Such being the case, it need scarcely be said that the difficulty of assigning a date to the work with any degree of certainty is extreme, if it be not absolutely impossible to do so. This difficulty, however, is increased by several circumstances. The first and most important of these is the fact that the Epistle to Diognetus is neither quoted nor mentioned by any ancient
writer, and consequently there is no external evidence whatever to indicate the period of its composition.(1) Moreover, it is not only anonymous but incomplete, or, at least, as we have it, not the work of a single writer. At the end of Chapter x. a break is indicated, and the two concluding chapters are unmistakably by a different and later hand.(2) It is not singular, therefore, that there exists a wide difference of opinion as to the date of the first ten chapters, although all agree regarding the later composition of the concluding portion. It is assigned by critics to various periods ranging from about the end of the first quarter of the second century to the end of the third century or later,(3) whilst some denounce it as a mere modern forgery.(4) Nothing can be more insecure in one
direction than the date of a work derived alone from internal evidence. Allusions to actual occurrences may with certainty prove that a work could only have been written after they had taken place. The mere absence of later indications in an anonymous Epistle only found in a single MS. of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, however, and which may have been, and probably was, written expressly in imitation of early Christian feeling, cannot furnish any solid basis for an early date. It must be evident that the determination of the date of this Epistle cannot therefore be regarded as otherwise than doubtful and arbitrary. It is certain that the purity of its Greek and the elegance of its style distinguish it from all other Christian works of the period to which so many assign it.(1)
The Epistle to Diognetus, however, does not furnish any evidence even of the existence of our Synoptics, for it is admitted that it does not contain a single direct quotation from any evangelical work.(2)We shall hereafter have to refer to this Epistle in connection with the fourth Gospel, but in the meantime it may be well to add that in Chapter xii., one of those, it will be remembered, which are admitted to be of later date, a brief quotation is made from 1 Cor. viii. 1, introduced merely by the words, [———].
CHAPTER VI. BASILIDES—VALENTINUS.
We must now turn back to an earlier period, and consider any evidence regarding the Synoptic Gospels which may be furnished by the so-called heretical writers of the second century. The first of these who claims our attention is Basilides, the founder of a system of Gnosticism, who lived in Alexandria about the year 125 of our era.(1) With the exception of a very few brief fragments,(2) none of the writings of this Gnostic have been preserved, and all our information regarding them is, therefore, derived at second-hand from ecclesiastical writers opposed to him and his doctrines; and their statements, especially where acquaintance with, and the use of, the New Testament Scriptures are assumed, must be received with very great caution. The uncritical and inaccurate character of the Fathers rendered them peculiarly liable to be misled by foregone devout conclusions.