" (Lardner, vol ii. p. 647.)
Tertullian quotes no Christian writing as of equal authority with the
Scriptures, and no spurious books at all; a broad line of distinction,
we may once more observe, between our sacred books and all others.
We may again likewise remark the wide extent through which the
reputation of the Gospels, and of the Acts of the Apostles had spread,
and the perfect consent, in this point, of distant and independent
societies. It is now only about one hundred and fifty years since Christ
was crucified; and within this period, to say nothing of the apostolical
fathers who have been noticed already, we have Justin Martyr at
Neapolis, Theophilus at Antioch, Irenaeus in France, Clement at
Alexandria, Tertullian at Carthage, quoting the same books of historical
Scriptures, and I may say, quoting these alone.
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.
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