This is a body of evidence that makes it extremely difficult to deny that the Basilidian quotation has its original in the third Synoptic.
2.
The case in regard to Valentinus, the next great Gnostic leader, who came forward about the year 140 A.D., is very similar to that of Basilides, though the balance of the argument is slightly altered.

It is, on the one hand, still clearer that the greater part of the evangelical references usually quoted are really from our present actual Gospels, but, on the other hand, there is a more distinct probability that these are to be assigned rather to the School of Valentinus than to Valentinus himself.
The supposed allusion to St.John we shall pass over for the present.
There is a string of allusions in the first book of Irenaeus, 'Adv.

Haereses,' to the visit of Jesus as a child to the Passover (Luke ii.

42), the jot or tittle of Matt.v.18, the healing of the issue of blood, the bearing of the cross (Luke xiv.

27 par.), the sending of a sword and not peace, 'his fan is in his hand,' the salt and light of the world, the healing of the centurion's servant, of Jairus' daughter, the exclamations upon the cross, the call of the unwilling disciples, Zacchaeus, Simon, &c.