Adoption Into The Canon
ADOPTION INTO THE CANON
By the end of the second century, all four canonical gospels were accepted not only as authentic but as Scripture on a par with Old Testament Scripture. Even earlier, the fact that Tatian’s Diatessaron (see discussion above) could use John as the chronological framework for the other three testifies to the authority that it enjoyed. Outside of Marcion and the Alogoi, the early church nowhere questioned either the authenticity or, once it began to address the subject, the canonicity of the fourth gospel.