We must now see whether there is external evidence which makes it not only probable, but as certain as any fact in literary history can be, that Justin must have known and made use of our present Evangelists; that if he was a teacher in such an acknowledged centre of ecclesiastical information or tradition as Rome, and appears to quote our Gospels (with no matter what minor variations and inaccuracies), he did actually quote the same and no other; and if his inaccuracies, and discrepancies, and omissions of what we suppose he ought to have mentioned, were doubled or trebled, it would still be as certain as any fact of such a nature can be, that he quoted the Four Evangelists, because they must have been read and commented on in his day and in his church as the Memoirs of the Apostles, which took their place by the side of the prophets of the Old Testament in the public instruction of the Church.  In order to this I shall have to examine the external evidence for the Canon of the New Testament—­so far, that is, as the Four Gospels are concerned.

In doing this I shall not take the usual method of tracing the evidence for the various books in question downwards from the Apostolic time—­the reader will find this treated exhaustively in “Dr. Westcott on the Canon”—­but I shall trace it upwards, beginning at a time at which there cannot be the smallest doubt that the New Testament was exactly the same as that which we now possess.

For this purpose I shall take the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius as the starting-point.  The reader is, of course, aware that he is the earliest ecclesiastical writer whose history has come down to us, the historians who wrote before his time being principally known to us through fragments preserved in his book.  He was born of Christian parents about the year A.D. 270, and died about 340.  He probably wrote his history about or before the year 325.

The reader, though he may not have read his history, will be aware, from the quotations from it in “Supernatural Religion,” that Eusebius carefully investigated the history of the Canon of Scripture, and also the succession of ecclesiastical writers.  His history is, in fact, to a great extent, a sketch of early Church literature.  In dealing with the history of the Canon, he particularly notices whether a large number of writers have quoted certain books of Scripture, of whose acceptance by the whole Church doubts were entertained.  This is important, as it shows that not only himself, but the Church, during the three ages whose history he has recorded, did not receive books of Scripture except upon what they deemed to be sufficient evidence, and that evidence was the reception of each book from Apostolic times by the whole Church.  I will now give the testimony of Eusebius to the authenticity of the Four Gospels.

First of all he describes the origin of the Gospel of St. Mark in the following words:—­