of inquiry wholly contradicted, they would hardly have any conclusive weight. But--."(1) Canon Westcott says: "The Ignatian writings, as might be expected, are not without traces of the influence of St. John. The circumstances in which he was placed required a special enunciation of Pauline doctrine; but this is not so expressed as to exclude the parallel lines of Christian thought. Love is 'the stamp of the Christian.' (Ad Magn. v.) 'Faith is the beginning and love the end of life.' (Ad Ephes. xiv.) 'Faith is our guide upward' [------], but love is the road that 'leads to God.' (Ad Eph. ix.) 'The Eternal [------] Word is the manifestation of God' (Ad Magn. viii.), 'the door by which we come to the Father' (Ad Philad. ix., cf. John x. 7), 'and without Him we have not the principle of true life' (Ad Trail, ix.: [------]. cf. Ad Eph. iii.: [------]. The true meat of the Christian is the 'bread of God, the bread of heaven, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ,' and his drink is 'Christ's blood, which is love incorruptible' (Ad Rom. vii., cf. John vi. 32, 51, 53). He has no love of this life; 'his love has been crucified, and he has in him no burning passion for the world, but living water (as the spring of a new life) speaking within him, and bidding him come to his Father' (Ad Rom. 1. c). Meanwhile his enemy is the enemy of his Master, even the 'ruler of this age.' (Ad Rom. 1. c, [------]. Cf. John xii. 31, xvi. 11: [------] and see 1 Cor. ii. 6, 8.(2))" Part of these references we have already considered; {262} others of them really do not require any notice whatever, and the only one to which we need to direct our attention for a moment may be the passage from the Epistle to the Philadelphians ix., which reads: "He is the door of the Father, by which enter in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the prophets, and the apostles, and the Church."(l) This is compared with John x. 7. "Therefore said Jesus again: Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the Sheep" [------]. We have already referred, a few pages back,(2) to the image of the door. Here again it is obvious that there is a marked difference in the sense of the Epistle from that of the Gospel. In the latter Jesus is said to be the door into the Sheepfold;(3) whilst in the Epistle, he is the door into the Father, through which not only the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles enter, but also the Church itself. Such distant analogy cannot warrant the conclusion that the passage shows any acquaintance with the fourth Gospel.(4) As for the other phrases, they are not only without special bearing upon the fourth Gospel, but they are everywhere found in the canonical Epistles, as well as elsewhere. Regarding love and faith, for instance, compare Gal. v. 6, 14, 22; Rom. xii. 9, 10, viii. 39, xiii. 9; 1 Cor. ii. 9, viii. 3; Ephea iii. 17, v. 1, 2, vi. 23; Philip, i. 9, ii. 2; 2 Thess. iii. 5; 1 Tim. i. 14, vi. 11; 2 Tim. i. 13; Heb. x. 38 f., xi., &c., &c.