We may perhaps safely accept the fragment with some, not large, deduction from its weight.
3.
An instance of the precariousness of the argument from silence would be supplied by the writer who comes next under review-- Athenagoras.

No mention whatever is made of Athenagoras either by Eusebius or Jerome, though he appears to have been an author of a certain importance, two of whose works, an Apology addressed to Marcus Aurelius and Commodus and a treatise on the Resurrection, are still extant.

The genuineness of neither of these works is doubted.
The Apology, which may be dated about 177 A.D., contains a few references to our Lord's discourses, but not such as can have any great weight as evidence.

The first that is usually given, a parallel to Matt.v.39, 40 (good for evil), is introduced in such a way as to show that the author intends only to give the sense and not the words.

The same may be said of another sentence that is compared with Mark x.