The testimony to the first Epistle of John goes hand in hand with that to the fourth Gospel (cf. note 1, above). But we can find still clearer trace of the Epistle in the early part of the second century than of the Gospel (e.g. in Polycarp’s Epistle, where traces of the Gospel are wanting; and so, too, in Papias, according to chap. 39, below). The writings of the second century are full of the spirit of the Epistle as well as of the Gospel and exhibit frequent parallels in language too close to be mistaken. The first express testimony as to its authorship occurs in the Muratorian Fragment. The first systematic attack upon the Epistle was made by Bretschneider, in 1820, in connection with the attack upon the Gospel. The Tübingen school likewise rejected both. Before Bretschneider there had been a few critics (e.g. Lange, 1797) who had rejected the Epistle while accepting the Gospel, and since then a few have accepted the Epistle while rejecting the Gospel; but these are exceptional cases. The Gospel and Epistle have almost universally, and quite rightly, been regarded as the work of the same author, and may be said to stand or fall together. Cf. the works cited in note 1, and also Westcott’s Epistles of St. John. (On the use of πρότερα instead of πρώτη, see p. 388, note.)