(2.) He says in positive terms, “They have taken away the genealogy from Matthew, and _accordingly_ begin their Gospel, as I have above said, with these words; ‘It came to pass,’ &c.”[129] It cannot be imagined that this will bear any but the common interpretation, that the Gospel began with the substance of our third chapter. The introduction of the miraculous conception, after John’s mission, would be an incredible disturbance of arrangement.[130] (3.) He says, “That Cerinthus and Carpocrates, using this same Gospel of theirs, would prove from the beginning of that Gospel according to Matthew, viz. by its genealogy, that Christ proceeded from the seed of Joseph and Mary.” But to what purpose would these heretics have put this construction upon the genealogy, and argued from it the mere humanity of Christ’s origin, if it was immediately followed by a section, flatly contradicting what they had been labouring to prove? It is impossible then to get rid of Epiphanius’s testimony to the absence of these chapters. Secondly, let us turn to Jerome. Dr. Tattershall conceives that because this author speaks of certain men without the spirit and grace of God, as having had some concern in the composition of this gospel, we may conclude that the introductory chapters were wanting from the copy which he used. The inference is not very obvious; and is at once destroyed by the fact, that Jerome’s quotations from the Nazarene Gospel, contain passages of Matthew’s introductory chapters. In a passage, _e.g._, which I have adduced above, occur two instances; “Out of Egypt I have called my son;” and, “He shall be called a Nazarene.” _This_ discrepancy between these two fathers would have furnished Dr. Tattershall with a more powerful argument against the Editor’s note, than any which he has adduced; and have enabled him to show that Jerome, being cited for one purpose, establishes precisely the reverse. III. Dr. Tattershall adduces in evidence against the worth of the Nazarene Gospel, the absurd chronological mistake in its first sentence, which assigns the Baptist’s appearance to the days of Herod, king of Judæa.