"The Church, setting forth the likeness of Paradise, includes within her walls fruit-bearing trees, whereof that which does not bring forth good fruit is cut off and is cast into the fire. These trees she waters with four rivers, that is, with the four Gospels, wherewith, by a celestial inundation, she bestows the grace of saying baptism." Cyprian, Letter lxxii. to Jubaianus.
As regards Hippolytus I have counted above fifty references to St. Matthew and forty to St. John, in his work on the "Refutation of Heresies," and "Fragments." I append in a note a passage taken from his comment on the Second Psalm, preserved to us by Theodoret. The reader will be able to judge from it from what sources he derived his knowledge of Christ. I give it rather for its devotional spirit than its evidence for the four. [126:1]
We now come to the conclusion of the second century. Between the years 180 and 200 or 210 A.D., there flourished three writers of whom we possess somewhat voluminous remains. Irenaeus, who was born about 140 at the latest, who was in youth the disciple of Polycarp, who was himself the disciple of St. John. Irenaeus wrote his work against heresies about the year 180, a little after he had succeeded Pothinus as Bishop of Lyons, and was martyred at the beginning of the next century (202).
Clement of Alexandria, the date of whose birth or death is uncertain, flourished long before the end of the second century, for he became head of the catechetical school of Alexandria about the year 190.
Tertullian was born about 150, was converted to Christianity about 185, was admitted to the priesthood in 192, and adopted the opinions of Montanus about the end of the century.
I shall first of all give the testimony of these three writers to the universal reception of the Four Gospels by the Church, and consider to what time previous to their own day their testimony upon such a subject must, of necessity, reach.
First of all, Irenaeus, in a well-known passage, asserts that—
"It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in
number than they are."
He then refers to the four zones of the earth, and the four principal winds, and remarks that, in accordance with this,
"He Who was manifest to men has given us the Gospel under four
aspects, but bound together by one Spirit."