The fact of the priority of the last two to Malalas is of little weight as evidence. The main point is _the locality_ in which Ignatius suffered; which Malalas, himself a native of Antioch and a historian, ought to have known better than Chrysostom, because he copied preceding historians. It is necessary to be precise on this subject because some speak of _the church_ as though it were contemporary with the apostles themselves, or at least with their immediate disciples; and proceed to argue that dissensions arose soon after “within the church” rendering an appeal to the written word necessary. When the authority of _traditional teaching_ gave way to that of _a written rule_, a change came over the condition of _the church_. Such a view tends to mislead. There were dissensions among the earliest Christians. The apostles themselves were by no means unanimous. Important differences of belief divided the Jewish and Gentile Christians from the beginning. The types of Christian truth existing from the first gradually coalesced about the middle of the second century; when heretics, especially the Gnostics, appeared so formidable that a catholic church was developed. Along with this process, and as an important element in it, the writings of apostles and apostolic men were uncritically taken from tradition and elevated to the rank of divine documents. It was not the rise of new dissensions “within the church” which led to the first formation of a Christian canon; rather did the new idea of “a catholic church” require a standard of appeal in apostolic writings, which were now invested with an authority that did not belong to them from the beginning.