ere was no "sacred quaternion" spoken of before
about A.D. 180, i.e., the supposed time of Irenaeus. Irenaeus is said to
have been a bishop of Lyons towards the close of the second century; we
find him mentioned in the letter sent by the Churches of Vienne and
Lyons to "brethren in Asia and Phrygia," as "our brother and companion
Irenaeus," and as a presbyter much esteemed by them ("Eccles. Hist." bk.
v., chs. 1, 4). This letter relates a persecution which occurred in "the
17th year of the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Verus," i.e., A.D. 177.
Paley dates the letter about A.D. 170, but as it relates the persecution
of A.D. 177, it is difficult to see how it could be written about seven
years before the persecution took place. In that persecution Pothinus,
bishop of Lyons, is said to have been slain; he was succeeded by Irenaeus
(Ibid bk. v., ch. 5), who, therefore, could not possibly have been
bishop before A.D. 177, while he ought probably to be put a year or two
later, since time is needed, after the persecution, to send the account
of it to Asia by the hands of Irenaeus, and he must be supposed to have
returned and to have settled down in Lyons before he wrote his
voluminous works; A.D. 180 is, therefore, an almost impossibly early
date, but it is, at any rate, the very earliest that can be pretended
for the testimony now to be examined. The works against heresies were
probably written, the first three about A.D. 190, and the remainder
about A.D. 198. Irenaeus is the first Christian writer who mentions
_four_ Gospels; he says:--"Matthew produced his Gospel, written among
the Hebrews, in their own dialect, whilst Peter and Paul proclaimed the
Gospel and founded the church at Rome. After the departure of these,
Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also transmitted to us in
writing what had been preached by him. And Luke, the companion of Paul,
committed to writing the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards John, the
disciple of our Lord, the same that lay upon his bosom, also published
the Gospel, whilst he was yet at Ephesus in Asia" (Quoted by Eusebius,
bk. v., ch. 8, from 3rd bk. of "Refutation and Overthrow of False
Doctrine," by Irenaeus).

The reasons which compelled Irenaeus to believe that there must be
neither less nor more than four Gospels in the Church are so convincing
that they deserve to be here put on record. "It is not possible that the
Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. Fo