matter is too certain to need much to be said of it" (Jones "On the Canon," vol. i, p. 7). Jones adds that he hopes to confute "these specious objections ... in the fourth part of this book," in which he endeavours to prove the Gospels and Acts to be _genuine_, so that it does not much matter when they were collected together. In the time of Eusebius the Canon was still unsettled, as he ranks among the disputed and spurious works, the epistles of James and Jude, second of Peter, second and third of John, and the Apocalypse ("Eccles. Hist.," bk. iii., chap. 25). It is not necessary to offer any further proof in support of our position, _that it is not known where, when, by whom, the canonical writings were selected._ D. _That before about_ A.D. 180 _there is no trace of_ FOUR _gospels among the Christians_. The first step we take in attacking the four canonical gospels, apart from the writings of the New Testament as a whole, is to show that there was no "sacred quaternion" spoken of before about A.D. 180, i.e., the supposed time of Irenæus. Irenæus is said to have been a bishop of Lyons towards the close of the second century; we find him mentioned in the letter sent by the Churches of Vienne and Lyons to "brethren in Asia and Phrygia," as "our brother and companion Irenæus," and as a presbyter much esteemed by them ("Eccles. Hist." bk. v., chs. 1, 4). This letter relates a persecution which occurred in "the 17th year of the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Verus," i.e., A.D. 177. Paley dates the letter about A.D. 170, but as it relates the persecution of A.D. 177, it is difficult to see how it could be written about seven years before the persecution took place. In that persecution Pothinus, bishop of Lyons, is said to have been slain; he was succeeded by Irenæus (Ibid bk. v., ch. 5), who, therefore, could not possibly have been bishop before A.D. 177, while he ought probably to be put a year or two later, since time is needed, after the persecution, to send the account of it to Asia by the hands of Irenæus, and he must be supposed to have returned and to have settled down in Lyons before he wrote his voluminous works; A.D. 180 is, therefore, an almost impossibly early date, but it is, at any rate, the very earliest that can be pretended for the testimony now to be examined. The works against heresies were probably written, the first three about A.D. 190, and the remainder about A.D. 198. Irenæus is the first Christian writer who mentions _four_ Gospels; he says:--"Matthew produced his Gospel, written among the Hebrews, in their own dialect, whilst Peter and Paul proclaimed the Gospel and founded the church at Rome. After the departure of these, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also transmitted to us in writing what had been preached by him. And Luke, the companion of Paul, committed to writing the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards John, the disciple of our Lord, the same that lay upon his bosom, also published