ion to these discourses as showing, that through his intercourse
with this elder Irenaeus could not fail to have ascertained the mind of
the earlier Church with regard to the Evangelical and Apostolic
writings.

Nor were these the only exceptional advantages which Irenaeus enjoyed.
When he speaks of the recognition of the Canonical writings his
testimony must be regarded as directly representing three Churches at
least. In youth he was brought up, as we saw, in Asia Minor. In middle
life he stayed for some time in Rome, having gone there on an important
public mission [267:1]. Before and after this epoch he for many years
held a prominent position in the Church of Gaul. He was moreover
actively engaged from the beginning to the end of his public career in
all the most important controversies of the day. He gave lectures as we
happen to know; for Hippolytus attended a course on 'All the Heresies,'
delivered perhaps during one of his sojourns at Rome [267:2]. He was a
diligent letter-writer, interesting himself in the difficulties and
dissensions of distant Churches, and more than one notice of such
letters is preserved. He composed several treatises more or less
elaborate, whose general character may be estimated from his extant
work. The subjects moreover, with which he had to deal, must have forced
him to an examination of the points with which we are immediately
concerned. He took a chief part in the Montanist controversy; and the
Montanist doctrine of the Paraclete, as I have before had occasion to
remark [267:3], directly suggested an investigation of the promise in
the Fourth Gospel. He was equally prominent in the Paschal dispute, and
here again the relation between the narratives of St John and the
Synoptists must have entered largely into the discussion. He was
contending all his life with Gnostics, or reactionists against
Gnosticism, and how large a part the authority and contents of the
Gospels and Epistles must have played in these controversies generally
we see plainly from his surviving work against the Valentinians.

Thus Irenaeus does not present himself before us as an isolated witness,
but is backed by a whole phalanx of past and contemporaneous authority.
All this our author ignores. He forecloses all investigation by
denouncing, as usual, the uncritical character of the fathers; and
Irenaeus is not even allowed to enter the witness-box.

The truth is that, speaking generally, the fathers are neither