‘The purely literary evidence will affect different men differently. To those who have no difficulty in attributing to the forger a boundless power of refined imitation it will carry little weight. To others who act upon the proverb, _ex pede Herculem_, and believe that successful forgery in the name of an author, if not of high genius, at least of unusual ability and distinguished style, is an exceedingly difficult art, this line of evidence will come with almost overwhelming force. It is easy enough to imitate tricks of style, or to borrow some peculiarities of phrase; but to write in a required style, without betraying any signs of imitation; to introduce perpetual variation into sentences which are nevertheless characteristic; to have shades of thought and suggestion, which remind one of what has been said elsewhere, and nevertheless are delicately modified, and pass easily into another subject; in a word, to preserve the whole flavour of a writer’s composition in a treatise which has a theme of its own, and follows its own independent development, may well seem beyond the reach of the forger, and must be held to guarantee the genuineness of a work, unless very weighty arguments can be advanced on the other side.’ This paragraph seems to be very much in point for those who, like Schmiedel, H. J. Holtzmann and Professor Bacon, would distinguish the author of the First Epistle of St. John from the author of the Gospel. On this point it is also worth while to consider Dr. Drummond’s replies to the inconsistencies alleged to exist between particular details in the _De Vita Contemplativa_ and the other Philonic writings. There is always a tendency in the critical school to make too much of these little _prima facie_ differences, which generally shrink a good deal on closer examination. * * * * * My last example shall be taken from the _Vita Antonii_, ascribed to, and now generally believed to be a genuine work of, St. Athanasius. The _Vita Antonii_ holds an important place in the literature of the beginnings of Monasticism. As such it was involved in the wholesale scepticism on that subject which was pushed to its furthest limits by the late Professor Weingarten in the seventies and eighties. How complete the reaction has been may be seen in the recent edition of the _Historia Lausiaca_ by Dom Cuthbert Butler. Among Weingarten’s converts was our English scholar, Professor Gwatkin; and I do not think that anything could speak more eloquently than just to transcribe the list of objections brought against the _Vita Antonii_ by Professor Gwatkin in his _Studies of Arianism_ (Cambridge, 1882). I proceed to give the more important of them in an abridged form: