for instance, at the time of the Arian controversy in the fourth century, and at the time of the Reformation, men arose who denied, more or less explicitly, the true and proper Godhead of our Lord, of which Christian doctrine the Gospel of St. John seems to afford the most decisive proofs; and yet neither the followers of Arius in the fourth century, or of Socinus in the sixteenth, seem ever to have thought of questioning the Apostolic authorship of this Gospel, but contented themselves with explaining away the obvious meaning of some of its most prominent passages relating to our Lord's Person.

The authenticity of this Gospel was first seriously questioned at the end of the last century; and since that time a host of writers, mostly German Rationalists and English Socinians, have, on the most opposite and often mutually destructive grounds, denied it to be the work of St. John.

Let the reader remember that this means, that men, living eighteen hundred years after the publication of a certain text-book, question the testimony to its authorship of men who flourished within one hundred years after the publication of that book, and who were born within fifty years after the death of its author, and who had access to a considerable Christian literature, which existed between their day and that of the author of the book in question, which literature has since perished. These general statements we shall now make good.

By far the most important source of our knowledge of the early history of the Church is the "Ecclesiastical History" of Eusebius. Whatever his merits as an historian, there can be no doubt that he carefully investigated the history of the Canon of Scripture, and also the succession of ecclesiastical writers. His history is, in fact, to a great extent, a sketch of early Church literature. In dealing with the history of the Canon, he particularly notices whether a large number of writers have quoted certain books of the New Testament, of whose acceptance by the whole Church doubts were entertained. We learn from him that the Church never received books as canonical, except upon sufficient evidence, and that evidence was the reception of each book by the whole Church from the earliest times. He gives an account of the publication of each of the Gospels-of Luke, bk. iii. ch. iv.; of Mark, in bk. ii. ch. xv.; of Matthew and John, in bk. iii. ch. xxiv. (this, so far as regards St. John, I have given in page ix. of this Introduction).

In giving a summary statement of the books of the New Testament, he begins it with, "Here, among the first, must be placed the Holy Quaternion of the Gospels. These are followed by the Book of the Acts," &c. (Bk. iii. 1, 25.)

With respect to the Gospels, he knows but four as Canonical, and has never heard of any other as accepted by the Church. He mentions apocryphal and disputed books. Amongst the latter, he mentions the Gospel to the Hebrews; but he is wholly ignorant of doubt having ever been cast upon the authority of any of the four in any branch of the Catholic Church. Now, however Eusebius, like any other writer, may be liable to be mistaken, through carelessness or prejudice; yet, on all principles of common sense, each of these his statements respecting the authorship of the various Gospels, is worth all the adverse conjectures of modern "destructive" critics put together. For Eusebius lived above fifteen hundred years nearer to New Testament times than these critics, and had come to man's estate within two hundred years of the publication of the fourth Gospel. And, besides this, Eusebius was acquainted with a vast mass of ecclesiastical literature, which has altogether perished, and the greater part of which is only known to have existed through notices or extracts to be found in his book. For instance, in a few pages he gives accounts of writings which he had seen of Papias (iii. 39), Quadratus and Aristides (iv. 3), Hegesippus (iv. 8, 22), Tatian (iv. 16), Dionysius of Corinth (iv. 23), Pinytus (iv. 23), Philip and Modestus (iv. 25), Melito (iv. 26), Apollinaris (iv. 27), Bardesanes (iv. 30).

These are all names of writers who flourished in the first threequarters of the second century, and I have only mentioned those whose writings Eusebius appears to have seen himself.

Between Eusebius and the close of the second century three writers of note flourished, Cyprian, martyred in old age, A.D. 257; Hippolytus, martyred about A.D. 240; and Origen, died about A.D. 250. Origen wrote a commentary on St. John in twenty-two books, two of which have come down to us. In an index now before me I find the references of St. Cyprian to St. John's Gospel are above 200. Hippolytus also continually refers to him in the most direct manner.

But I hasten from these to three authors in the last quarter of the second century i.e. within eighty years or so of the death of St. John, Irenæus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria. All these were men of culture and extensive reading. All opponents of the

authority of St. John's Gospel are obliged to allow that these men quote St. John's Gospel as part of the Word of God as distinctly, and as frequently, and as reverentially as any modern author which could be named.

But it may be well not to rely upon the mere assertion of this, but show it at some length by references, so that no shadow of a doubt may linger in any reader's mind upon the matter. Irenæus wrote his principal work "Against Heresies,' in the reign of Commodus, i.e. between A.D. 180 and 192. In his youth he was acquainted with Polycarp, who himself remembered St. John. Irenæus knows of but four Gospels, our present four. There is a remarkable passage of his writings in which he speaks of the Gospels as being necessarily but four:

"It is not possible," he writes, "that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds . . . . it is fitting that the Church should have four pillars . . . . He Who was manifested to men has given us the Gospel under four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit." (Bk. iii., ch. xi., sec. 8.)

The wisdom of these analogies may be questioned, but no one could possibly have cited such things by way of type or comparison, if in his youth there had been only three Gospels, and one had suddenly come to light when he was in middle life, and had slowly won its way to a place in the Quaternion, as modern critics, who place the composition of St. John in the middle of the second century, ask us to believe. The following are clear and distinct quotations from, or references to, St. John.

John i. 1. "In the beginning," &c.

Irenæus. "That Gospel, according to John, relates his original, effectual, and glorious generation from the Father, thus declaring: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' (iii. ch. xi. sec. 8.)

John i. 10, 11. "He was in the world... his own received him not."

Irenæus, iii. ch. xi. sec. 2. "John, however, does himself put this matter beyond all controversy on our part when he says: "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.'"

John i. 14. "The word was made flesh," &c.

The references to, and reminiscences of this place are exceedingly numerous. I can only give one, Bk. iii. ch. xi. sec. 2: "The Gospel affirms plainly, that by the Word which was in the beginning with God, all things were made, which Word, he says, was made Flesh, and dwelt among us."

John i. 29. " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh," &c.

Irenæus iii. ch. x. 2. "For this is the knowledge of salvation which was wanting to them, that of the Son of God, which John made known, saying, 'Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.'

John i. 49. "Nathanael answered and saith unto him," &c.

Irenæus iii. ch. xi. sec. 6. "By whom also Nathanael, being taught, recognized Him, he to whom also the Lord bare witness that he was 'an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile.' The Israelite recognized his King. . . . . Thou art the Son of God. Thou art the King of Israel. ."

John ii. The miracle of the turning of the water into wine.

Irenæus iii. xi. 5. "But that wine was better which the Word made from water, on the moment, and simply for the use of those who had been called to the marriage."

John iii. The words to Nicodemus, the looking by faith to the Son of Man lifted up, the declaration of the Lord respecting light coming into the world, &c., John iii. 3-21, are all quoted or alluded to by Irenæus.

John iv. 14. So Irenæus: "Since the Son of God is always one and the same, He giveth to those who believe on Him a well of water [springing up] to eternal life." (iv. ch. xxxvi. 4.)

There are nine or ten references in an index now before me to chap. v., four to chap. vi., two to chap. vii., nine to chap. viii., four to chap. ix., two to chap. xi. One of these to John xi. 54 is: "Then when He raised Lazarus from the dead, and plots were formed against Him by the Pharisees, He withdrew to a city called Ephraim, and from that place, as it is written, He came to Bethany six days before the Passover." (ii. ch. xxii. 3.)

We next come to Tertullian. He, as Irenæus, held only four Gospels, in enumerating which he puts John the first. "Of the Apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instil faith into us; whilst of Apostolic men, Luke and Mark renew it afterwards." ("Against Marcion," iv. ch. ii., also ch. v.) Again, speaking of the full revelation of Divine Truth to the Apostles: "Was anything, moreover, hidden

from John, the most beloved of the Lord, who leaned upon His breast, to whom alone the Lord pointed out beforehand Judas, that should betray Him, whom He commended unto Mary as a son in His own stead? (On Prescription.) I can only give a few references. "It is written, To them that believed on Him, gave He the power to be called sons of God.'” (On Prayer, ch. ii.) But it will suffice to refer to chapters xxi. to xxv. of his treatise against Praxeas, in which he shows by a minute analysis of St. John's Gospel, that the Father and the Son are constantly spoken of as distinct Persons.

"First of all, there comes at once to hand the preamble of John to his Gospel, which shows us what He previously was Who had to become flesh. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,' &c. . . . . His glory was beheld, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.... He affirmed Himself that they were quite right in their convictions; for he answered Nathanael, 'Because I said I saw thee under the fig tree,' &c. When He entered the Temple He called it His Father's house. . . .. In His address to Nicodemus He says, 'God so loved the world,' &c. Moreover, when John was asked what he happened to know of Jesus, he said, 'The Father loveth the Son,' &c. . . . . Whom, indeed, did He reveal to the woman of Samaria? Was it not the Messias which is called Christ? . . . . He says, therefore, 'My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His Work;' whilst to the Jews respecting the cure of the impotent man, he remarks, 'My Father worketh hitherto and I work.' 'My Father and I;' these are the Son's words: and it was on this very account that 'the Jews sought the more intently to kill Him, not only because He broke the Sabbath, but also because He said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.'" All these are from one or two pages, so that no one can have the shadow of a doubt respecting Tertullian's view of St. John's Gospel.

We now turn to Clement of Alexandria, who became head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria in A.D. 190. He also knows of but four Gospels, for speaking of a saying ascribed to our Lord, ho 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. 13.)

Clement gives an account of the writing of the fourth Gospel as follows:-He says that those which contain the genealogies were written first, but that the Gospel of St. John was occasioned in the