It may indeed well be asked how the external evidence can be expected to prove the authenticity of these records.

It does so, to a considerable extent, indirectly by throwing them back into closer contact with the facts.

It also tends to establish the authority in which they were held, certainly in the last quarter of the second century, and very probably before.

By this time the Gospels were acknowledged to be all that is now understood by the word 'canonical.' They were placed upon the same footing as the Old Testament Scriptures.

They were looked up to with the same reverence and regarded as possessing the same Divine inspiration.