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In regard to the fourth Gospel the Muratorian fragment has a longer story to tell, but before we touch upon this, and before we proceed to draw together the threads of the previous enquiry, it will be well for us first to bring up the evidence for the fourth Gospel to the same date and position as that for the other three. This then will be the subject of the next chapter.
The evidence of the Muratorian fragment in the Ambrosian Library at Milan shows to us that the separate books of the New Testament had indeed been collected into one; and a belief in their Divine inspiration equally with the Old Testament Scriptures had begun to be entertained.
The Muratorian fragment, the earliest Latin Christian document, which general opinion dates within a few years of the death of Marcus Aurelius, and which is part of an extremely important official list of canonical writings issued by the authority of the Roman Church, is barbarous in construction and diction.
There is a decidedly preponderant probability that the Muratorian fragment was not written much later than 170 A.D. Irenaeus, as we have seen, was writing in the decade 180-190 A.D. But his evidence is surely valid for an earlier date than this.
We ought not to omit to mention that there is a second fragment by Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis, besides that to which we have already alluded, and preserved like it in the Paschal Chronicle, which confirms unequivocally the conclusion that he knew and used the fourth Gospel. But the most decisive witness before we come to Irenaeus is the Muratorian Canon.
It corresponds very much to what is now implied in the word 'canonical, and indeed the Muratorian fragment presents us with a tentative or provisional Canon, which was later to be amended, completed, and ratified. So far as the Gospels were concerned, it had already reached its final shape.
The implication of the prologue is that he himself was entirely dependent upon written and oral sources for his data. This is confirmed by the testimony of the Muratorian Fragment: Luke the physician, after the ascension of Christ, when Paul had taken him, as it were, as a follower zealous of the right, wrote the gospel book according to Luke in his own name, as is believed.
At this date we have attention called to the discrepancy between the Gospels as to the date of the Crucifixion by Claudius Apollinaris. We have also Tatian, the Epistle of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, the heathen Celsus and the Muratorian Canon, and then a very few years later Theophilus of Antioch and Irenaeus. I imagine that there can be really no doubt about Tatian.
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