We must not think that the four Gospels now found in the canon had attained full canonical authority by the middle of the second century, for the fact--easily demonstrable--that the texts were still very freely dealt with about this period is in itself a proof of this.[78] Our first three Gospels contain passages and corrections that could hardly have been fixed before about the year 150. Moreover, Tatian's attempt to create a new Gospel from the four shews that the text of these was not yet fixed.[79] We may remark that he was the first in whom we find the Gospel of John[80] alongside of the Synoptists, and these four the only ones recognised. From the assault of the "Alogi" on the Johannine Gospel we learn that about 160 the whole of our four Gospels had not been definitely recognised even in Asia Minor. Finally, we must refer to the Gospel of the Egyptians, the use of which was not confined to circles outside the Church.[81] From the middle of the second century the Encratites stood midway between the larger Christendom and the Marcionite Church as well as the Gnostic schools. We hear of some of these using the Gospels as canonical writings side by side with the Old Testament, though they would have nothing to do with the Epistles of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles.[82] But Tatian, the prominent Apologist, who joined them, gave this sect a more complete canon, an important fact about which was its inclusion of Epistles of Paul. Even this period, however, still supplies us with no testimony as to the existence of a New Testament canon in orthodox Christendom, in fact the rise of the so-called "Montanism" and its extreme antithesis, the "Alogi," in Asia Minor soon after the middle of the second century proves that there was still no New Testament canon there; for, if such an authoritative compilation had existed, these movements could not have arisen. If we gather together all the indications and evidence bearing on the subject, we shall indeed be ready to expect the speedy appearance in the Church of a kind of Gospel canon comprising the four Gospels;[83] but we are prepared neither for this being formally placed on an equality with the Old Testament, nor for its containing apostolic writings, which as yet are only found in Marcion and the Gnostics. The canon emerges quite suddenly in an allusion of Melito of Sardis preserved by Eusebius,[84] the meaning of which is, however, still dubious; in the works of Irenaeus and Tertullian; and in the so-called Muratorian Fragment. There is no direct account of its origin and scarcely any indirect; yet it already appears as something to all intents and purposes finished and complete.[85] Moreover, it emerges in the same ecclesiastical district where we were first able to show the existence of the apostolic _regula fidei_. We hear nothing of any authority belonging to the compilers, because we learn nothing at all of such persons.[86] And yet the collection is