uadratus
himself, and of many others of that age, which are now lost. It is
reasonable, therefore to believe that he had good grounds for his
assertion. What is thus recorded of the Gospels took place within sixty,
or at the most seventy, years after they were published: and it is
evident that they must, before this time (and, it is probable, long
before this time), have been in general use and in high esteem in the
churches planted by the apostles, inasmuch as they were now, we find,
collected into a volume: and the immediate successors of the apostles,
they who preached the religion of Christ to those who had not already
heard it, carried the volume with them, and delivered it to their
converts.

III. Irenaeus, in the year 178, (Lardner, Cred. part ii. vol. i. p. 383.)
puts the evangelic and apostolic writings in connexion with the Law and
the Prophets, manifestly intending by the one a code or collection of
Christian sacred writings, as the other expressed the code or collection
of Jewish sacred writings. And,

IV. Melito, at this time bishop of Sardis, writing to one Onesimus,
tells his correspondent, (Lardner, Cred. vol. i. p. 331.) that he had
procured an accurate account of the books of the Old Testament. The
occurrence in this message of the term Old Testament has been brought to
prove, and it certainly does prove, that there was then a volume or
collection of writings called the New Testament.

V. In the time of Clement of Alexandria, about fifteen years after the
last quoted testimony, it is apparent that the Christian Scriptures were
divided into two parts, under the general titles of the Gospels and
Apostles; and that both these were regarded as of the highest authority.
One out of many expressions of Clement, alluding to this distribution,
is the following: "There is a consent and harmony between the Law and
the Prophets, the Apostles and the Gospel." (Lardner, Cred. vol. ii. p.
516.)

VI. The same division, "Prophets, Gospels, and Apostles," appears in
Tertullian, the contemporary of Clement. The collection of the Gospels
is likewise called by this writer the "Evangelic Instrument;" the whole
volume the "New Testament;" and the two parts, the "Gospels and
Apostles." (Lardner, Cred. vol. ii. pp. 631,574 & 632.)

VII. From many writers also of the third century, and especially from
Cyprian, who lived in the middle of it, it is collected that the
Christian Scriptures were divided into two cedes or volum