etc., it remains quite doubtful what authority Clement attributed to them.[117] He quotes the [Greek: Didache] as [Greek: graphe]. (7) In determining and estimating the sacred books of the New Testament Clement is manifestly influenced by an ecclesiastical tradition, for he recognises four Gospels and no more because that was the exact number handed down. This tradition had already applied the name "apostolic" to most Christian writings which were to be considered as [Greek: graphai], but it had given the concept "apostolic" a far wider content than Irenaeus and Tertullian,[118] although it had not been able to include all the new writings which were regarded as sacred under this idea. (Hermas). At the time Clement wrote, the Alexandrian _Church_ can neither have held the principle that all writings of the Apostles must be read in the Church and form a decisive court of appeal like the Old Testament, nor have believed that nothing but the Apostolic--using this word also in its wider sense--has any claim to authority among Christians. We willingly admit the great degree of freedom and peculiarity characteristic of Clement, and freely acknowledge the serious difficulties inseparable from the attempt to ascertain from his writings what was regarded as possessing standard authority in the _Church_. Nevertheless it may be assumed with certainty that, at the time this author wrote, the content of the New Testament canon, or, to speak more correctly, its reception in the Church and exact attributes had not yet been finally settled in Alexandria.