This then, if true, would throw back Heracleon some little way even beyond 160 A.D.
From the passage in the Stromateis we gather that Heracleon, if he did not (as is usually inferred) write a commentary, yet wrote an isolated exposition of a portion of St.Luke's Gospel.

In the same way we learn from Origen that he wrote a commentary upon St.John.
We shall probably not be wrong in referring many of the Valentinian quotations given by Irenaeus to Ptolemaeus and Heracleon.

By the first writer we also have extant an Epistle to a disciple called Flora, which has been preserved by Epiphanius.
This Epistle, which there is no reason to doubt, contains unequivocal references to our first Gospel.
_Epistle to Flora.Epiph.

Haer._ 217 A.
[Greek: oikia gar ae polis meristheisa eph' heautaen hoti mae dunatai staenai [ho sotaer haemon apephaenato].] _Ibid._ 217 D.
[Greek: [ephae autois hoti] Mousaes pros taen sklaerokardian humon epetrepse to apoluein taen gunaika autou.

Ap' archaes gar ou gegonen houtos.