7.  We are now prepared to consider the testimonies of an earlier period.  Here Justin Martyr is a very weighty witness, since he lived so near the apostolic age, and had every facility for investigating the history of the gospel narratives.  He was born near the beginning of the second century, and his extant works date from about the middle of the same century.  Before his conversion to Christianity he was a heathen philosopher earnestly seeking for the truth among the different systems of the age.  Of his undoubtedly genuine works, there remain to us two Apologies (defences of Christianity) and a Dialogue with Trypho a Jew, designed to defend the Christian religion against its Jewish opponents.  In these he quotes the gospel of Matthew very abundantly; next in number are his quotations from Luke.  His references to Mark and John are much fewer, but enough to show his acquaintance with them.  He never quotes the evangelists by name, but designates their writings as “The Memoirs of the Apostles;” and more fully, “The memoirs which I affirm to have been composed by his”—­our Lord’s—­“apostles and their followers,” Dialog., ch. 103, “which,” he elsewhere says, “are called gospels,” Apol. 1. 66, and in a collective sense, “the gospel,” Dialog., ch. 10.  It should be carefully noticed that he speaks in the plural number both of the apostles who composed the gospels and their followers.  This description applies exactly to our canonical gospels—­two written by apostles, and two by their followers.

The attempt has been made in modern times to set aside Justin’s testimony, on the alleged ground that he quotes not from our canonical gospels, but from some other writings.  The groundlessness of this supposition is manifest at first sight.  Justin had visited the three principal churches of Rome, Alexandria, and Ephesus.  It is certain that he knew what gospels were received by them in his day as authentic, and that these are the very gospels which he quotes, affirming that they were the writings of apostles and their followers.  Now, that the gospels which Justin used should have been wholly supplanted by others in the days of Irenaeus, who was of full age at the time of Justin’s death, is incredible.  But Irenaeus, in common with Clement, Tertullian, and others, quotes our four canonical gospels as alone possessing apostolic authority, and as having been always received by the churches.  It follows that the “Memoirs” of Justin must be the same gospels.  We cannot conceive that in this brief period an entire change of gospels should have been made throughout all the different and distant provinces of the Roman empire, at a time when concerted action through general councils was unknown; and that, too, in so silent a manner that no record of it remains in the history of the church.  The supposition that the gospels known to Justin were different from those received by Irenaeus ought not to be entertained without irrefragable proof.