My apprehensions were soon banished. He had been ill, he said, but had now recovered after a somewhat severe attack. Then the old war-horse passed on to his favourite battle-field—criticism of Christian gospels. I was in the act of putting the letter down—for I had had enough, for the present, of criticizing the old gospels, and was longing to study the new one—when I caught sight of the words “fourth gospel,” and discovered that he had recently procured the very book I was beginning to read, and that his letter contained a discussion of it. This was not quite welcome—not, at least, at the moment. I wished to read the gospel first, for myself, before looking at Scaurus’s criticism, which (I felt sure) would be destructive. “Yet,” thought I, “I have heard Clemens on the one side; ought I not to hear Scaurus on the other? If Scaurus goes wrong, ought I not to be able to find it out?” Scaurus was always fair and honest, and had helped me hitherto, even when I had not agreed with him. These considerations made me finally decide to read the letter and the gospel together, comparing each criticism with the passage or subject criticized, as I went on. “Let me begin,” wrote Scaurus, “with the point that will most interest you. I have accused Epictetus of borrowing from the Christians. I now assert that this writer—Flaccus tells me that the Christians say it was John the son of Zebedee; I am sure they are wrong, but for convenience I will call him John—this man John deliberately contradicts Epictetus, using our friend’s language but in a different or opposite sense, or with opposite conclusions. “For example, Epictetus mocks at Agamemnon for calling himself a shepherd of the people. He dislikes the Homeric language and says ‘Shepherd you are in truth; for you weep, _as the shepherds do, when a wolf snatches away one of their sheep_.’ John makes Christ distinguish between the good shepherd and the hireling. It is only the hireling that _flees and lets the wolf snatch away the sheep_. In John, Christ says, ‘I am the good shepherd,’ and ‘_The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep_.’ “Again, Epictetus declares that a good man never weeps. He blames Ulysses in particular for weeping at his separation from Penelope. John represents Christ as shedding tears in sympathy with a woman weeping for her dead brother. “Epictetus constantly says that self-knowledge is everything—herein (I must admit) going with other philosophers. John represents Christ as saying, ‘This is eternal life, to know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.’ It is impossible that Christ could have uttered the last part of this sentence exactly as it stands. But that does not weaken my argument, which is, that John (alone of the evangelists) insists on other-knowledge, not on self-knowledge, as being the essential thing. And this he does throughout his gospel.”