6. Let it be further remembered that this testimony relates not to books of a private character, that might have lain for years hidden in some corner; but to the public writings of the churches, on which their faith was founded, of which they all had copies, and which it was the custom, from the apostolic age, to read in their assemblies along with the law and the prophets. (Justin Martyr Apol., 1. 67.) Earnestness and sincerity are traits which will not be denied to the primitive Christians, and they were certainly not wanting in common discernment. Let any man show, if he can, how a spurious gospel, suddenly appearing somewhere after the apostolic days, could have been imposed upon the churches as genuine, not only where it originated, but everywhere else in Christendom. The difficulty with which some of the genuine books of the New Testament gained universal currency sufficiently refutes such an absurd supposition.
7. We are now prepared to consider the testimonies of an earlier period. Here Justin Martyr is a very weighty witness, since he lived so near the apostolic age, and had every facility for investigating the history of the gospel narratives. He was born near the beginning of the second century, and his extant works date from about the middle of the same century. Before his conversion to Christianity he was a heathen philosopher earnestly seeking for the truth among the different systems of the age. Of his undoubtedly genuine works, there remain to us two Apologies (defences of Christianity) and a Dialogue with Trypho a Jew, designed to defend the Christian religion against its Jewish opponents. In these he quotes the gospel of Matthew very abundantly; next in number are his quotations from Luke. His references to Mark and John are much fewer, but enough to show his acquaintance with them. He never quotes the evangelists by name, but designates their writings as "The Memoirs of the Apostles;" and more fully, "The memoirs which I affirm to have been composed by his"—our Lord's—"apostles and their followers," Dialog., ch. 103, "which," he elsewhere says, "are called gospels," Apol. 1. 66, and in a collective sense, "the gospel," Dialog., ch. 10. It should be carefully noticed that he speaks in the plural number both of the apostles who composed the gospels and their followers. This description applies exactly to our canonical gospels—two written by apostles, and two by their followers.
The attempt has been made in modern times to set aside Justin's testimony, on the alleged ground that he quotes not from our canonical gospels, but from some other writings. The groundlessness of this supposition is manifest at first sight. Justin had visited the three principal churches of Rome, Alexandria, and Ephesus. It is certain that he knew what gospels were received by them in his day as authentic, and that these are the very gospels which he quotes, affirming that they were the writings of apostles and their followers. Now, that the gospels which Justin used should have been wholly supplanted by others in the days of Irenæus, who was of full age at the time of Justin's death, is incredible. But Irenæus, in common with Clement, Tertullian, and others, quotes our four canonical gospels as alone possessing apostolic authority, and as having been always received by the churches. It follows that the "Memoirs" of Justin must be the same gospels. We cannot conceive that in this brief period an entire change of gospels should have been made throughout all the different and distant provinces of the Roman empire, at a time when concerted action through general councils was unknown; and that, too, in so silent a manner that no record of it remains in the history of the church. The supposition that the gospels known to Justin were different from those received by Irenæus ought not to be entertained without irrefragable proof. But no such proof exists. "An accurate examination in detail of his citations," says Semisch, Life of Justin Martyr, 4. 1, "has led to the result that this title"—the Memoirs of the Apostles—"designates the canonical gospels—a result in no way less certain because again called in question in modern days."
The agreement of his quotations with our present gospels is of such a character and extent as can be explained only from his use of them. The variations are mainly due to his habit of quoting loosely from memory. "Many of these citations," says Kirchhofer, "agree, word for word, with the gospels; others with the substance, but with alterations and additions of words, with transpositions and omissions; others give the thought only in a general way; others still condense together the contents of several passages and different sayings, in which case the historic quotations are yet more free, and blend together, in part, the accounts of Matthew and Luke. But some quotations are not found at all in our canonical gospels," (see immediately below;) "some, on the contrary, occur twice or thrice." Quellensammlung, p. 89. note. Two or three more important variations are, perhaps, due to the readings in the manuscripts employed by Justin, since the later church fathers, who, as we know, employed the canonical gospels, give the same variations. Finally, Justin gives a few incidents and sayings not recorded in our present gospels. As he lived so near the apostolic times he may well have received these from tradition; but if in any case he took them from written documents, there is no proof that he ascribed to such documents apostolic authority. In one passage, he accurately distinguishes between what he gives from tradition or other written sources, and what from the apostolic records. "When Jesus came," he says, "to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, as he descended to the water, both was a fire kindled in the Jordan, and as he ascended from the water, the apostles of this very Christ of ours have written that the Holy Spirit as a dove lighted upon him." Dial., ch. 88.
It has been doubted whether certain references to the gospel of John can be found in Justin's writings; but it seems plain that the following is a free quotation from chapter 3:3–5: "For Christ said, Except ye be born again, ye shall by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven. But that it is impossible that they who have once been born should enter into the wombs of those who bare them is manifest to all." Apol. 1. 61. To affirm that a passage so peculiar as this was borrowed by both the evangelist John and Justin from a common tradition, is to substitute a very improbable for a very natural explanation. Besides, Justin uses phraseology peculiar to John, repeatedly calling our Saviour "the Word of God," and "the Word made flesh;" affirming that he "was in a peculiar sense begotten the only Son of God," "an only begotten One to the Father of all things, being in a peculiar sense begotten of him as Word and Power, and afterwards made man through the Virgin;" and calling him "the good Rock that sends forth (literally, causes to bubble forth—compare John 4:14) living waters into the hearts of those who through him have loved the Father of all things, and that gives to all who will the water of life to drink." These and other references to John may be seen in Kirchhofer's Quellensammlung, pp. 146, 147.
8. Another early witness is Papias, who was bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, in the first half of the second century. He wrote "An Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord," in five books. This work has perished; but fragments of it, with notices of its contents, are preserved to us by Eusebius and other writers. As Papias, according to his own express testimony, gathered his materials, if not from apostles themselves, yet from their immediate disciples, his statements are invested with great interest. Of Matthew he says, Eusebius Hist. Eccl., 5. 39, that he "wrote the oracles in the Hebrew dialect, and every one interpreted them as he could." He speaks of this interpretation by each one as he could as something past, implying that in his day our present Greek gospel of Matthew (of the apostolic authority of which there was never any doubt in the early churches) was in circulation, whether it was or was not originally composed in Hebrew, a question on which learned men are not agreed. Of Mark he affirms that, "having become Peter's interpreter, he wrote down accurately as many things as he remembered; not recording in order the 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