Καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν νοημάτων δὲ, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ῥημάτων καὶ τῆς συντάξεως αὐτῶν, εἰκότως ἕτερος οὗτος παρ᾿ ἐκεῖνον ὑποληφθήσεται. συνᾴδουσι μὲν γὰρ ἀλλήλοις τὸ εὐαγγέλιον καὶ ἡ ἐπιστολή, ὁμοίως τε ἄρχονται. τὸ μέν φησιν, ‘ Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος· ’ ἣ δέ, ‘ Ὃ ἦν ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς.’ τὸ μέν φησιν, ‘ Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρός· ’ ἣ δὲ τὰ αὐτὰ σμικρῷ παρηλλαγμένα· ‘ Ὃ ἀκηκόαμεν, ὃ ἑωράκαμεν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἡμῶν, ὃ ἐθεασάμεθα, καὶ αἱ χεῖρες ἡμῶν ἐψηλάφησαν, περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς· καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἐφανερώθη.’ ταῦτα γὰρ προανακρούεται, διατεινόμενος, ὡς ἐν τοῖς ἑξῆς ἐδήλωσεν, πρὸς τοὺς ‘ οὐκ ἐν σαρκὶ ’ φάσκοντας ‘ ἐληλυθέναι ’ τὸν Κύριον· διὸ καὶ συνῆψεν ἐπιμελῶς, ‘ Καὶ ὃ ἑωράκαμεν μαρτυροῦμεν, καὶ ἀπαγγέλλομεν ὑμῖν τὴν ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον, ἥ τις ἦν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα, καὶ ἐφανερώθη ἡμῖν· ὃ ἑωράκαμεν καὶ ἀκηκόαμεν, ἀπαγγέλλομεν ὑμῖν. ’ ἔχεται αὐτοῦ, καὶ τῶν προθέσεων οὐκ ἀφίσταται, διὰ δὲ τῶν αὐτῶν κεφαλαίων καὶ ὀνομάτων πάντα διεξέρχεται· ὧν τινὰ μὲν ἡμεῖς συντόμως ὑπομνήσομεν. ὁ δὲ προσεχῶς ἐντυγχάνων εὑρήσει ἐν ἑκατέρῳ πολλὴν ‘ τὴν ζωήν, ’ πολὺ ‘ τὸ φῶς ἀποτροπὴν τοῦ σκότους, ’ συνεχῆ ‘ τὴν ἀλήθειαν, τὴν χάριν, τὴν χαρὰν, τὴν σάρκα καὶ τὸ αἷμα τοῦ Κυρίου, τὴν κρίσιν, τὴν ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν, τὴν πρὸς ἡμᾶς ἀγάπην τοῦ Θεοῦ, τὴν πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἡμᾶς ἀγάπης ἐντολήν, ὡς πάσας δεῖ φυλάττειν τὰς ἐντολάς· ὁ ἔλεγχος τοῦ κόσμου, τοῦ διαβόλου, τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου, ἡ ἐπαγγελία τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος, ἡ υἱοθεσία τοῦ Θεοῦ, ’ ἡ δι’ όλου ‘ πίστις ’ ἡμῶν ἀπαιτουμένη, ‘ ὁ Πατὴρ καὶ ὁ Υἱός ’ πανταχοῦ· καὶ ὅλως διὰ πάντων χαρακτηρίζοντας, ἕνα καὶ τὸν αὐτὸν συνορᾶν τοῦ τε εὐαγγελίου καὶ τῆς ἐπιστολῆς χρῶτα πρόκειται. ἀλλοιοτάτη δὲ καὶ ξένη παρὰ ταῦτα ἡ ἀποκάλυψις, μήτε ἐφαπτομένη, μήτε γειτνιῶσα τούτων μηδενί σχεδόν, ὡς εἰπεῖν, μηδὲ συλλαβὴν πρὸς αὐτὰ κοινὴν ἔχουσα· ἀλλ᾿ οὐδὲ μνήμην τινὰ οὐδὲ ἔννοιαν οὔτε ἡ ἐπιστολὴ τῆς ἀποκαλύψεως ἔχει· (ἔα γὰρ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον·) οὔτε τῆς ἐπιστολῆς ἡ ἀποκάλυψις· Παύλου διὰ τῶν ἐπιστολῶν ὑποφήναντός τι καὶ περὶ τῶν ἀποκαλύψεων αὐτοῦ, ἃς οὐκ ἐνέγραψεν καθ᾿ αὑτάς. ἔτι δὲ καὶ διὰ τῆς φράσεως τὴν διαφορὰν ἔστιν τεκμήρασθαι τοῦ εὐαγγελίου καὶ τῆς ἐπιστολῆς πρὸς τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν. τὰ μὲν γὰρ οὐ μόνον ἀπταίστως κατὰ τὴν τῶν Ἑλλήνων φωνήν, ἀλλὰ καὶ λογιώτατα ταῖς λέξεσιν, τοῖς συλλογισμοῖς ταῖς συντάξεσιν τῆς ἑρμηνείας γέγραπται. πολλοῦ γε δεῖ βάρβαρόν τινα φθόγγον, ἢ σολοικισμὸν, ἢ ὅλως ἰδιωτισμὸν ἐν αὐτοῖς εὑρεθῆναι. ἑκάτερον γὰρ εἶχεν, ὡς ἔοικεν, τὸν λόγον, ἀμφοτέρους αὐτῷ χαρισαμένου τοῦ Κυρίου, τόν τε τῆς γνώσεως, τόν τε τῆς φράσεως. τούτῳ δὲ ἀποκαλύψεις μὲν ἑωρακέναι, καὶ γνῶσιν εἰληφέναι καὶ προφητείαν, οὐκ ἀντερῶ· διάλεκτον μέντοι καὶ γλῶσσαν οὐκ ἀκριβῶς ἑλληνίζουσαν αὐτοῦ βλέπω, ἀλλ᾿ ἰδιώμασίν τε βαρβαρικοῖς χρώμενον, καί που καὶ σολοικίζοντα. ἅπερ οὐκ ἀναγκαῖον νῦν ἐκλέγειν· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐπισκώπτων, μή τις νομίσῃ, ταῦτα εἶπον, ἀλλὰ μόνον τὴν ἀνομοιότητα διευθύνων τῶν γραφῶν.

And from the thoughts too, and from the words and their arrangement, this writer may reasonably be supposed different from the other. For the Gospel and the Epistle agree together, and begin in like manner. The one says, 'In the beginning was the Word'; the other, 'That which was from the beginning.' The one says, 'And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of an only-begotten from the Father'; the other the same a little varied, 'That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we beheld, and our hands handled, of the Word of life, and the life was manifested.' For this he makes his prelude and steadfastly maintains, as he makes plain in what follows, against those who say 'That the Lord has not come in flesh': wherefore also he carefully adds, 'And that which we have seen we testify, and we declare unto you the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us: that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you.' He is consistent with himself, and does not depart from his purposes, but goes through all things under the same heads and names, of which we will shortly mention some. He that reads carefully will find in either much mention of the life, the light, the turning away of darkness; and continually the truth, the grace, the joy, the flesh and the blood of the Lord, the judgement, the forgiveness of sins, the love of God for us, the command to us to love one another, the need of keeping all the commandments, the conviction of the world, of the devil and of Antichrist, the promise of the Holy Spirit, the adoption of God, the faith which is throughout required of us, everywhere the Father and the Son. In short, if we mark them by all their characters, it is plain to see that the complexion of the Gospel and of the Epistle is one and the same. But the Apocalypse is entirely different from these and foreign to them, neither touching nor bordering on any of them; scarcely, so to say, having even a syllable in common with them. Nay, more, the Epistle (for I let alone the Gospel) contains neither mention nor thought of the Apocalypse, nor yet the Apocalypse of the Epistle, whereas Paul by his Epistles signified something even of his visions, which he did not separately insert. Moreover, we may conjecture from the diction the difference of the Gospel and the Epistle from the Apocalypse. For the former are written not only without error, as regards the rules of Greek, but very elegantly in words, in reasonings, and in arrangement of the explanations. We are very far from finding in them a barbarous word or a solecism, or any vulgarism at all. For he had, as it appears, both the one word and the other, as the Lord had granted both to him – that of knowledge, and that of expression. That the other saw a revelation and received knowledge and prophecy, I will not dispute: howbeit I see that his dialect and language are not accurately Greek, but that he used barbarous vulgarisms, and in some places downright solecisms. But these I need not now pick out; for I do not write this in mockery – let no man think it – but only to show plainly the unlikeness of the writings.