middle of the second century, at which time the Syrian churches were in a very flourishing condition, and cannot well be supposed to have been without a version of the Holy Scriptures.  The Peshito contains all the books of the New Testament, except the Second Epistle of Peter, the Second and Third Epistles of John, the Epistle of Jude, and the Apocalypse.  It testifies to the existence of our four gospels, not only when it was made, but at an earlier date; since we must, in all probability, assume that some considerable time elapsed after the composition, one by one, of the books of the New Testament, before they were collected into a volume, as in this Syriac version.

Respecting the Old Latin version, (in distinction from Jerome’s revision, commonly called the Vulgate, which belongs to the fourth century,) various opinions have been maintained.  Some have assumed the existence of several independent Latin versions of the New Testament, or of some of its books; but the preferable opinion is that there were various recensions, all having for their foundation a single version, namely, the Old Latin; which, says Westcott, Canon of the New Testament, ch. 3, “can be traced back as far as the earliest records of Latin Christianity.  Every circumstance connected with it indicates the most remote antiquity.”  It was current in north Africa, at least soon after the middle of the second century.  Though it has not come down to us in a perfect form, it contains, along with most of the other books of the New Testament, our four canonical gospels; and its testimony is of the greatest weight.

The Muratorian Fragment on the Canon is the name given to a Latin fragment discovered by the Italian scholar, Muratori, in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, in a manuscript bearing the marks of great antiquity.  Its date is determined by its reference to the shepherd of Hermas, which, says the Fragment, Hermas “wrote very recently in our times, while the bishop Pius, his brother, occupied the chair of the church at Rome.”  The later of the two dates given for the death of Pius is A.D. 157.  The composition of the Fragment must have followed soon afterwards.  Though mutilated at the beginning, as well as the end, its testimony to the existence of the four canonical gospels is decisive.  In its present form, it opens with the end of a sentence, the beginning of which is lost.  It then goes on to say, “The third gospel according to Luke.”  After mentioning various particulars concerning Luke, as that he was a physician whom Paul had taken with him, that he did not himself see the Lord in the flesh, etc., it adds, “The fourth of the gospels, that of John, of the number of the disciples,” to which it appends a traditional account of the circumstances of its composition.  With the truth or falsehood of this account we have at present no concern; the important fact is that this very ancient canon