part I, p. 280), that the Gospel of John was written in answer to the

Gnostics, and especially Corinthus, who lived in the last years of the first century. It was possible to spin out the life of John to the end of the century, and thus bring him near the time when Corinthus flourished; but it is fatal to the claim, set up by Irenaeus and others, that John was the author of the fourth Gospel, that the quarrels which grew out of the writings of Corinthus failed to attract notice until some time about the middle of the second century. You may look in vain among all the writings of the Fathers and others of the first century to find the name of Corinthus or any of his writings, although we can trace Gnosticism, in its primitive stages, as early as the first years in the second. Still, it assumed but little importance in its contests with Christianity until some time after the year A. D. 117. Buck says that "_Many persons were infected with the Gnostic heresy in the first century; though the sect did not render itself conspicuous, either for numbers or reputation, before the reign of Adrian, when some writers erroneously date its rise_? There was no call or demand for the fourth Gospel until Christians and Gnostics commenced their quarrels, which was long after John's death, even admitting that he lived to be a hundred years old. There was no help in the emergency which then arose, but to antedate the fourth Gospel, to confound the time when Cerinthus wrote with the time when the spread of his doctrines created discussion among Christians."