4 is found to have begun thus,--'What was made in Him was life.' Of the change of [Greek: oude hen] into [Greek: ouden][464] traces survive in many of the Fathers[465]: but [Symbol: Aleph] and D are the only Uncial MSS.

which are known to retain that corrupt reading .-- The uncouth sentence which follows ([Greek: ho gegonen en auto zoe en]), singular to relate, was generally tolerated, became established in many quarters, and meets us still at every step.

It was evidently put forward so perseveringly by the Gnostics, with whom it was a kind of article of the faith, that the orthodox at last became too familiar with it.
Epiphanius, though he condemns it, once employs it[466].

Occurring first in a fragment of Valentinus[467]: next, in the Commentary of Heracleon[468]: after that, in the pages of Theodotus the Gnostic (A.D.
192)[469]: then, in an exposure by Hippolytus of the tenets of the Naaeseni[470], (a subsection of the same school);--the baseness of its origin at least is undeniable.

But inasmuch as the words may be made to bear a loyal interpretation, the heretical construction of St.John i.