Gospel to the Apostle John. This distinction belongs to Theophilus of Antioch. His treatise, Ad Autolycum, was probably of an earlier date than Irenaeus’ great work, and in this treatise, speaking of inspired men, he says: “ one of whom, John, says, In the beginning was the Word”.
The date of the Muratorian Canon is so much debated that it cannot be cited as a witness anterior to Irenaeus. But it records an interesting tradition of the origin of the Gospel. ‘ The fourth of the Gospels is by the disciple John. He was urged by his fellow disciples and bishops and said, ‘ Fast with me this day and for three days and whatever shall be revealed to any of us let us relate it’. The same night it was revealed to the Apostle Andrew that John should write the whole in his own name, and that all the rest should revise it.” Whatever may be thought of this tradition, it is at all events evidence that for some considerable time prior to the publica- tion of the Muratorian Canon the Fourth Gospel had been accepted as the work of John.
The esteem in which the Fourth Gospel was held about the middle of the second century is evinced by the place it holds in the Diatessaron of Tatian. This harmony of the four Gospels opens with a portion of the Fourth Gospel. What may reasonably be gathered from the existence of such a work is fairly stated by Harnack in his article on Tatian in the Encyc. Brit.; ‘‘ We learn from the Diatessaron that about Α.Ρ. 160 our four Gospels had already taken a place of prominence in the Church, and that no others had done so; that in particular the Fourth Gospel had already taken a fixed place alongside of the three synoptics’’. But this is too modest an inference. Prof. Sanday has shown that the text used in the composition of the Diatessaron does not represent the original autograph of the Gospel, nor a first copy of it, but that several copyings must have intervened between the original and Tatian’s text; that in fact this text was derived “ from a copy that is already very corrupt, a copy perhaps farther removed (if every aberration is taken into account) from the original text than the text which was committed to print in the sixteenth century. This is a fact of the very highest significance, and it is one that the negative critics in Germany have, to the best of my belief, entirely overlooked.”! The date of the Gospel is thus pushed back considerably.
With the writings of Tatian’s master, Justin, we pass from the second into the first half of the second century. Dr. Hort places his
1 See also Harris’ Preliminary Siudy, etc., p. 56.