The very early date, and the consequent genuineness of these Epistles are thus the legitimate conclusion from the study of the internal as well as external evidences. That date is placed by the Bishop of Durham between A. D. 100-118 in the time of Trajan. Wieseler had placed the date of the martyrdom (upon which depends the date of the letters) as early as A. D. 107, Harnack as late as A. D. 138; and the latter still prefers to place them and the Epistle of Polycarp after the year A. D. 130. The earlier date reached by the Bishop of Durham is to him 'a mere possibility which is highly improbable, because it is not supported by any word in the Epistle, and because it rests only upon a late and very problematic witness (Eusebius).' Dr. Harnack's present view is, in all essentials, the same as that which he previously held. He has had the advantage--which he courteously acknowledges--of examining Bishop Lightfoot's 'painstaking consideration' of his views held in 1878; but nevertheless he considers that the Bishop's method of considering the whole question is 'not the proper' one--that his 'admittedly profound learning has contributed little or nothing to the main question,' and that 'he has not rightly comprehended the problem.'[85] Yet the ordinary reader, who examines Dr. Harnack's re-statement of some of his views, will feel that to ask the Bishop of Durham to re-examine them will be but to ask him to slay afresh the slain. Dr. Harnack still clings, for example, to his view, that Polycarp is attacking the Docetism of Marcion; a view which, if sound, would convince the writer of an anachronism; because in pretending to write between A. D. 100 and 118 he has introduced a heresiarch not then notorious. But his view has been shown by Bishop Lightfoot to be fallacious; and all that Dr. Harnack can now answer is to repeat his preference for his own interpretation of two passages adduced in the argument. From the amenities of this battlefield of friendly criticism we turn for a few concluding remarks to the second and shorter life--that of Polycarp--which these monumental volumes discuss.