Those who favour the later date appeal to the earliest external testimony, that of the Christian father Irenaeus ( c. 150-202 ), who wrote that he received his information from people who knew John personally.

Irenaeus wrote a number of books, but the most important that survives is the " Against Heresies ", normally referred to by its Latin title Adversus Haereses which is an important source regarding the Gospel according to the Hebrews.

Irenaeus also wrote The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, an Armenian copy of which was discovered in 1904.

The writings of the Church Father Irenaeus who wrote around AD 180 reflect a belief that Peter " founded and organised " the Church at Rome.

The earliest witness is Irenaeus, who in about the year 180 wrote: " The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate.

Irenaeus, wrote of 2nd century believers with the gift of prophecy, while Justin Martyr argued in his Dialogue with Trypho that prophets were not found among the Jews in his time, but that the church had prophets.

" Similarly, Irenaeus wrote that the Christian " will not be commanded to leave idle one day of rest, who is constantly keeping sabbath ", and Tertullian argued " that we still more ought to observe a sabbath from all servile work always, and not only every seventh-day, but through all time ".

* Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson ( 1858 – 1942 ), author of Imre: A Memorandum, who wrote under the pseudonym Xavier Mayne.

Irenaeus of Lyons wrote in the late 2nd century that since there are four quarters of the earth ... it is fitting that the church should have four pillars ... the four Gospels ( Against Heresies, 3. 11. 8 ), and then shortly thereafter made the first known quotation from a fourth gospel — the canonical version of the Gospel of John.

In the 2nd century, Saint Irenaeus was fascinated by the Transfiguration and wrote: " the glory of God is a live human being and a truly human life is the vision of God ".

Apart from Papias ' comment, we do not hear about the author of the Gospel until Irenaeus around 185 who remarks that Matthew issued a written Gospel of the Hebrews ( Against Heresies 3. 1. 1 ) Pantaenus, Origen and other Church Fathers also believed Matthew wrote the Gospel of the Hebrews ( Church History 5. 10. 3, 6. 25. 4 ) None of these Church Fathers asserted that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Greek.

Irenaeus wrote that " Polycarp also was not only instructed by the apostles, and conversed with many who had seen the Lord, but was also appointed bishop by apostles in Asia and in the church in Smyrna " and that he himself had, as a boy, listened to " the accounts which ( Polycarp ) gave of his intercourse with John and with the others who had seen the Lord ".

On this occasion Irenaeus and Polycrates of Ephesus wrote to Victor ; Irenaeus reminding Victor of his predecessor Anicetus's more tolerant attitude, and Polycrates defending the Asian practice.

Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, wrote in the latter half of the 2nd century that the Ebionites rejected Paul as an apostate from the law, using only a version of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, known as the Gospel of the Ebionites.

For example, Irenaeus, wrote of second century believers with the gift of prophecy, while Tertullian, writing of the church meetings of the Montanists ( to whom he belonged ), described in detail the practice of prophecy in the second century church.

To refute it Irenaeus wrote a vast five-volume book ( On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis commonly referred to as Against Heresies ).

It is believed to have been written by Gnostic followers of Jesus, rather than by Judas himself, and, since it contains late 2nd century theology, probably dates from no earlier than the 2nd century ( which is much later than the dating attributed to the 4 gospels of the modern Bible Gospel # First accounts ) In 180 A. D., Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons, wrote a document in which he railed against this gospel, indicating the book was already in circulation.

Gnostics were condemned as heretics, and prominent Church fathers such as Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome wrote against Gnosticism.

In his Against the Heresies, Irenaeus wrote, " Although there are many dialects in the world, the force of the tradition is one and the same.

It took its name from a poem by St. Irenaeus, a 2nd-century Bishop of Lyon who wrote: The glory of God is a man truly alive.

In his work Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke Wenham wrote regarding the book of Matthew the following: " The fathers are almost unanimous in asserting that Matthew the tax-collector was the author, writing first, for Hebrews in the Hebrew language: Papias ( c. 60-130 ), Irenaeus ( c. 130-200 ), Pantaenus ( died c. 190 ), Origen ( c. 185-254 ), Eusebius ( c. 260-340 ), Epiphanius of Salamis ( c. 315-403 ), Cyril of Jerusalem ( c. 315-86 ) and others write in this vein.

This leads Irenaeus to the somewhat startling notion that Adam and Eve died on the same day that they disobeyed, namely, on a Friday, as a parallel to the death of Christ on Good Friday ; ;

Irenaeus, ( c. 130 – 202 ) in his Against Heresies ( 1: 25 ; 6 ) says scornfully of the Gnostic Carpocratians, " They also possess images, some of them painted, and others formed from different kinds of material ; while they maintain that a likeness of Christ was made by Pilate at that time when Jesus lived among them.

Against the Gnostics, who said that they possessed a secret oral tradition from Jesus himself, Irenaeus maintained that the bishops in different cities are known as far back as the Apostles — and none of them was a Gnostic — and that the bishops provided the only safe guide to the interpretation of Scripture.

Before Irenaeus, Christians differed as to which gospel they preferred.

Irenaeus believed that Christ would always have been sent, even if humanity had never sinned ; but the fact that they did sin determines his role as a savior.

Irenaeus ' argument is that they would not weaken their own argument by adding years to Jesus ' age.

A four gospel canon ( the Tetramorph ) was asserted by Irenaeus, who refers to it directly in his polemic Against the Heresies, " It is not possible that the gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are.

Cletus is given as Linus's successor by Irenaeus and the others cited above who present Linus either as the first bishop of Rome or, if they give Peter as the first, as the second.

Irenaeus discusses them but adds nothing to the Apocalypse except that " they lead lives of unrestrained indulgence.

Irenaeus tells us: " the holy Hebdomad is the seven stars which they call planets " ( i. 30 ).

Justin, Athenagoras, Irenaeus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Lactantius, and others borrowed an opinion out of this book of Enoch, that the angels had connection with the daughters of men, of whom they had offspring (' the giants of the past ').

Irenaeus says that they practised various magical arts as well as leading a licentious life.

In giving the name Ophite, however, he appears to have brought into greater prominence than Irenaeus the characteristics of the sect indicated by the word, their honour of the serpent, whom they even preferred to Christ, their venerating him because he taught our first parents the knowledge of good and evil, their use of the references to the brazen serpent in the Old and New Testament, and their introduction of the serpent into their Eucharistic celebration.

The descriptions of the Basilidian system given by our chief informants, St. Irenaeus ( Adversus Haereses ) and St. Hippolytus ( Philosophumena ), are so strongly divergent that they seem to many quite irreconcilable.

But, Irenaeus noted, Anicetus could not persuade Polycarp to forgo the observance inasmuch as these things had been always observed by John the disciple of the Lord, and by other apostles with whom he had been conversant ; nor did Polycarp persuade Anicetus to keep it: Anicetus said that he must hold to the way of the elders before him. Neither Polycarp nor Anicetus was able to persuade the other to his position, but neither did they consider the matter of sufficient importance to justify a schism.

So far, it was revealed eight early Christian churches, of which they are dedicated to St. Irenaeus, St. Demetrius.

Against this view, Irenaeus of Lyons's Against Heresies 3. 12 section 12 ridiculed those who think they are wiser than the Apostles because they were still under Jewish influence.

A book called the Apocryphon of John was referred to by Irenaeus in Adversus Haereses, written about 185 CE, among the writings that teachers in 2nd-century Christian communities were producing, " an indescribable number of secret and illegitimate writings, which they themselves have forged, to bewilder the minds of foolish people, who are ignorant of the true scriptures " — scriptures which Irenaeus himself was establishing as no more and no less than four, the " Fourfold gospel " that his authority helped make the canonical four.

The descriptions of the Basilidian system given by our chief informants, Irenaeus ( Adversus Haereses ) and Hippolytus ( Philosophumena ), are so strongly divergent that they seem to many quite irreconcilable.

The supreme power and source of being above all principalities and powers and angels ( such is evidently the reference of Epiphanius's αὐτῶν: Irenaeus substitutes " heavens ," which in this connexion comes to much the same thing ) is Abrasax, the Greek letters of whose name added together as numerals make up 365, the number of the heavens ; whence, they apparently said, the year has 365 days, and the human body 365 members.

of Irenaeus has added the further statement that they used " images "; and this single word is often cited in corroboration of the popular belief that the numerous ancient gems on which grotesque mythological combinations are accompanied by the mystic name ΑΒΡΑΣΑΞ were of Basilidian origin.

For the same faith is held and handed down by the churches established in the German states, the Spains, among the Celtic tribes, in the East, in Libya, and in the central portions of the world …" In Book 3, Irenaeus continues his defense of the unity of the church around the bishop, writing, " By pointing out the apostolic tradition and faith announced to mankind, which has been brought down to our time by successions of bishops, in the greatest, most ancient, and well known church, founded and established by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, at Rome, we can confound all who in any other way … gather more than they ought.