Respecting the _Old Latin_ version, (in distinction from Jerome's revision, commonly called the _Vulgate_, which belongs to the fourth century,) various opinions have been maintained. Some have assumed the existence of several independent Latin versions of the New Testament, or of some of its books; but the preferable opinion is that there were various recensions, all having for their foundation a single version, namely, the Old Latin; which, says Westcott, Canon of the New Testament, ch. 3, "can be traced back as far as the earliest records of Latin Christianity. Every circumstance connected with it indicates the most remote antiquity." It was current in north Africa, at least soon after the middle of the second century. Though it has not come down to us in a perfect form, it contains, along with most of the other books of the New Testament, our four canonical gospels; and its testimony is of the greatest weight. The _Muratorian_ Fragment on the _Canon_ is the name given to a Latin fragment discovered by the Italian scholar, Muratori, in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, in a manuscript bearing the marks of great antiquity. Its date is determined by its reference to the shepherd of Hermas, which, says the Fragment, Hermas "wrote very recently in our times, while the bishop Pius, his brother, occupied the chair of the church at Rome." The later of the two dates given for the death of Pius is A.D. 157. The composition of the Fragment must have followed soon afterwards. Though mutilated at the beginning, as well as the end, its testimony to the existence of the _four_ canonical gospels is decisive. In its present form, it opens with the end of a sentence, the beginning of which is lost. It then goes on to say, "_The third gospel according to Luke_." After mentioning various particulars concerning Luke, as that he was a physician whom Paul had taken with him, that he did not himself see the Lord in the flesh, etc., it adds, "_The fourth of the gospels, that of John, of the number of the disciples_," to which it appends a traditional account of the circumstances of its composition. With the truth or falsehood of this account we have at present no concern; the important fact is that this very ancient canon recognizes the existence of our four canonical gospels.