Irenaeus, who in his controversies with heretics, the men of falsification and apocryphal works, employs against them, before all other things, the pure Scripture as a holy weapon?" (Essay, When were Our Gospels Written, p. 8.) The testimony of Irenaeus is justly regarded as of the most weighty character. The fact that he gives several fanciful reasons why there should be only four gospels, (Against Heresies, 3. 11,) does not invalidate his statement of the fact that the churches had always received four, and no more. We always distinguish between men's testimony to facts of which they are competent witnesses, and their philosophical explanations of these facts. _Tertullian_ was born in Carthage about A.D. 160, and died between A.D. 220 and 240. About A.D. 202 he joined the sect of the Montanists; but this does not affect his testimony respecting the origin and universal reception of the four canonical gospels. His works are very numerous, and in them all he insists with great earnestness that the gospel narratives, as also the other apostolic writings, have been received without corruption, as a sacred inheritance, from the apostolic churches. His work against Marcion, whom he accuses of employing a mutilated gospel of Luke, is particularly instructive as showing how deep and settled was the conviction of the early Christians that nothing could be a gospel which did not proceed 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.