The Fourth Gospel, like the First Epistle of John, is notoriously doubtful, as Bretschneider has shown in his “Probabilia;” parts are certainly spurious, and the whole seems to belong to the latter half of the second century. {19} We are, therefore, reduced to one Gospel—that of Matthew—and even of this it may be said, that no one knows whether it was written in Greek or Hebrew, for no one has seen the original. It is certain that parts of our present text are interpolations, and although it would appear that Matthew wrote what is termed the “Logia” (or sayings of Christ), it is far from certain that the “Logia” is the same as our First Gospel. The fact seems to be this: that Matthew noted down the discourses and parables of Christ; and unknown authors from time to time added to the original work, till ultimately it assumed its present form and proportions. It must not be forgotten that our present canon of the New Testament was not established till the year 494; the canon recognised at the council of Laodicea (360–4) repudiated the Book of Revelations. The primitive Christians never refer to any book of the New Testament, and few quotations from it were made by the apostolic fathers. It is not till the close of the second century that we meet with any definite and distinct mention of New Testament Scriptures at all. Eusebius recognises as canonical books the four Gospels and Acts, the Epistles of Paul, and the first Epistles of John and Peter; but he considers the rest of the books as doubtful; and speaks of others as equally worthy of credit or rather discredit, such as the Acts of Paul, the Book of the Shepherd [Hermas], the Kerugma of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Clementine Epistles, the Doctrines of the Apostles, and the Gospel of the Hebrews; all these, except the first are mentioned by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, on whose authority our selection of Canonical New Testament Scriptures mainly depends.