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
Gospel of the Saviour Gospel of the Saviour The Gospel of the Saviour is a fragmentary Coptic text from an otherwise unknown gospel that has joined the New Testament apocrypha. It consists of a fragmentary fire-damaged parchment codex that was acquired by the Egyptian Museum of Berlin in 1961 (accessioned as Papyrus Berolinensis 22220). Its nature was only discovered in 1991, when it came round to being conserved (the sheer number of similar manuscripts being conserved causing the 30-year delay), and was revealed in a 1996 lecture by Charles W. Hedrick. It has been edited and translated into English by Hedrick and Paul Mirecki