hardly doubt, as Dr. Lightfoot after Routh has shown [Endnote 144:1], the Gnostics, though Hegesippus would seem to have forgotten I Cor. ii. 9.  The anti-Pauline position assigned to Hegesippus on the strength of this is, we must say, untenable.  But for the present we are concerned rather with the second quotation, which agrees closely with Matt. xiii. 26 ([Greek:  humon de makarioi hoi ophthalmoi hoti blepousin, kai ta ota humon hoti akouousin]).  The form of the quotation has a slightly nearer resemblance to Luke x. 23 ([Greek:  makarioi hoi ophthalmoi hoi blepontes ha blepete k.t.l.]), but the marked difference in the remainder of the Lucan passage increases the presumption that Hegesippus is quoting from the first Gospel [Endnote 144:2].

The use of the phrase [Greek:  ton theion graphon] is important and remarkable.  There is not, so far as I am aware, any instance of so definite an expression being applied to an apocryphal Gospel.  It would tend to prepare us for the strong assertion of the Canon of the Gospels in Irenaeus; it would in fact mark the gradually culminating process which went on in the interval which separated Irenaeus from Justin.  To this interval the evidence of Hegesippus must be taken to apply, because though writing like Irenaeus under Eleutherus (from 177 A.D.) he was his elder contemporary, and had been received with high respect in Rome as early as the episcopate of Anicetus (157-168 A.D.).

The relations in which Hegesippus describes himself as standing to the Churches and bishops of Corinth and Rome seem to be decisive as to his substantial orthodoxy.  This would give reason to think that he made use of our present Gospels, and the few quotations that have come down to us confirm that view not inconsiderably, though by themselves they might not be quite sufficient to prove it.

There is one passage that may be thought to point to an apocryphal Gospel, ’From these arose false Christs, false prophets, false apostles;’ which recalls a sentence in the Clementines, ’For there shall be, as the Lord said, false apostles, false prophets, heresies, ambitions.’  It is not, however, nearer to this than to the canonical parallel, Matt. xxiv. 24 (’There shall arise false Christs and false prophets’).

2.

In turning from Hegesippus to Papias we come at last to what seems to be a definite and satisfactory statement as to the origin of two at least of the Synoptic Gospels, and to what is really the most enigmatic and tantalizing of all the patristic utterances.

Like Hegesippus, Papias may be described as ’an ancient and apostolic man,’ and appears to have better deserved the title.  He is said to have suffered martyrdom under M. Aurelius about the same time as Polycarp, 165-167 A.D. [Endnote 145:1] He wrote a commentary on the Discourses or more properly Oracles of the Lord, from which Eusebius extracted what seemed to him ‘memorable’ statements respecting the origin of the first and second Gospels.  ‘Matthew,’