in order a declaration of those things which were most surely believed among Christians. Mosheim, in his "Ecclesiastical History" (pt. ii., chap. ii., sec. 17, p. 65, Stubbs' ed., 1863) speaks of "A variety of commentaries, filled with impostures and fables, on our Savior's life and sentiments composed soon after his ascent into heaven, by men who without being bad, perhaps were superstitious, simple, and piously deceitful. To these were afterwards added other writings, falsely ascribed to the most holy apostles by fraudulent individuals." But these fraudulent individuals were Christians, and the purpose of their frauds was to subserve the interests of the Church. We have record of many other Gospels, not to mention Acts of Apostles and Revelations. Some of these were certainly anterior to our own. Such were probably the Gospel of Paul, whence Marcion's Gospel and Luke's were derived, the Gospel of Peter from which possibly Mark was compiled. The Oracles or Sayings of Jesus which probably entered into the construction of Matthew together with the Gospel to the Hebrews. The Gospel of the Egyptians, which we have already seen as quoted by Clement, the original of which C. B. Waite thinks "may have been in use among the Therapeutæ of Egypt a long time before the introduction of Christianity, the passages relating to Christ being afterwards added" ("History of the Christian Religion to the year 200," p. 77, Chicago, 1881.) According to Origen, Theophylact and Jerome, this Gospel was written before the Gospel of Luke, and many learned moderns have deemed it earlier than any of the Canonical Gospels. At least contemporary with these were the Gospel of James or Protevangelion, the Gospel of Thomas or Infancy, and the Gospel of Nicodemus or Acts of Pilate, all of which remain, although the Christian Church has lost the doubtless equally respectable Gospels of Matthias, of Philip, of Bartholomew, of Andrew, and even of Judas Iscariot. IV. We have thus far seen that the five earliest Fathers of the Christian Church have no claim to be considered Apostolic, and that, so far from bearing testimony to the authenticity of our canonical Gospels, their own age and authorship are disputed. We have noticed that their works never mention by name any of the writers of the New Testament with the exception of Paul; that the sayings they ascribe to Jesus, while often similar to those found in our Gospels, are never identical with them, and that they contain much that is evidently derived from other sources. We have in addition seen that there were numerous Gospels current in the early days of the Christian Church; thus confirming the account of Luke that _many_ had taken in hand to set forth in order the things believed among them.