ad nuptias) to give his own comment on the saying of the Presbyters; but these are sharply cut off from the rest by the use of the present indicative instead of the infinitive.

There can be no question at all that the quotation 'in My Father's realm are many mansions' [Greek: en tois ton Patros mon monas einai pollas] belongs to the Presbyters, and there can be but little doubt that these Presbyters are the same as those spoken of as 'disciples of the Apostles.' Whether they were also 'the Presbyters' referred to as his authority by Papias is quite a secondary and subordinate question.
Considering the Chiliastic character of the passage, the conjecture [Endnote 298:1] that they were does not seem to me unreasonable.

This however we cannot determine positively.

It is quite enough that Irenaeus evidently attributes to them an antiquity considerably beyond his own; that, in fact, he looks upon them as supplying the intermediate link between his age and that of the Apostles.
* * * * * Two quotations from the fourth Gospel are attributed to Basilides, both of them quite indisputable as quotations.

The first is found in the twenty-second chapter of the seventh book of the 'Refutation,' 'That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world [Endnote 298:2] ([Greek: aen to phos to alaethinon, o photizei panta anthropon erchomenon eis ton kosmon] = John i.