that he “had walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless,” (Luke 1:6;) and then go on to describe him as “having the Comforter in himself, the Spirit, more abundantly than Zacharias,” where they apply to the Holy Spirit a term peculiar to the apostle John.  Here, then, we have indubitable testimony to the fact that the gospel of John, as well as of Luke, was known to the churches of Gaul in the west and Asia Minor in the east in the days of Pothinus, bishop of these churches, who suffered martyrdom in this persecution.  But Pothinus was ninety years old, so that his knowledge of these gospels must have reached back to the first quarter of the second century, when many who had known the apostles were yet living.

5.  These testimonies, let it be carefully remembered, apply not to one part of Christendom alone, but to all its different and distant divisions; and that, too, long before there was any attempt to bring the judgment of the churches into harmony by means of general councils.  The orthodox churches planted in the different provinces of the Roman empire, though in substantial harmony with each other, had nevertheless their minor differences, which were sometimes discussed with much warmth.  In their relation to each other, they were jealous of their freedom and independence.  The history of the so-called Antilegomena (Disputed Books of the New Testament, chap. 6) shows that the reception of a writing as apostolic in one division of Christendom, did not insure its reception elsewhere.  Had it been possible that a spurious book should be imposed as genuine on the churches of one region, it would certainly have met with opposition in other regions; but our four canonical gospels were everywhere received without dispute as the writings of apostles or apostolic men.  This fact admits of but one explanation:  the churches had from their first appearance indubitable evidence of their genuineness.

6.  Let it be further remembered that this testimony relates not to books of a private character, that might have lain for years hidden in some corner; but to the public writings of the churches, on which their faith was founded, of which they all had copies, and which it was the custom, from the apostolic age, to read in their assemblies along with the law and the prophets. (Justin Martyr Apol., 1. 67.) Earnestness and sincerity are traits which will not be denied to the primitive Christians, and they were certainly not wanting in common discernment.  Let any man show, if he can, how a spurious gospel, suddenly appearing somewhere after the apostolic days, could have been imposed upon the churches as genuine, not only where it originated, but everywhere else in Christendom.  The difficulty with which some of the genuine books of the New Testament gained universal currency sufficiently refutes such an absurd supposition.