If the statement of Irenæus ("Against Heresies," Book III., cap. 11) that the fourth Gospel was written to refute the errors of Cerinthus and Nicolaus, have any value, then the actual date of issue of the fourth Gospel will be considerably after the others. Dr. Tischendorf's statement that Polycarp has borne testimony to the Gospel of John is not even supported by the quotation on which he relies. All that is said in the passage quoted (Eusebius, "Ecc. Hist.," Book V., cap. 20) is that Irenæus when he was a child heard Polycarp repeat from memory the discourses of John and others concerning Jesus. If the Gospels had existed in the time of Polycarp it would have been at least as easy to have read them from the MS. as to repeat them from memory. Dr. Tischendorf might also have added that the letter to Florinus, whence he takes the passage on which he relies, exists only in the writings of Eusebius, to whom we are indebted for many pieces of Christian evidence since abandoned as forgeries. Dr. Tischendorf says: "Any testimony of Polycarp in favor of the Gospel refers us back to the Evangelist himself, for Polycarp, in speaking to Irenæus of this Gospel as the work of his master, St. John, must have learned from the lips of the apostle himself, whether he was its author or not." Now, what evidence is there that Polycarp ever said a single word as to the authorship of the fourth Gospel, or of any Gospel, or that he even said that John had penned a single word? In the Epistle to the Philippians (the only writing attributed to Polycarp for which any genuine character is even pretended), the Gospel of John is never mentioned, nor is there even a single passage in the Epistle which can be identified with any passage in the Gospel of John. Surely Dr. Tischendorf forgot, in the eager desire to make his witnesses bear good testimony, that the highest duty of an advocate is to make the truth clear, not to put forward a pleasantly colored falsehood to deceive the ignorant. It is not even true that Irenæus ever pretends that Polycarp in any way vouched our fourth Gospel as having been written by John, and yet Dr. Tischendorf had the cool audacity to say "there is nothing more damaging to the doubters of the authenticity of St John's Gospel than this testimony of St. Polycarp." Do the Religious Tract Society regard English Infidels as so utterly ignorant that they thus intentionally seek to suggest a falsehood, or are the Council of the Religious Tract Society themselves unable to test the accuracy of the statements put forward on their behalf by the able decipherer of illegible parchments? It is too much to suspect the renowned Dr. Constantino Tischendorf of ignorance, yet even the coarse English sceptic regrets that the only other alternative will be to denounce him as a theological charlatan.