ristians, supports the internal evidence. Let us begin
by noting facts which are part of undoubted history, and then work back
to facts of earlier date. It is now undisputed that between the years
170 and 200 after Christ our four Gospels were known and regarded as
genuine products of the apostolic age. St. Irenaeus, who became Bishop
of Lyons in France in A.D. 177, and was the pupil of Polycarp, who had
actually been a disciple of St. John, uses and quotes the four Gospels.
He shows that various semi-Christian sects appeal severally to one of
the four Gospels as supporting their peculiar views, but that the
Christian Church accepts all four. He lays great stress on the fact
that the teaching of the Church has always been the same, and he was
personally acquainted with the state of Christianity in Asia Minor,
Rome, and France. His evidence must therefore be considered as
carrying great weight. Equally important is the evidence of Tatian.
This remarkable Syrian wrote a harmony of the Gospels near A.D. 160.
Allusions to this harmony, called the _Diatessaron_, were known to
exist in several ancient writers, but until recently it was strenuously
maintained by sceptical writers that there was not sufficient evidence
to prove that the Diatessaron was composed of our present Gospels. It
was suggested that it might have been drawn from other Gospels more or
less resembling those which we now possess. This idea has now been
dispelled. A great Syrian father, Ephraim, who died in 373, wrote a
commentary on the Diatessaron. This was preserved in an Armenian
translation which was made known to the world in 1876. The discovery
proved that the Diatessaron had been drawn from our four Gospels. In
1886 an Arabic version of the Diatessaron itself was found, and it {12}
proved conclusively that Tatian's Diatessaron was simply a combination
of our four canonical Gospels. About the same date as Tatian, a famous
Gnostic writer named Heracleon wrote commentaries on Luke and John, and
it can also be shown that he was acquainted with Matt. There can
therefore be no doubt that all our four Gospels were well known by A.D.
170.

Between A.D. 130 and 170 our Gospels were also in use. The most
important evidence is furnished by Justin Martyr, who was born near
Samaria, and lectured in Rome about A.D. 152. He says "the apostles
handed down in the Memoirs made by them, which are called Gospels;" he
shows that these Memoirs were used in