The writers, whose testimonies to the existence or use of our present
Gospels are examined by the author, are twenty-three in number. Five of
these, namely, Hegesippus, Papias, Melito, Claudius Apollinaris, and
Dionysius of Corinth are only known to us through fragments preserved as
quotations in Eusebius and others. Six others--Basilides, Valentinus,
Marcion, Ptolemaeus, Heracleon, and Celsus--are heretical or infidel
writers whom we only know through notices or scraps of their works in
the writings of the Christian Fathers who refuted them. The Epistle of
the Martyrs of Vienne and Lyons is only in part preserved in the pages
of Eusebius. The Canon of Muratori is a mutilated fragment of uncertain
date. Athenagoras and Tatian are only known through Apologies written
for the Heathen, the last of all Christian books in which to look for
definite references to canonical writings. The Epistle to Diognetus is a
small tract of uncertain date and authorship. The Clementine Homilies is
an apocryphal work of very little value in the present discussion.

These are all the writings placed by the author as subsequent to Justin
Martyr. The writers previous to Justin, of whom the author of
"Supernatural Religion" makes use, are Clement of Rome (to whom we shall
afterwards refer), the Epistle of Barnabas, the Pastor of Hermas, the
Epistles of Ignatius, and that of Polycarp.

As I desire to take the author on his own ground whenever it is possible
to do so, I shall, for argument's sake, take the author's account of the
age and authority of these documents. I shall consequently assume with
him that

"None of the epistles [of Ignatius] have any value as evidence for
an earlier period than the end of the second or beginning of the
third century [from about 190 to 210 or so], if indeed they possess