my Father's house are many mansions."' Here it is equally uncertain
whether a work of Papias be meant as the source of the quotation, and
whether that Father did not insert something of his own, or something
borrowed elsewhere, and altered according to the text of the Gospel."
[6:4]

With these exceptions, no critic seems to have considered it worth his
while to refer to this passage at all. Neither in considering the
external evidences for the antiquity of the fourth Gospel, nor in
discussing the question whether Papias was acquainted with it, do
apologetic writers like Bleek, Ebrard, Olshausen, Guericke, Kirchhofer,
Thiersch, or Tholuck, or impartial writers like Credner, De Wette,
Gfrörer, Lücke, and others commit the mistake of even alluding to it,
although many of them directly endeavour to refute the article of
Zeller, in which it is cited and rejected, and all of them point out so
indirect an argument for his knowledge of the Gospel as the statement of
Eusebius that Papias made use of the first Epistle of John. Indeed, on
neither side is the passage introduced into the controversy at all; and
whilst so many conclude positively that Papias was not acquainted with
the fourth Gospel, the utmost that is argued by the majority of
apologetic critics is, that his ignorance of it is not actually proved.
Those who go further and urge the supposed use of the Epistle as
testimony in favour of his also knowing the Gospel would only too gladly
have produced this passage, if they could have maintained it as taken
from the work of Papias. It would not be permissible to assume that any
of the writers to whom we refer were ignorant of the existence of the
passage, because they are men thoroughly acquainted with the subject
generally, and most of them directly refer to the article of Zeller in
which the quotation is discussed.