his crew.’  The second instance I am disposed to think may possibly be due to the later representatives of this school, because, though the quotation is introduced by [Greek:  phaesi] in the singular, and though Basilides himself can in no case be excluded, still there is nothing in the chapter to identify the subject of [Greek:  phaesi] specially with him, and in the next sentence Hippolytus writes, ’This is that which they understand ([Greek:  ho kat’ autous nenoaemenos]) by the inner spiritual man,’ &c.  But the earlier instance is different.  There Basilides himself does seem to be specially singled out.