or fewer gospels than these. For as there are four re- gions of the world in which we live, and four catholic spirits, and the Church is spread all over the earth, and the Gospel is the pillar and foundation of the Church, and the spirit of life, in like manner was it fit it should have four pillars, breathmg on all sides incorruption and refreshing mankind. Whence it is manifest that the Word, the former of all things, who sits upon the cherubim and upholds all things, having appeared to men, has given us a Gospel of a fourfold character, but joined in one spirit.' (Here follows a brief characteri- zation of the several gospels in their relation to one an- other.) That this is a fanciful (if one will, a puerile) observation there is no reason to deny ; but how it can in the least invalidate the credibility of the author's testimony on a matter of fact within his cognizance, it is impossible to . see. If these analogies had exerted any influence in determining Irenseus's acceptance of the foiu: gospels of the canon, the case would be different. But Froude admits that such M-as not the fact. He ac- cepts the Gospels on account of the historical proof of their genuineness, as he repeatedly affirms, and inde- l)endently of these supposed analogies. It is the estab- lished and exclusive authority of the four gospels that sends him after these fancied analogies and accounts for the suggestion of them. The suggestion of them, there- fore, strengthens instead of weakens the evidence in be- half of the canonical evangelists, because it shows how firm and long-settled must have been the recognition of them in the Church. It is even a hasty inference from such a passage that the author was intellectually weak. If this inference is to be drawn from such an observa- tion, the ablest of the fathers, as Augustine, must be equally condemned. Men who are not deficient in abil- ity may say sometimes rather foolish things. ... On the whole, Irenteus is distinguished for the soundness and clearness of his understanding. (See Schaft' in the first part of our article.) He is rather averse to specu- lation, being of a pr xtical turn. There is hardly one of the early ecclesiastical writers who, in all the quali- ties that made up a trustworthy witness, is to be set be- fore him. There is no reason to doubt that, in his statements concerning the origin and authority of the Gospels, he represents the Christians of his time. It is not the sentiment of an individual merely, but the state of things, the general judgment of the Church, which he brings before us. No good reason can lie given for this general, exclusive recognition of the Gospels now included in our canon, no even plausible solution of the fact can be rendered, unless it be granted that they were really handed down from the days of the apostks, and were thus known to embody the testimony of eye-wit- nesses and ear-witnesses of the events which they re- cord. Had Poh'carp known nothing of John's Gospel — or, knowing of it, had he rejected it — it is impossible that Irenieus and his contemporaries should have been ignorant of the fact. It is proved by the most con- vincing array of circumstantial evidence that Polycarp, a personal acquaintance of John the Apostle, an honor- ed bishop in the neighborhood where John had labored and died, considered the fourth gospel to be his compo- sition" (Dr. G. P. Fisher, of Yale College, in the Inde- pendent, Feb. 4, 1869 ; comp. the reply to Dr. Davidson [Introd. to the N. Test. Lond. 18(38, 2 vols. 8vo], in the Brit, and For. Ev. Rev. Jan. 1869, p. 4-8). In a simi- lar strain argues Mr. Westcott {History of the Neto Test. Ca~:3)i) : " In the same Church where Irenaeus was a presbyter—' zealous for the covenant of Christ'— Photi- nus was bishop, already ninety years old. Like Poly- carp, he was associated with the generation of St. John, and must have been born before the books of the N. T. were all written. And how, then, can it be supposed with reason that forgeries came into use in his time, which he must have been able to detect by his own knowledge ? that they were received without suspicion or reserve in the church over which he presided ? It is possible to weaken the connection of facts by arbitrary
IREN.EUS
653
IREN^US
hj-potheses; but, interpreted according to their natural meaning, they tell of a Church united by its head with the times of St. John, to which the books of the N. T. furnished the unaffected language of hope, and resigna- tion, and triumph. And the testimony of Irenseus is the testimony of the Church." But not only to the au- thenticity of the Gospels does Irenaeus bear his testimo- ny, lie also furnishes conclusive evidence in support of other N.-T. books which have been questioned (see Brit, and For. Ev. Rev. 1869, p. 7 sq.).
11. Canon of Scripture. — Not a little surprising, but agreeably so, it must be to the Christian of the present day to find that in the days of Irenasus, even when the canon of Scripture could not be expected to have been so accurately defined as it afterwards was, we tind, with the exception of the spurious additions to Daniel, found in the Septuagint, and the boolis of Baruch, quoted un- der the name of Jeremiah, no writings of the O. T., ac- knowledged as forming part of the O.-T. canon, which Protestants do not include in it at the present day. So likewise of the N. T., the only book not now accept- ed, but to which Irenreus credited canonical authority, is the " Shepherd of Hernias." Altogether, " with the