Muratorian Fragment

Contents

1. 1The fragment begins at the end of its account of Mark, then says that Luke the physician, Paul's companion, wrote the third Gospel from report, beginning with John's birth, and introduces John's Gospel.
2. 11The fragment tells how John, after a three-day fast with his fellow disciples and a revelation to Andrew, wrote his Gospel, and says that the Gospels' different beginnings do not affect faith, since one Spirit declared everything in all.
3. 21All the Gospels declare Christ's birth, passion, resurrection, and twofold coming, and John's first epistle confirms that he wrote as an eyewitness.
4. 31John wrote as eyewitness of the Lord's wonders; Luke wrote Acts for Theophilus about what he himself saw, omitting Peter's death and Paul's journey from Rome to Spain.
5. 41Paul's letters show their own occasions: Corinthians against schisms, Galatians against circumcision, Romans at length on the order of Scripture and Christ as its theme; like John, Paul wrote to seven churches.
6. 51The fragment lists Paul's letters to seven churches in order and says that, as in John's Apocalypse, writing to seven churches means writing to the one church throughout the world.
7. 61Paul's personal letters to Philemon, Titus, and Timothy are honored by the catholic church, but letters to the Laodiceans and Alexandrians forged for Marcion's heresy are rejected; Jude and two letters of John are accepted.
8. 71The fragment accepts the Wisdom of Solomon and the Apocalypses of John and Peter (though some will not read Peter's in church), and says the Shepherd of Hermas, written recently at Rome, may be read privately but not publicly in church.
9. 81The fragment rejects the writings of Arsinous, Valentinus, and Miltiades, and of those who composed a new book of psalms for Marcion, with Basilides and the founder of the Cataphrygians, and then breaks off.