Gospel of Thomas 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. The late 2nd-century Muratorian fragment also recognizes only the three synoptic gospels and John. Bible scholar Bruce Metzger wrote regarding the formation of the New Testament canon, "Although the fringes of the emerging canon remained unsettled for generations, a high degree of unanimity concerning the greater part of
Treatise on the Resurrection texts found at Nag Hammadi. It alludes to the account of the Transfiguration found in Mark, saying, "Do you remember reading in the Gospel how Elijah and Moses appeared?" Hence, the text indicates that the author accepted Mark's synoptic gospel narrative as a sacred text. Unlike many other texts found at Nag Hammadi, The Treatise on the Resurrection is not pseudepigraphal, since the author does not pretend to be a great apostolic figure who received a special revelation. The text is simply a letter to someone named Rheginos, and hence belongs to a genre more akin to the New Testament