into Latin and Syriac, but also that their number was defined to be only four, neither more nor less." The Syriac version of the New Testament called the Peshito, a work of immense value, as the language is almost identical with that spoken by Christ, a translation admirably executed, "is generally assigned," says Tischendorf, "to the end of the second century, though we have not any positive proof to offer;" and "the Latin version had acquired before this period a certain public authority." As the man who translated Irenæus's five books from Greek into Latin follows the Italic version, and as Tertullian, in the quotation which he makes from the Latin translation of Irenæus copies that translator, Tischendorf justly argues that some time must have elapsed between that date when the translation is known to have been in existence, and the period when they were first separated from other Church writings, and attained a prominent and sacred character. Thus we get to the apostolic age for the origin of all the four Gospels, and there seems to be no interval of time sufficient to account for our author's primitive Gospels to have disappeared, leaving no trace of their existence. It is enormously more probable that the four Gospels alluded to by Irenæus and Tertullian contained the records from which Clement quoted the passage of the Sermon on the Mount, than that there were primitive independent writings which were soon lost, obtaining no recognition when the separate Gospel manuscripts became associated with the Old Testament, and were read after them in the Christian assemblies. Our author says the passage quoted by Clement, referring to the Sermon on the Mount, is decidedly opposed to "the pretensions made on behalf of the Synoptics." I do not quite know what "pretensions" he alludes to, but I am not defending pretensions, either ecclesiastical or non-ecclesiastical. It is not necessary, in the defence of the Gospels, to assert that the four Evangelists whose names are attached to them wrote every word; that they only contain records of what those disciples were either eye-witnesses of, or, in the case of Mark and Luke, heard Peter and Paul preach. The formulæ, "according to Matthew," "according to Mark," "according to Luke," "according to John," do not imply that, in the most ancient opinion, these recitals were written from beginning to end by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.[24] It is enough to know that the writings so far emanated from those disciples as to justify the titles they bear, and their reception by the early Church, as the true record of the important transactions to which they refer. That reception of them was sufficiently near to the date of their composition to preclude the probability that the early Christian Church had not the means of testing their genuineness or historical data, while their internal evidence is such as to confirm their truthfulness and authority. [22] "Adv. Hær." iii. 11. 7.