THE GOSPELS IN THE SECOND CENTURY _AN EXAMINATION OF THE CRITICAL PART OF A WORK ENTITLED 'SUPERNATURAL RELIGION'_ BY W. SANDAY, M.A. _Rector of Barton-on-the-Heath, Warwickshire; and late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. Author of a Work on the Fourth Gospel._ LONDON: 1876. _I had hoped to inscribe in this book the revered and cherished name of my old head master, DR. PEARS of Repton. His consent had been very kindly and warmly given, and I was just on the point of sending the dedication to the printers when I received a telegram naming the day and hour of his funeral. His health had for some time since his resignation of Repton been seriously failing, but I had not anticipated that the end was so near. All who knew him will deplore his too early loss, and their regret will be shared by the wider circle of those who can appreciate a life in which there was nothing ignoble, nothing ungenerous, nothing unreal. I had long wished that he should receive some tribute of regard from one whom he had done his best by precept, and still more by example, to fit and train for his place and duty in the world. This pleasure and this honour have been denied me. I cannot place my book, as I had hoped, in his hand, but I may still lay it reverently upon his tomb._ CONTENTS CHAP. I. INTRODUCTORY II. ON QUOTATIONS GENERALLY IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS III. THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS IV. JUSTIN MARTYR V. HEGESIPPUS--PAPIAS VI. THE CLEMENTINE HOMILIES VII. BASILIDES AND VALENTINUS VIII. MARCION IX. TATIAN--DIONYSIUS OF CORINTH X. MELITO--APOLLINARIS--ATHENAGORAS--THE EPISTLE OF VIENNE AND LYONS XI. PTOLOMAEUS AND HERACLEON--CELSUS--THE MURATORIAN FRAGMENT XII. THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE FOR THE FOURTH GOSPEL XIII. ON THE STATE OF THE CANON IN THE LAST QUARTER OF THE SECOND CENTURY XIV. CONCLUSION [ENDNOTES] APPENDIX. SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE ON THE RECONSTRUCTION OF MARCION'S GOSPEL INDICES PREFACE. It will be well to explain at once that the following work has been written at the request and is published at the cost of the Christian Evidence Society, and that it may therefore be classed under the head of Apologetics. I am aware that this will be a drawback to it in the eyes of some, and I confess that it is not altogether a recommendation in my own. Ideally speaking, Apologetics ought to have no existence distinct from the general and unanimous search for truth, and in so far as they tend to put any other consideration, no matter how high or pure in itself, in the place of truth, they must needs stand aside from the path of science.