e things that were said or done by
Christ, since he was not a hearer or follower of the Lord, but
afterwards"--after our Lord's ascension--"of Peter, who imparted his
teachings as occasion required, but not as making an orderly narrative
of the Lord's discourses." Hist. Eccl., 3. 39. The fact that Eusebius
gives no statement of Papias respecting the other two gospels is of
little account, since his notices of the authors to whom he refers, and
of their works, are confessedly imperfect.

Eusebius notices, for example, Hist. Eccl. 4. 14, the fact that
Polycarp, in his letter to the Philippians, "has used certain
testimonies from the First Epistle of Peter;" but says nothing
of his many references, in the same letter, to the epistles of
Paul, in some of which he quotes the apostle by name. We have,
nevertheless, through Eusebius, an indirect but valid testimony
from Papias to the authorship of the fourth gospel, resting upon
the admitted identity of the author of this gospel with the
author of the first of the epistles ascribed to John. Speaking
of Papias, Eusebius says: "But the same man used testimonies
from the First Epistle of John." Hist. Eccl., 3. 39, end. The
ascription to John of this epistle, is virtually the ascription
to him of the fourth gospel also. Eusebius speaks of Papias as a
man "of very small mind." The correctness of this judgment is
manifest from the specimens which he gives of his writings; but
it cannot invalidate the evidence we have from the above
passages of the existence, in Papias' day, of the gospels to
which he refers. As to the question whether these were our
present canonical gospels of Matthew and Mark, it is sufficient
to say that neither Eusebius nor any of the church fathers
understood them differently.

9. A very interesting relic of antiquity is the _Epistle to Diognetus_,
of which the authorship is uncertain. Its date cannot be later than the
age of Justin Martyr, to whom it is ascribed by some. It is,
notwithstanding some erroneous views, a noble defence of Christianity,
in which the author shows his acquaintance with the gospel of John by
the use of terms and phrases peculiar to him. Thus he calls Christ "the
Word," and "the only begotten Son," whom God sent to men. In the words,
"not to take thought about raiment and food," section 9, there is an
apparent reference to Matt. 6:25, 31.

In additio