XIII.  An interval of only thirty years, and that occupied by no small number of Christian writers, (Minucius Felix, Apollonius, Caius, Asterius Urbanus Alexander bishop of Jerusalem, Hippolytus, Ammonius Julius Africanus) whose works only remain in fragments and quotations, and in every one of which is some reference or other to the Gospels (and in one of them, Hippolytus, as preserved in Theodoret, is an abstract of the whole Gospel history), brings us to a name of great celebrity in Christian antiquity, Origen (Lardner, vol. iii. p. 234.) of Alexandria, who in the quantity of his writings exceeded the most laborious of the Greek and Latin authors.  Nothing can be more peremptory upon the subject now under consideration, and, from a writer of his learning and information, more satisfactory, than the declaration of Origen, preserved, in an extract from his works, by Eusebius; “That the four Gospels alone are received without dispute by the whole church of God under heaven:”  to which declaration is immediately subjoined a brief history of the respective authors to whom they were then, as they are now, ascribed.  The language holden concerning the Gospels, throughout the works of Origen which remain, entirely corresponds with the testimony here cited.  His attestation to the Acts of the Apostles is no less Positive:  “And Luke also once more sounds the trumpet, relating the acts of the apostles.”  The universality with which the Scriptures were then read is well signified by this writer in a passage in which he has occasion to observe against Celsus, “That it is not in any private books, or such as are read by a few only, and those studious persons, but in books read by everybody, That it is written, The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by things that are made.”  It is to no purpose to single out quotations of Scripture from such a writer as this.  We might as well make a selection of the quotations of Scripture in Dr. Clarke’s Sermons.  They are so thickly sown in the works of Origen, that Dr. Mill says, “If we had all his works remaining, we should have before us almost the whole text of the Bible.” (Mill, Proleg. esp. vi. p. 66.)

Origen notices, in order to censure, certain apocryphal Gospels.  He also uses four writings of this sort; that is, throughout his large works he once or twice, at the most, quotes each of the four; but always with some mark, either of direct reprobation or of caution to his readers, manifestly esteeming them of little or no authority.

XIV.  Gregory, bishop of Neocaesaea, and Dionysius of Alexandria, were scholars of Origen.  Their testimony, therefore, though full and particular, may be reckoned a repetition only of his.  The series, however, of evidence is continued by Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who flourished within twenty years after Origen.  “The church,” said this father, “is watered, like Paradise, by four rivers, that is, by four Gospels.”  The Acts of the Apostles is also frequently quoted by Cyprian under that name, and under the name of the “Divine Scriptures.”  In his various writings are such constant and copious citations of Scripture, as to place this part of the testimony beyond controversy.  Nor is there, in the works of this eminent African bishop, one quotation of a spurious or apocryphal Christian writing.