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
New Testament household code to the Galatian Christians was to refute the Judaizers’ false gospel—a gospel in which these Jewish Christians felt that circumcision was essential to salvation—and to remind the Galatians of the real basis of their salvation. It was the urgency of the situation which moved Paul to write even before the Jerusalem Council convened, for the churches of Galatia were at stake. Stagg addresses the question of why so much of the Christian Household Code is found in what is generally recognized as the Pauline tradition. He points to a seeming irony that the Code in the New Testament is associated