[Footnote 4: Paley's Evidences, p. 107. Referred to Dr. Lardner's Creed, vol. 1, p. 62, et seq.] [Footnote 5: Paley's Evidences, p. 110. Lardner's Creed, vol. 1, p. 111.] Next to Hermes our author mentions IGNATIUS, who became bishop of Antioch, about thirty-seven years after the ascension of Christ; and was without doubt personally acquainted with the apostles. Epistles of Ignatius are referred to by Polycarp his contemporary. Passages, found in the epistles now extant under his name, are quoted by Irenæus, A.D. 178, by Origen, A.D. 130. In these epistles there are various undoubted allusions to the gospels of St. Matthew and St. John. Of these allusions the following are clear specimens: "Christ was baptised of John, that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him." "_Be ye wise as serpents_ in all things, _and harmless as doves_." "Yet the spirit is not deceived, being from God; for it knows whence it comes, and whether it goes." "He (Christ) is the door of the Father, by which enters in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and the apostles and the church." Ignatius speaks of St Paul in terms of high respect, and quotes his epistles to the Ephesians by name. Next to Ignatius, our author mentions POLYCARP who had been taught by the apostles; had conversed with many who had seen Christ, was also by the apostles appointed bishop of Smyrna. This testimony concerning Polycarp is given by Irenæus, who in his youth had seen him. "I can tell the place," saith Irenænus, "in which the blessed Polycarp sat and taught, and his going out and coming in, and the manner of his life, and the form of his person, and the discourses he made to the people, and how he related his conversation with John amid others who had seen the Lord, and how he related their sayings, and what he had heard concerning the Lord, both concerning his miracles and his doctrine, as he had received them from the eye witness of the word of life: all which Polycarp related _agreeably_ to the scriptures." In one short letter of Polycarp's, there are near forty clear allusions to books of the New Testament: which is strong evidence of the respect which Christians of that age hear for these books, and positive evidence that the gospel had been written before this epistle. Papias, a hearer of John, and companion of Polycarp, as Irenæus attests, and of that age, as all agree, expressly ascribes the respective gospels to Matthew and Mark, in a passage quoted by Eusebius. He informs us that Mark collected his gospel from Peter's preaching, and that Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew. This authority fully shows that the gospels bore these names at this early period.