admitted to be genuine, the expression quoted evidently admits of a different explanation from that which implies the writer's personal acquaintance with the apostles : it might, indeed, be adopted by one even at the present day. More weight is to be attached to those passages in which the writer speaks of Christianity as still being a 7iew thing in the world. Expressions to this effect occur in several places (chap, i., ii., ix.), and seem to imply that the author lived very little, if at all, after the apostolic age. There is certainly nothing in the epistle which is incon- sistent with this opinion ; and we may therefore believe, that in this beautiful composition we possess a genuine production of some apostolic man who lived not later than the beginning of the second century.