Of the New Testament Writings, other than the First and Third Gospels, there remain the Pastoral and the Catholic Epistles and the Apocalypse. Whether the Pastoral Epistles are the work of St. Paul or not, their silence regarding the Virgin Birth cannot be pressed. 1 Tim. iii. 16 (probably a fragment from an early Christian hymn) may or may not be significant in its silence; but, in either direction, the inference would be unsafe. These writings are much too brief and restricted in subject-matter to leave room for the argument from silence. The same view is also true of the Catholic Epistles. The Apocalypse contains one passage (xii) which has been thought to indicate the writer's knowledge of the doctrine,27 but the inference is far from being certain, and, in any case, in view of the date of the Book, it would add nothing to our knowledge which cannot be learnt more clearly elsewhere.