error may be detected by the light of the writer's own searching and
scholarly criticism.'

Now this is not the characteristic of the book before me. The author
does indeed single out from time to time the weaker arguments of
'apologetic' writers, and on these he dwells at great length; but their
weightier facts and lines of reasoning are altogether ignored by him,
though they often occur in the same books and even in the same contexts
which he quotes. This charge will, I believe, be abundantly
substantiated as I proceed. At present I shall do no more than give a
few samples.

Our author charges the Epistle ascribed to Polycarp with an anachronism
[11:1], because, though in an earlier passage St Ignatius is assumed to
be dead, 'in chap. xiii he is spoken of as living, and information is
requested regarding him "and those who are with him."' Why then does he
not notice the answer which he might have found in any common source of
information, that when the Latin version (the Greek is wanting here) 'de
his qui cum eo sunt' is retranslated into the original language, [Greek:
tois sun autô], the 'anachronism' altogether disappears? [11:2] Again,
when he devotes more than forty pages to the discussion of Papias
[11:3], why does he not even mention the view maintained by Dr Westcott
and others (and certainly suggested by a strict interpretation of
Papias' own words), that this father's object in his 'Exposition' was
not to construct a new evangelical narrative, but to interpret and
illustrate by oral tradition one already lying before him in written
documents? [11:4] This view, if correct, entirely alters the relation of
Papias to the written Gospels; and its discussion was a matter of
essential importance to the main question at issue. Again, when he
reproduces the Tübingen fallacy respecting 'the strong prejudice' of