- Heretical testimonies. They all the more important in view of their dissent from Catholic
doctrine. It is remarkable that the heretics seem to have used and commented on the fourth Gospel
even before the Catholic writers. The Clementine Homilies, besides several allusions, very clearly
quote from the story of the man born blind, John 9:2, 3.^1071 The Gnostics of the second century,
especially the Valentinians and Basilidians, made abundant use of the fourth Gospel, which
alternately offended them by its historical realism, and attracted them by its idealism and mysticism.
Heracleon, a pupil of Valentinus, wrote a commentary on it, of which Origen has preserved large
extracts; Valentinus himself (according to Tertullian) tried either to explain it away, or he put his
own meaning into it. Basilides, who flourished about a.d. 125, quoted from the Gospel of John such
passages as the "true light, which enlighteneth every man was coming into the world" (John 1:9),
and, my hour is not yet come "(2:4).^1072
These heretical testimonies are almost decisive by themselves. The Gnostics would rather
have rejected the fourth Gospel altogether, as Marcion actually did, from doctrinal objection. They
certainly would not have received it from the Catholic church, as little as the church would have
received it from the Gnostics. The concurrent reception of the Gospel by both at so early a date is
conclusive evidence of its genuineness. "The Gnostics of that date," says Dr. Abbot,^1073 "received
it because they could not help it. They would not have admitted the authority of a book which could
be reconciled with their doctrines only by the most forced interpretation, if they could have destroyed
its authority by denying its genuineness. Its genuineness could then be easily ascertained. Ephesus
was one of the principal cities of the Eastern world, the centre of extensive commerce, the metropolis
of Asia Minor. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people were living who had known the apostle John.
The question whether he, the beloved disciple, had committed to writing his recollections of his
Master’s life and teaching, was one of the greatest interest. The fact of the reception of the fourth
Gospel as his work at so early a date, by parties so violently opposed to each other, proves that the
evidence of its genuineness was decisive. This argument is further confirmed by the use of the
Gospel by the opposing parties in the later Montanistic controversy, and in the disputes about the
time of celebrating Easter." - Heathen testimony. Celsus, in his book against Christianity, which was written about
a.d. 178 (according to Keim, who reconstructed it from the fragments preserved in the refutation
of Origen), derives his matter for attack from the four Gospels, though he does not name their
authors, and he refers to several details which are peculiar to John, as, among others, the blood
which flowed from the body of Jesus at his crucifixion (John 19:34), and the fact that Christ "after
his death arose and showed the marks of his punishment, and how his hands had been pierced"
(20:25, 27).^1074
The radical assertion of Baur that no distinct trace of the fourth Gospel can be found before
the last quarter of the second century has utterly broken down, and his own best pupils have been
forced to make one concession after another as the successive discoveries of the many Gnostic
(^1071) In the last portion of the book, discovered and first published by Dressel (XIX. 22). This discovery has induced Hilgenfeld
to retract his former denial of the quotations in the earlier books, Einleit. in d. N. T., p, 43 sq., note.
(^1072) See the Philosophumena of Hippolytus, VII. 22, 27; Hofstede de Groot, Basilides, trans. from the Dutch, Leipz, 1868; Hort,
Basilides, in Smith and Wace, I. 271; Abbot, l.c. 85 sqq.
(^1073) L. c., p. 89.
(^1074) See Keim, Celsus’ Wahres Wort, 1873, pp. 223-230, besides the older investigations of Lardner, Norton, Tholuck, and the
recent one of Dr. Abbot, l.c., 58 sq.
A.D. 1-100.