Note 252 — Chapter XVIII

This involves, however, the supposition that St. Luke's narrative had then obtained its more modern name of "the Gospel," which is in my opinion an anachronism. In the earliest writings which refer to apostolic narratives they are simply called the writings or memoirs or commentaries of the apostles, as in Aristides, c. xvi., and Justin Martyr, Apol., i. 67. In Aristides there is one passage in ch. ii. where the word gospel is used, but not in the sense of a special title for a book: "This is taught from that Gospel which a little while ago was spoken among them as being preached; wherein if ye also will read, ye will comprehend the power that is upon it." Irenæus, III. xi. 7, 8, is the earliest I can now recall who uses the word gospel in this technical sense. He speaks there of the Gospel of St. Matthew, etc. But this was in the last quarter of the second century. In the year 57, when Second Corinthians was written, the word gospel was applied to the whole body of revealed truth held by the Church, and not to a book.