of accepted memoirs possible, so long as there was a continued succession of teachers? Yet none have reached our time other than those which have come to us through all the centuries as authentic writings of those whose names they bear. By the law of the “survival of the fittest,” all other productions making any pretensions to such a character perished long ago, only fragments of them remain, and our four Gospels are in the churches. There is, therefore, to begin with, the strongest presumption in their favor. “It is,” says Professor Greenleaf,[2] “for the objector to show them spurious; for on him, by the plainest rules of law, lies the burden of proof.” And from what has appeared it is plain that this “burden” is a very heavy one.[3] [1] Renan’s Life of Jesus, p. 35. [2] The Testimony of the Four Evangelists (p. 28, section 10), by Simon Greenleaf, LL.D., 1846. His standard work on evidence is in every lawyer’s library. [3] See also _post_, c. 8. CHAPTER III. PAPIAS AND JUSTIN MARTYR. The fact of the early reception, by the churches, of Memoirs of Christ deemed authentic, probable in itself without any proof, is conclusively proved by writings and to which reference has been made, particularly those of Papias and Justin Martyr. Papias was bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, in the first part of the second century of the Christian era. Though of moderate capacity, and entertaining extravagant ideas of the millennium, he was entirely honest, and there is no reason to question his testimony as to what he was told in respect to Matthew and Mark. He suffered martyrdom about A.D. 163. From fragments of his writings found in Eusebius and in the works of Irenæus, it appears that “John the Presbyter” gave him information in respect to the First and Second Gospels. There is a difference of opinion as to whether this John was John the Apostle. Eusebius held that he was not, and says that in his day (264-340) there were two tombs at Ephesus, both of which were called John’s. The question of identity is not very material. Papias gives, in explanation, that he imagined that “what was to be got from books” concerning the Lord, was not as profitable to him “as what came from the living and abiding voice.” For this reason, he says, “If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings, what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord’s disciples,[1] which things Aristion and the Presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say.”