Before the close of the 2nd century the four Gospels had attained a position of unique authority throughout the greater part of the Church, not different from that which they have held since, as is evident from the treatise of Irenaeus _Against Heresies_ (c. A.D. 180; see esp. iii. i. 1 f. and x., xi.) and from other evidence only a few years later. The struggle against Gnosticism, which had been going on during the middle part of the century, had compelled the Church both to define her creed and to draw a sharper line of demarcation than heretofore between those writings whose authority she regarded as absolute and all others. The effect of this was no doubt to enhance the sense generally entertained of the value of the four Gospels. At the same time in the formal statements now made it is plainly implied that the belief expressed is no new one. And it is, indeed, difficult to suppose that agreement on this subject between different portions of the Church could have manifested itself at this time in the spontaneous manner that it does, except as the consequence of traditional feelings and convictions, which went back to the early part of the century, and which could hardly have arisen without good foundation, with respect to the special value of these works as embodiments of apostolic testimony, although all that came to be supposed in regard to their actual authorship cannot be considered proved.
2. _The Internal Criticism of the Gospels._--In the middle of the 19th century an able school of critics, known as the Tübingen school, sought to show from indications in the several Gospels that they were composed well on in the 2nd century in the interests of various strongly marked parties into which the Church was supposed to have been divided by differences in regard to the Judaic and Pauline forms of Christianity. These theories are now discredited. It may on the contrary be confidently asserted with regard to the first three Gospels that the local colouring in them is predominantly Palestinian, and that they show no signs of acquaintance with the questions and the circumstances of the 2nd century; and that the character even of the Fourth Gospel is not such as to justify its being placed, at furthest, much after the beginning of that century.