Then he refers to the four living creatures of the vision in the
Revelation, and proceeds,—
"And, therefore, the Gospels are in accord with these things, among which Christ is seated. For that according to John relates His original effectual and glorious generation from the Father, thus declaring, 'In the beginning was the word,' &c…. But that according to Luke, taking up His priestly character, commences with Zacharias the priest offering sacrifice to God. For now was made ready the fatted calf, about to be immolated for the finding again of the younger son. Matthew again relates His generation as a man, saying, 'The Book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham;' and also, 'The birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise.' This, then, is the Gospel of His humanity, for which reason it is, too, that the character of an humble and meek man is kept up through the whole Gospel. Mark, on the other hand, commences with a reference to the prophetical spirit coming down from on high to men, saying, 'The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Esaias the prophet,' pointing to the winged aspect of the Gospel: and on this account he made a compendious and cursory narrative, for such is the prophetical character." (Iren., Bk. iii. ch. xi.)
Clement of Alexandria, speaking of a saying ascribed to our Lord, writes:—
"In the first place, then, in the four Gospels handed down amongst us, we have not this saying; but in that which is according to the Egyptians." (Miscellanies, iii. ch. xiii.)
Tertullian writes thus:—
"Of the Apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instil faith into us; whilst, of Apostolic men, Luke and Mark renew it afterwards. These all start with the same principles of the faith, so far as relates to the one only God the Creator, and His Christ, how that He was born of the Virgin, and came to fulfil the law and the prophets. Never mind if there does occur some variation in the order of their narratives, provided that there be agreement in the essential matter of the faith in which there is disagreement with Marcion." (Tertullian against Marcion, iv. c. ii.)
Such are the explicit declarations of these three writers respecting the number and authorship of the Four. I shall give at the conclusion of this section some of the references to be found in these writers to the first two or three chapters in each Gospel.
It is but very little to say that they quote the Four as frequently, and with as firm a belief in their being the Scriptures of God, as any modern divine. They quote them far more copiously, and reproduce the history contained in them far more fully than any modern divine whom I have ever read, who is not writing specifically on the Life of our Lord, or on some part of His teaching contained in the Gospels.
But I have now to consider the question, "To what time, previous to their own day, or rather to the time at which they wrote, does their testimony to such a matter as the general reception of the Four Gospels of necessity reach back?"
Clement wrote in Alexandria, Tertullian in Rome or Africa, Irenaeus in Gaul. They all flourished about A.D. 190. They all speak of the Gospels, not only as well known and received, but as being the only Gospels acknowledged and received by the Church. One of them uses very "uncritical" arguments to prove that the Gospels could only be four in number; but the very absurdity of his analogies is a witness to the universal tradition of his day. To what date before their time must this tradition reach, so that it must be relied upon as exhibiting the true state of things?