Note 45 — CREED AND HERESIES OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. (continued 2)

M. Bunsen must have some authority which has escaped our memory for attributing to "the whole school of Tübingen" the opinion "that the fourth Gospel was written about the year 165 or 170." (I. v.) We cannot call to mind any criticism which assigns so late a date. Schwegler uses various expressions to mark the time to which he refers; e. g. "about the middle of the second century" (Nachapost. Zeitalter, II. 354, and Montanismus, p. 214); "intermediate between the Apologists and Irenæus" (II. 369); "previous to the last third of the second century" (II. 348); "in the second quarter of the second century" (II. 345). Zeller also fixes on the year 150 as the time when the Gospel may probably have first appeared. (Zeller's Jahrb., 1845, p. 646.)