The Epistle of Vienne and Lyons, written from the Churches in those towns to their brethren in Asia and Phrygia, about the year A.D. 177, giving an account of the terrible persecution which had broken out, is in part preserved by Eusebius. It contains words similar to those used in regard to Zacharias and Elisabeth, where they are said to have "walked in all the commandments and ordinances of God, blameless." And it has also the words, "And himself having the Spirit more abundantly than Zacharias," which compares with Luke i. 67: "And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied." In reference to these passages, our author's comment is as follows: "The state of the case is, we find a coincidence, in a few words in connection with Zacharias, between the Epistle and our Third Gospel; but so far from the Gospel being in any way indicated as their source, the words in question are, on the contrary, in association with a reference to events unknown to our Gospels, but which were indubitably chronicled elsewhere. It follows clearly, and few will venture to doubt the fact, that the allusion in the Epistle is to a Gospel different from ours, and not to our Third Synoptic at all" (p. 204). The event unknown to our Gospels is the martyrdom of Zacharias, which our Gospels make no mention of.
Ptolemæus and Heracleon, two Gnostic leaders, are next referred to. Of the former, Epiphanius has preserved "The Epistle to Flora," addressed to one of his disciples, which contains passages similar to sentences found in Matthew xii. 25, xix. 8, 6, xv. 4-8, v. 38, 39.; but our author objects that the Epistle "was in all probability written towards the end of the second century, and therefore it does not come within the scope of our inquiry;" and he goes into considerable detail to justify this statement.
Celsus wrote a work entitled "True Doctrine," which is not extant, and of which Origen wrote a refutation. Our author says "it refers to incidents of Gospel history and quotes some sayings which have parallels, with more or less of variation, in our Gospels;" but "Celsus nowhere mentions the name of any Christian book, unless we except the Book of Enoch, and he accuses Christians, not without reason, of interpolating the Book of the Sibyl, whose authority he states some of them acknowledged" (p. 236). He goes into the question of the date, which he makes out to be probably not between A.D. 150-160, as Tischendorf suggests, but much later.