I shall have something to say presently about the coincidences with Papias in this passage. For the moment I wish to call attention to the account which the writer gives of the origin of St John's Gospel [190:1]. There may be some legendary matter mixed up with this account; the interposition of Andrew and the dream of John may or may not have been historical facts; but its general tenor agrees remarkably with the results yielded by an examination of the Gospel itself. Yet it must be regarded as altogether independent. To suppose otherwise would be to ascribe to the writer in the second century an amount of critical insight and investigation which would do no dishonour to the nineteenth. But there is also another point of importance to my immediate subject. The writer detaches the First Epistle of St John from the Second and Third, and connects it with the Gospel. Either he himself, or some earlier authority whom he copied, would appear to have used a manuscript in which it occupied this position.
But our author attempts to invalidate the testimony of Eusebius respecting the use of the First Epistle by Papias. He wrote in his earlier editions:—
As Eusebius however does not quote the passages from Papias, we must remain in doubt whether he did not, as elsewhere, assume from some similarity of wording that the passages were quotations from these Epistles, whilst in reality they might not be. Eusebius made a similar statement with regard to a supposed quotation in the so-called Epistle of Polycarp (^5) upon very insufficient grounds [191:1].
In my article on the Silence of Eusebius [191:2], I challenged him to produce any justification of his assertion 'as elsewhere.' I stated, and I emphasized the statement, that 'Eusebius in no instance which we can test gives a doubtful testimony.' I warned him that, if I were not proved to be wrong in this statement, I should use the fact hereafter. In the preface to his new edition he has devoted twelve pages to my article on Eusebius; and he is silent on this point.
Of his silence I have no right to complain. If he had nothing to say, he has acted wisely. But there is another point in the paragraph quoted above, which demands more serious consideration. In my article [191:3] I offered the conjecture that our author had been guilty of a confusion here. I called attention to his note (^5) which runs, 'Ad Phil. vii.; Euseb. H.E. iv. 14,' and I wrote:—
The passage of Eusebius to which our author refers in this note relates how Polycarp 'has employed certain testimonies from the First (former) Epistle of Peter.' The chapter of Polycarp, to which he refers, contains a reference to the First Epistle of St John, which has been alleged by modern writers, but is not alleged by Eusebius. This same chapter, it is true, contains the words 'Watch unto prayer,' which presents a coincidence with 1 Pet. iv. 7. But no one would lay any stress on this one expression: the strong and unquestionable coincidences are elsewhere. Moreover our author speaks of a single 'supposed quotation,' whereas the quotations from 1 Peter in Polycarp are numerous.
I then pointed out ten other coincidences with the First Epistle of St Peter, scattered through Polycarp's Epistle. Some of these are verbal; almost all of them are much more striking and cogent than the resemblance in c. vii. Our author will not allow the error, but replies in his preface:—
I regret very much that some ambiguity in my language (S.R. I. p. 483) should have misled, and given Dr Lightfoot much trouble. I used the word 'quotation' in the sense of a use of the Epistle of Peter, and not in reference to any one sentence in Polycarp. I trust that in this edition I have made my meaning clear [192:1].
Accordingly, in the text, he substitutes for the latter sentence the words:—
Eusebius made a similar statement with regard to the use of the Epistle of Peter in the so-called Epistle of Polycarp, upon no more definite grounds than an apparent resemblance of expressions [192:2].