’For as there are four quarters of the world in which we live, as there are also four universal winds, and as the Church is scattered over all the earth, and the Gospel is the pillar and base of the Church and the breath (or spirit) of life, it is likely that it should have four pillars breathing immortality on every side and kindling afresh the life of men.  Whence it is evident that the Word, the architect of all things, who sitteth upon the cherubim and holdeth all things together, having been made manifest unto men, gave to us the Gospel in a fourfold shape, but held together by one Spirit.  As David, entreating for His presence, saith:  Thou that sittest upon the Cherubim show thyself.  For the Cherubim are of fourfold visage, and their visages are symbols of the economy of the Son of man....  And the Gospels therefore agree with them over which presideth Jesus Christ.  That which is according to John declares His generation from the Father sovereign and glorious, saying thus:  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  And, All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made....  But the Gospel according to Luke, as having a sacerdotal character, begins with Zacharias the priest offering incense unto God....  But Matthew records His human generation, saying, The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham....  Mark took his beginning from the prophetic Spirit coming down as it were from on high among men.  The beginning, he says, of the Gospel according as it is written in Esaias the prophet, &c.’

Irenaeus also makes mention of the origin of the Gospels, claiming for their authors the gift of Divine inspiration [Endnote 316:1]:—­

’For after that our Lord rose from the dead and they were endowed with the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon them from on high, they were fully informed concerning all things, and had a perfect knowledge:  they went out to the ends of the earth, preaching the Gospel of those good things that God hath given to us and proclaiming heavenly peace to men, having indeed both all in equal measure and each one singly the Gospel of God.  So then Matthew among the Jews put forth a written Gospel in their own tongue while Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the Church.  After their decease (or ’departure’), Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself too has handed down to us in writing the subjects of Peter’s preaching.  And Luke, the companion of Paul, put down in a book the Gospel preached by him.  Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon His breast, likewise published his Gospel while he dwelt at Ephesus in Asia.’

We have not now to determine the exact value of these traditions; what we have rather to notice is the fact that the Gospels are at this time definitely assigned to their reputed authors, and that they are already regarded as containing a special knowledge divinely imparted.  It is evident that Irenaeus would not for a moment think of classing any other Gospel by the side of the now strictly canonical four.