We believe with Scholten that neither is dependent on the other, but that both adopted a formula in use in the early Church against various heresies,3 the superficial coincidence of which is without any weight as evidence for the use of either Epistle by the writer of the other. Moreover, it is clear that the writers refer to different classes of heretics. Polycarp attacks the Docetæ who deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, that is with a human body of flesh and blood; whilst the Epistle of John is directed against those who deny that Jesus who has come in the flesh is the {268} Christ the Son of God.(1) Volkmar points out that in Polycarp the word "Antichrist" is made a proper name, whilst in the Epistle the expression used is the abstract "Spirit of Antichrist." Polycarp in fact says that whoever denies the flesh of Christ is no Christian but Antichrist, and Volkmar finds this direct assertion more original than the assertion of the Epistle; "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God,"(2) &c. In any case it seems to us clear that in both writings we have only the independent enunciation, with decided difference of language and sense, of a formula current in the Church, and that neither writer can be held to have originated the condemnation, in these words, of heresies which the Church had begun vehemently to oppose, and which were merely an application of ideas already well known, as we see from the expression of the Epistle in reference to the "Spirit of Antichrist, of which ye have heard that it cometh." Whether this phrase be an allusion to the Apocalypse xiii., or to 2 Thessalonians ii., or to traditions current in the Church, we need not inquire; it is sufficient that the Epistle of John avowedly applies a prophecy regarding Antichrist already known amongst Christians, which was equally open to the other writer and probably familiar in the Church. This cannot under any circumstances be admitted as evidence of weight for the use of the 1st Epistle of John. There is no testimony whatever of the existence of the Epistles ascribed to John previous to this date, and that fact would have to {269} be established on sure grounds before the argument we are considering can have any value.