At this point Eusebius digresses to show that what was said was true. The first three Evangelists began the main body of their narrative after John the Baptist was cast into prison; but St. John expressly tells us that, at the time of the events related in his early chapters, John was not yet in prison. Any one attending to this, Eusebius said, would no longer suppose that the Gospels were at variance with each other, and would see that John had reason for being silent as to the genealogy of our Saviour’s human descent, as this had been already written by Matthew and Luke, and for beginning with His divinity, as though this had been reserved by the Holy Ghost for him as one greater than they. These last are the words of Eusebius, who is very probably influenced by his recollection of the language of Clement. Unfortunately we cannot locate the rest of the tradition. It would be only a guess to suppose that it came from Hippolytus, at the time of his controversy with Caius. But in any case there is a good deal of evidence to show that the opening sections of the Gospels were being much canvassed towards the end of the second and at the beginning of the third century. The passage is in general agreement with Clement, and avoids his mistake in saying that the two Gospels containing the genealogies were the first to be written. Really Clement alone has all the essential points, which are these: 1. The Gospel is the work of St. John the Apostle—for there is no doubt that he is intended. 2. It was written towards the end of his life, after the publication of the other three. 3. The three Gospels were in the hands of the Apostle, and he had read and up to a certain point approved of them. 4. What he himself undertook to write was a Gospel, not a biography; the difference is important. 5. In contrast with the other Gospels it was recognized as being in a special sense ‘a spiritual Gospel.’ I believe that these data will enable us to understand all the facts, both those which are more favourable to the Gospel and those which are in a sense less favourable. 1. The best of reasons is given for all those marks of an eye-witness which we shall see to be present in great number and strength. They point to a first-hand relation between the author and the facts which he records. If the Gospel is not the work of an eye-witness, then the writer has made a very sustained and extraordinary effort to give the impression that he was one.