m that at least the high antiquity of the
Gospels could be proved, even if not one jot or tittle of the
evidence that we have been discussing had existed. Supposing that
all those fragmentary remains of the primitive Christian
literature that we have been ransacking so minutely had been swept
away, supposing that the causes that have handed it down to us in
such a mutilated and impaired condition had done their work still
more effectually, and that for the first eighty years of the
second century there was no Christian literature extant at all;
still I maintain that, in order to explain the phenomena that we
find after that date, we should have to recur to the same
assumptions that our previous enquiry would seem to have
established for us.

Hitherto we have had to grope our way with difficulty and care;
but from this date onwards all ambiguity and uncertainty
disappears. It is like emerging out of twilight into the broad
blaze of day. There is really a greater disproportion than we
might expect between the evidence of the end of the century and
that which leads up to it. From Justin to Irenaeus the Christian
writings are fragmentary and few, but with Irenaeus a whole body
of literature seems suddenly to start into being. Irenaeus is
succeeded closely by Clement of Alexandria, Clement by Tertullian,
Tertullian by Hippolytus and Origen, and the testimony which these
writers bear to the Gospel is marvellously abundant and unanimous.
I calculate roughly that Irenaeus quotes directly 193 verses of
the first Gospel and 73 of the fourth. Clement of Alexandria and
Tertullian must have quoted considerably more, while in the extant
writings of Origen the greater part of the New Testament is
actually quoted [Endnote 315:1].

But more than this; by the time of Irenaeus the canon of the four
Gospels, as we understand the word now, was practically formed. We
have already seen that this was the case in the fragment of
Muratori. Irenaeus is still more explicit. In the famous passage
[Endnote 315:2] which is so often quoted as an instance of the
weak-mindedness of the Fathers, he lays it down as a necessity of
things that the Gospels should be four in number, neither less nor
more:--

'For as there are four quarters of the world in which we live, as
there are also four universal winds, and as the Church is
scattered over all the earth, and the Gospel is the pillar and
base of the Church and the breath (or spirit) of life, it is