Besides a reference in Eusebius to his Apology, which hardly deserves the name of a quotation, only two short extracts remain of these voluminous writings. They are taken from the work on the Paschal Festival, and are preserved, as I have already stated, in the Paschal Chronicle.

The first runs as follows:—

There are persons who from ignorance dispute about these questions, acting in a way that is pardonable; for ignorance is no proper subject for blame, but needs instruction. And they say that on the fourteenth the Lord ate the lamb ([Greek: to probaton]) with His disciples, but Himself suffered on the great day of unleavened bread, and they affirm that Matthew represents it so, as they interpret him. Thus their interpretation is out of harmony with the law ([Greek: asumphônos nomô]), and on their showing the Gospels seem to be at variance with one another ([Greek: stasiazein dokei kat' autous ta euangelia]).

The second fragment is taken from the same book, and apparently from the same context.

The fourteenth was the true passover of the Lord, the great sacrifice, the Son of God substituted for the lamb, the same that was bound and Himself bound the strong man, that was judged being judge of the quick and dead, and that was delivered into the hands of sinners to be crucified; the same that was lifted on the horns of the unicorn, and that was pierced in His holy side; the same that poured forth again the two purifying elements, water and blood, word and spirit, and that was buried on the day of the passover, the stone being laid against His sepulchre.

If the publication of this work was suggested by Melito's treatise on the same subject, as seems probable, it must have been written about A.D. 164-166, or soon after. The references to the Gospels are obvious. In the first extract Apollinaris has in view the difficulty of reconciling the chronology of the Paschal week as given by St John with the narratives of the Synoptic Evangelists; and he asserts that the date fixed for the Passion by some persons (the 15th instead of 14th) can only be maintained at the expense of a discrepancy between the two accounts; whereas, if the 14th be taken, the two accounts are reconcilable. At the same time he urges that their view is not in harmony with the law, since the paschal lamb, the type, was slain on the 14th, and therefore it follows that Christ, the antitype, must have been crucified on the same day. I am not concerned here with the question whether Apollinaris or his opponents were right. The point to be noticed is that he speaks of 'the Gospels' (under which term he includes at least St Matthew and St John) as any one would speak of received documents to which the ultimate appeal lies. His language in this respect is such as might be used by a writer in the fourth century, or in the nineteenth, who was led by circumstances to notice a difficulty in harmonizing the accounts of the Evangelists. The second extract bears out the impression left by the first. The incident of the water and the blood is taken from the Fourth Gospel; but a theological interpretation is forced upon it which cannot have been intended by the Evangelist. Some time must have elapsed before the narrative could well be made the subject of a speculative comment like this. Thus both extracts alike suggest that the Fourth Gospel was already a time-honoured book when they were written.

But the author of Supernatural Religion meets the inference by denying the genuineness of the extracts. I hardly think, however, that he can have seen what havoc he was making in his own ranks by this movement. He elsewhere asserts very decidedly (without however giving reasons) that the Quartodeciman controversy turned on the point whether the 14th Nisan was the day of the Last Supper or the day of the Crucifixion, the Quartodecimans maintaining the former [240:1]. In other words, he believes that it was the anniversary, not of the Passion, but of the Last Supper, which the Quartodecimans kept so scrupulously on the 14th, and that therefore, as they pleaded the authority of St John for their practice, the Fourth Gospel cannot have been written by this Apostle, since it represents the Passion as taking place on the 14th. As I have before intimated, this view of the Paschal dispute seems to me to be altogether opposed to the general tenor of the evidence. But it depends, for such force or plausibility as it has, almost solely on these fragments from ancient writers quoted in the Paschal Chronicle, of which the extracts from Apollinaris are the most important. If therefore he refuses to accept the testimony of the Paschal Chronicle to their authorship, he undermines the very foundation on which his theory rests.

On this inconsistency however I need not dwell. The authorship of these extracts was indeed questioned by some earlier writers [241:1], but on entirely mistaken grounds; and at the present time the consensus among critics of the most opposite schools is all but universal. 'On the genuineness of these fragments, which Neander questioned, there is now no more dispute, writes Scholten [242:1]. Our author however is far too persistent to let them pass. Their veracity has once been questioned, and therefore they shall never again be suffered to enter the witness-box.

It may be presumed that he has alleged those arguments against their genuineness which seemed to him to be the strongest, and I will therefore consider his objections. They are twofold.

1. He urges that the external testimony to their authorship is defective. His reasoning is as follows [242:2]:—