dia taen p., ophthalmon ...

odontos, antistaenai to ponaero, strepson], and the order and cast of sentence in all the quotations.

The first quotation, with [Greek: eph eautaen] and [Greek: dunatai staenai], which may be compared (though, from the context, somewhat doubtfully) with Mark, presents, I believe, the only trace of the influence of any other text.
To what period in the life of Ptolemaeus this Epistle to Flora may have belonged we have no means of knowing; but it is unlikely that the writer should have used one set of documents at one part of his life and another set at another.

Viewed along with so much confirmatory matter in the account of the Valentinians by Irenaeus, the evidence may be taken as that of Ptolemaeus himself rather than of this single letter.
2.
The question in regard to Celsus, whose attacks upon Christianity called forth such an elaborate reply from Origen, is chiefly one of date.

To go into this at once adequately and independently would need a much longer investigation than can be admitted into the present work.