On Basilides (teaching c.  A.D. 135) and Valentinus (A.D. 140), two of the early Gnostic teachers, we need not delay, for there is scarcely anything left of their writings, and all we know of them is drawn from the writings of their antagonists; it is claimed that they knew and made use of the canonical Gospels, and Canon Westcott urges this view of Basilides, but the writer of “Supernatural Religion” characterises this plea “as unworthy of a scholar, and only calculated to mislead readers who must generally be ignorant of the actual facts of the case” (vol. ii., p. 42).  Basilides says that he received his doctrine from Glaucias, the “interpreter of Peter,” and “it is apparent, however, that Basilides, in basing his doctrines on these apocryphal books as inspired, and upon tradition, and in having a special Gospel called after his own name, which, therefore, he clearly adopts as the exponent of his ideas of Christian truth, absolutely ignores the canonical Gospels altogether, and not only does not offer any evidence for their existence, but proves that he did not recognise any such works as of authority.  Therefore, there is no ground whatever for Tischendorf’s assumption that the Commentary of Basilides ‘On the Gospel’ was written upon our Gospels, but that idea is, on the contrary, negatived in the strongest way by all the facts of the case” ("Sup.  Rel.,” vol. ii., pp. 45, 46).  Both with this ancient heretic, as with Valentinus, it is impossible to distinguish what is ascribed to him from what is ascribed to his followers, and thus evidence drawn from either of them is weaker even than usual.

Marcion, the greatest heretic of the second century, ought to prove a useful witness to the Christians if the present Gospels had been accepted in his time as canonical.  He was the son of the Christian Bishop of Sinope, in Pontus, and taught in Rome for some twenty years, dating from about A.D. 140.  Only one Gospel was acknowledged by him, and fierce has been the controversy as to what this Gospel was.  It is only known to us through his antagonists, who generally assert that the Gospel used by him was the third Synoptic, changed and adapted to suit his heretical views.  Paley says, “This rash and wild controversialist published a recension or chastised edition of St. Luke’s Gospel” ("Evidences,” p. 167), but does not condescend to give us the smallest reason for so broad an assertion.  This question has, however, been thoroughly debated among German critics, the one side maintaining that Marcion mutilated Luke’s Gospel, the other that Marcion’s Gospel was earlier than Luke’s, and that Luke’s was made from it; while some, again, maintained that both were versions of an older original.  From this controversy we may conclude that there was a strong likeness between Marcion’s Gospel and the third Synoptic, and that it is impossible to know which is the earlier of the two.  The resolution of the question is made hopeless by the fact that “the