Muratorian Fragment

… at which, however, he was present, and so he set them down. The third book of the Gospel: according to Luke. Luke, that physician, after the ascension of Christ, when Paul had taken him with him as one devoted to the law(?), wrote it in his own name from report. Yet neither did he himself see the Lord in the flesh; and therefore, as far as he could ascertain [the events], so he begins to tell the story from the birth of John. The fourth of the Gospels: that of John, one of the disciples. When his fellow disciples and bishops urged him,

he said, “Fast with me from today for three days, and whatever may be revealed to each of us, let us tell it to one another.” That same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the apostles, that, with all of them reviewing it, John should write down everything in his own name. And therefore, though various beginnings are taught in the several books of the Gospels, it makes no difference to the faith of believers, since by the one guiding Spirit everything has been declared in all of them: about the birth,

the passion, the resurrection, his life among his disciples, and his twofold coming: the first in humility, when he was despised, which has taken place; the second glorious with royal [power], which is yet to come. What wonder, then, if John so consistently brings forward particular points in his epistles too, saying of himself: “What we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears, and our hands

have handled, these things we have written to you.” For thus he professes himself not only an eyewitness and hearer but also a writer of all the wonders of the Lord in order. But the Acts of all the apostles were written in one book. Luke compiled them for the most excellent Theophilus, because the several events took place in his presence, as he plainly shows by leaving out the passion of Peter, and [also the departure] of Paul from the city when he set out for Spain. As for the epistles

of Paul, they themselves make plain to those who wish to understand which they are, from what place and for what reason they were sent. First of all, to the Corinthians, forbidding the schisms of heresy; next, to the Galatians, circumcision; but to the Romans, setting out the order of the Scriptures and also intimating that Christ is their principal theme, he wrote at greater length. About each of these it is necessary for us to argue, since the blessed apostle Paul himself, following the order of his predecessor John, writes by name only to seven

churches, in this order: to the Corinthians first, to the Ephesians second, to the Philippians third, to the Colossians fourth, to the Galatians fifth, to the Thessalonians sixth, to the Romans seventh. Although he writes again to the Corinthians and Thessalonians for their correction, yet one church is known to be spread throughout the whole world. For John too in the Apocalypse, though he writes to seven churches, yet speaks to all. But to Philemon one,

and to Titus one, and to Timothy two, out of affection and love; yet they have been hallowed in the honor of the catholic church, for the ordering of church discipline. There is current also one to the Laodiceans, another to the Alexandrians, forged in Paul's name for the heresy of Marcion, and several others which cannot be received into the catholic church; for gall cannot fittingly be mixed with honey. The epistle of Jude, indeed, and two bearing the title of John are accepted in the catholic [church]; and the Wisdom

written by friends of Solomon in his honor. We also receive the Apocalypses of John and of Peter, only, which some of us do not want read in church. But the Shepherd was written quite recently, in our own times, in the city of Rome by Hermas, while his brother Pius the bishop was sitting in the chair of the church of the city of Rome; and therefore it ought indeed to be read, but it cannot be read publicly to the people in church, either among the prophets, whose number is complete, or among the

apostles, to the end of time. But of Arsinous, or Valentinus, or Miltiades, we receive nothing at all. Those also who wrote a new book of psalms for Marcion, together with Basilides, the Asian founder of the Cataphrygians …