The facts of the case may be briefly summed up as follows, so far as our object is concerned. The third Synoptic is mentioned by a totally unknown writer, at an unknown, but certainly not early, date, in all probability during the third century, in a fragment which we possess in a very corrupt version very far from free from suspicion of interpolation in the precise part from which the early date is inferred. The Gospel is attributed to Luke, who was not one of the followers of Jesus, and of whom it is expressly said that "he himself had not seen the Lord in the flesh," but wrote "as he deemed best (ex opinione)," and followed his history as he was able (et {246} idem prout assequi potuit).(1) If the fragment of Muratori, therefore, even came within our limits as to date, its evidence would be of no value, for, instead of establishing the trustworthiness and absolute accuracy of the narrative of the third Synoptic, it distinctly tends to discredit it, inasmuch as it declares it to be the composition of one who undeniably was not an eye-witness of the miracles reported, but collected his materials, long after, as best he could.(2) 4. We may now briefly sum up the results of our examination of the evidence for the synoptic Gospels. After having exhausted the literature and the testimony bearing on the point, we have not found a single distinct trace of any of those Gospels, with the exception of the third, during the first century and a half after the death of Jesus. Only once during the whole of that period do we find even a tradition that any of our Evangelists composed a Gospel at all, and that tradition, so far from favouring our Synoptics, is fatal to the claims of the first and second. Papias, about the middle of 1 The passage is freely rendered thus by Canon Westcott: "The Gospel of St. Luke, it is then said, stands third in order [in the Canon], having been written by 'Luke the physician,' the companion of St. Paul, who, not being himself an eye-witness, based his narrative on such information as he could obtain, beginning from tho birth of John." On the Canon, p. 187. 2 We do not propose, to consider the Ophites and Peratici, obscure Gnostic sects towards the end of the second century. There is no direct evidence regarding them, and the testimony of writers in the third century, like Hippolytus, is of no value for the Gospels. {247}