The Books of the New Testament | Page 7

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 Christian worship, and he says that "they were compiled by Christ's apostles and those who companied with them." This exactly agrees with the fact that the first and the fourth of our Gospels are attributed by the tradition of the Church to apostles, while the second and the third are attributed to companions of the apostles. The quotations which Justin makes show that these Memoirs were our four Gospels. It has been thought that Justin perhaps used some apocryphal Gospel in addition to our Gospels, but there is no sufficient proof of this. We may explain that he uses the term "Memoirs" in order to make himself intelligible to non-Christian readers who would not understand the word "Gospel."
The Shepherd of Hermas, which was written at Rome, probably about A.D. 140, but perhaps earlier, uses expressions which imply an acquaintance with all our Gospels, though none of them are directly quoted. Moreover, the Shepherd, in depicting the Christian Church as seated on a bench with four feet, probably refers to the four Gospels. This would be in agreement with the allegorical style of the book, and it gains support from the language of Origen and Irenaeus.
The testimony rendered to the authenticity of the Gospels by the heretics who flourished between A.D. 130 and 170 is of importance. At the beginning of this period, Basilides, the {13} great Gnostic of Alexandria, who tried to replace Christianity by a semi-Christian Pantheism, appears to have used Matt., Luke, and John. The fact that they contain nothing which really supports his peculiar tenets, forms an argument which shows that the genuineness of these documents was then too well established for it to be worth his while to dispute it. Marcion, whose teaching was half Gnostic and half Catholic, endeavoured to revive what he imagined to be the Christianity of St. Paul, whom he regarded as the only true apostle. He believed that Judaism was the work of an inferior god, and he therefore rejected the whole of the Old Testament, and retained only the Gospel written by St. Luke, the friend of St. Paul, and ten of St. Paul's Epistles. Modern writers have sometimes urged that Marcion's list of New Testament books proves that all other parts of the New Testament were regarded as doubtful about A.D. 140. But it is quite evident that Marcion, unlike those Gnostics who adapted uncongenial books to their own systems by means of allegorical explanations, cut out the books and verses which would not correspond with his own dogma. In spite of his pretended fidelity to St. Paul, he mutilated not only St. Luke's Gospel, but even the Epistle to the Galatians. So whereas it is certain that he used our Luke, there is no indication to show that he did not admit that the other Gospels were really the work of the writers whose names they bear.
In the period between A.D. 98, when the death of St. John probably took place, and A.D. 130, we find several signs of acquaintance with the Gospels. About A.D. 130, Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, wrote a book called Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord. It may be regarded as almost certain that the word "Oracles" signifies written Gospels, just as in the New Testament the word signifies the written documents of the Old Testament. He mentions Gospels written by St. Matthew and St. Mark, and we know from Eusebius that he made use of 1 John. It is deeply to be regretted that we only have {14}