from apostles or apostolic men; and how watchful they were
against all attempts to mutilate or corrupt the primitive
apostolic records. In defending the true gospel of Luke against
the mutilated form of it employed by Marcion, he says: "I affirm
that not in the apostolic churches alone, but in all which are
joined with them in the bond of fellowship, that gospel of Luke
which we most firmly maintain, has been valid from its first
publication; but Marcion's gospel is unknown to most of them,
and known to none, except to be condemned." This testimony of
Tertullian is very important, as showing his full conviction
that Marcion could not deny the universal reception, from the
beginning, of the genuine gospel of Luke. And a little
afterwards he adds: "The same authority of the apostolic
churches will defend the other gospels also, which we have in
like manner through them, and according to them," (Against
Marcion, 4. 5.) Many more quotations of like purport might be
added.

_Clement of Alexandria_ was a pupil of Pantænus, and his
successor as head of the catechetical school at Alexandria in
Egypt. He was of heathen origin, born probably about the middle
of the second century, and died about A.D. 220. He had a
philosophical turn of mind, and after his conversion to
Christianity made extensive researches under various teachers,
as he himself tells us, in Greece, in Italy, in Palestine, and
other parts of the East. At last he met with Pantænus in Egypt,
whom he preferred to all his other guides, and in whose
instructions he rested. The testimony of Clement to the
universal and undisputed reception by the churches of the four
canonical gospels as the writings of apostles or apostolic men,