This is a continuation in showing that the Synoptic Gospels are not left without authorship since the Divinely Appointed teaching office of the Church was established by Jesus to preserve the Authors of the Gospels. This article displays another excerpt from Archibald Alexander showing the unanimous agreement amongst the Early Church writers on the Authorship of John;
Irenæus tells us, “That the evangelist John designed, by his gospel, to confute the errors which Cerinthus had infused into the minds of the people, and had been infused by those who were called Nicolaitons; and to convince them that there was one God, who made all things by his Word; and not, as they imagined, one who was the Creator, and another who was the Father of our Lord; one who was the Son of the Creator, and another who was the Christ, who continued impassible, and descended upon Jesus, the Son of the Creator.”
Jerome fully confirms this testimony of Irenæus, and says, “That when St. John was in Asia, where there arose the heresies of Ebion and Cerinthus, and others, who denied that Christ was come in the flesh—that is, denied his divine nature, whom he, in his Epistle, calls Antichrists, and St. Paul frequently condemns in his Epistles—he was forced by almost all the bishops of Asia, and the deputations of many other churches, to write more plainly concerning the divinity of our Saviour, and to soar aloft in a discourse on the Word, not more bold than happy.”
Jerome in his book of Illustrious Men, says, “John wrote a gospel at the desire of the bishops of Asia, against Cerinthus, and other heretics, especially the doctrines of the Ebionites, then springing up, who say that Christ did not exist before the birth of Mary: for which reason he was obliged to declare his divine nativity.”
Augustine, in conformity with the account of Jerome, says, ” That this evangelist wrote concerning the co-eternal divinity of Christ against heretics.”
Paulinus says, “It had been handed down by tradition, that John survived all the other apostles, and wrote the last of the four evangelists, and so as to confirm their most certain history.” Again, he observes, “That in the beginning of John’s gospel all heretics are confuted.”
That the number of genuine gospels was four and no more, is evident from the testimony of all the Fathers who have spoken of them; and especially from the fanciful reason assigned by Irenæus to prove that there could be no more nor fewer.
The Canon of the Old and New Testaments Ascertained Section VIII. The Gospel of John—Life of the Evangelist—Occasion and Time)
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