How Many Gospels Are There?

How many Gospels are there?

From time to time, people come along and say that other Christian 'gospels' have been discovered.  These documents are at odds with the Old and New Testaments, and certain types of people then seek to use these texts to undercut the authority of Scripture.  If that succeeds, they then proceed to introduce ideas about God, His Son,  and salvation that are at odds with the revelation God has given us.

They often point to various Gnostic manuscripts like those found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt among others.  The issue is that the ideas in these documents are not new and unknown.  Rather they are old and known and were refuted by the early church when these false ideas first originated.  They don't always go by the same names as documents such as those found at Nag Hammadi, but the methods employed and the beliefs held are the same.

This short article deals with the number of the Gospel writings... how many are there?  If the Gnostic writings mentioned above are true, there are many gospels.  If the Bible is true, there are only four:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

What is the testimony of the early church against the first heretics and their ideas?  Please consider:

Irenaeus (early church father - Bishop of the church at Lyons (130AD - 200AD) writing about 180AD)
"Against Heresies" - Book 3, Chapter 11, Section 8:

It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are.  For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the "pillar and ground" of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh.

Same author, same book and chapter - Section 9:

These things being so, all who destroy the form of the Gospel are vain, unlearned, and also audacious; those, I mean, who represent the aspects of the Gospel as being either more in number than as aforesaid, or, on the other hand, fewer. The former class that they may seem to have discovered more than is of the truth; the latter, that they may set the dispensations of God aside.

Tertullian (early church father (160AD - 230AD) writing about 207AD)
"The Five Books Against Marcion"  -  Book 5, Chapter 2

We lay it down as our first position, that the evangelical Testament has apostles for its authors, to whom was assigned by the Lord Himself this office of publishing the gospel.  Since, however, there are apostolic men also (disciples of the apostles), they are yet not alone, but appear with apostles and after apostles; because the preaching of disciples might be open to the suspicion of an affectation of glory (pretending to be authorized Scripture), if there did not accompany it the authority of the masters, which means that of Christ, for it was that which made the apostles their masters. Of the apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instill faith into us; whilst of apostolic men, Luke and Mark renew it afterwards.  These all start with the same principles of the faith, so far as relates to the one only God the Creator and His Christ, how that He was born of the Virgin, and came to fulfill the law and the prophets.

Same author - Book 4,  Chapter 5

I say, therefore, that in them (the churches founded by the apostles and all churches that are truly in Christ) that Gospel of Luke which we are defending with all our might has stood its ground from its very first publication; whereas Marcion's Gospel is not known to most people, and to none whatever is it known without being at the same time condemned.  It too, of course, has its churches, but specially its own--as late as they are spurious; and should you want to know their original, you will more easily discover apostasy in it than apostolicity, with Marcion forsooth as their founder, or some one of Marcion's swarm.  Even wasps make combs; so also these Marcionites make churches.  The same authority of the apostolic churches will afford evidence to the other Gospels also, which we possess equally through their means, and according to their usage--I mean the Gospels of John and Matthew--whilst that which Mark published may be affirmed to be Peter's whose interpreter Mark was.  For even Luke's form of the Gospel men usually ascribe to Paul.

Origen (early church father (185AD - 255AD)  writing about 228AD)
Commentary on the Gospel of John - Book 1, Chapter 6:

Now the Gospels are four.  These four are, as it were, the elements of the faith of the Church, out of which elements the whole world which is reconciled to God in Christ is put together; as Paul says, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself;" of which world Jesus bore the sin; for it is of the world of the Church that the word is written, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world."  

The Gospels then being four, I deem the first fruits of the Gospels to be that which you have enjoined me to search into according to my powers, the Gospel of John, that which speaks of him whose genealogy had already been set forth, but which begins to speak of him at a point before he had any genealogy.  

For Matthew, writing for the Hebrews who looked for Him who was to come of the line of Abraham and of David, says:   "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham."  

And Mark, knowing what he writes, narrates the beginning of the Gospel; we may perhaps find what he aims at in John; in the beginning the Word, God the Word.  

But Luke, though he says at the beginning of Acts, "The former treatise did I make about all that Jesus began to do and to teach," yet leaves to him who lay on Jesus' breast the greatest and completest discourses about Jesus.