Throughout these two chapters Paul shows deep sorrow on account of the progress of the new faith, and with his expressions of regret, he mingles words of reproof. The troubles growing out of it followed him through life. They harassed him in his prison. He lived to see all Asia turned away from him. With an aching heart he makes one last request of Timothy: "And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." (2 _Tim_. ii. 2.) CHAPTER XXVI. The controversy between Ptolemæus and Irenæus as to the length of Christ's ministry.--Christ was in Jerusalem but once after he began to preach, according to the first three Gospels, but three times according to John.--If the statements made in the first three are true, everything stated in the fourth could only happen after the death of Christ. It will be remembered that Ptolemæus asserted that the time of Christ's ministry did not exceed the period of one year. This drove Irenæus to claim that it continued for the space of ten years, on the authority of a tradition derived from John. The precise time when, and what, Ptolemæus wrote, we have no means in our day of finding out; for his writings, like all those of the Gnostics, doubtless perished under the destructive edict of the Emperor Constantine. We are at liberty to conclude that he wrote before the fourth Gospel appeared, as he limits the time to one year, which agrees in that respect with the Synoptics. Had he had any knowledge of the fourth Gospel, he might, by adopting the mode of reasoning on this subject used by the orthodox, have made the time three years instead of one. It will be noted that Irenaeus, in his controversy with Ptolemaeus, makes no mention of the fourth Gospel, but falls back on a tradition. In a dispute with a sharp-witted adversary, he found it safer to rely on a tradition, as evasive as the mirage of the desert, than the authority of the fourth book of John. The reason for this preference will be readily seen when the subject is understood. According to Matthew, after the temptation in the wilderness, Christ returned to Nazareth, in Galilee. He left Nazareth and came and dwelt in Capernaum, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim, as spoken by Esaias: "The land of Zabulon and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. _From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand_." (Chapter iv. 15, 16, 17.)