tally quite sufficiently with the date 170-190 A.D.  Basilides, Valentinus, Marcion, the Marcionites, we know were active long before this period.  The Montanists (who appear under the name by which they were generally known in the earlier writings, ‘Cataphryges’) were beginning to be notorious, and are mentioned in the letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons.  Miltiades was a contemporary of Claudius Apollinaris who wrote against him [Endnote 266:1].  All the circumstances point to such a date as that of Irenaeus, and the conception of the Canon is very similar to that which we should gather from the great work ‘Against Heresies.’  If this does not agree with preconceived opinions as to what the state of the Canon ought to have been, it is the opinion that ought to be rectified accordingly, and not plain words explained away.

I can see no sound objection to the date 170-180 A.D., but by adding ten years to this we shall reach the extreme limit admissible.

I do not know whether it is necessary to refer to the objection from the absence of any mention of the first two Synoptic Gospels, through the mutilated state of the document.  It is true that the inference that they were originally mentioned rests only ’upon conjecture’ [Endnote 266:2], but it is the kind of conjecture that, taking all things into consideration—­the extent to which the evidence of the fragment in other respects corresponds with the Catholic tradition, the state of the Canon in Irenaeus, the relation of the evidence for the first Gospel in particular to that for the others—­can be reckoned at very little less than ninety-nine chances out of a hundred.

To the same class belongs Dr. Donaldson’s suggestion [Endnote 267:1] that the passage which contains the indication of date may be an interpolation.  It is always possible that the particular passage that happens to be important in any document of this date may be an interpolation, but the chances that it really is so must be in any case very slight, and here there is no valid reason for suspecting interpolation.  It does not at all follow, as Dr. Donaldson seems to think, that because a document is mutilated therefore it is more likely to be interpolated; for interpolation is the result of quite a different series of accidents.  The interpolation, if it were such, could not well be accidental because it has no appearance of being a gloss; on the other hand, only far-fetched and improbable motives can be alleged for it as intentional.

The full statement of the fragment in regard to St. Luke’s Gospel is as follows.  ’Luke the physician after the Ascension of Christ, having been taken into his company by Paul, wrote in his own name to the best of his judgment (ex opinione), and, though he had not himself seen the Lord in the flesh, so far as he could ascertain; accordingly he begins his narrative with the birth of John.’  The greater part of this account appears to be taken simply from the Preface to the Gospel, which is supplemented