Development of the New Testament canon a heretic and in the early 4th century Bishop Theodoretus of Cyrrhus and Bishop Rabbula of Edessa (both in Syria) rooted out all copies they could find of the Diatessaron and replaced them with the four canonical Gospels (M 215). As a result, no early copies of the Diatessaron survive—although a very early fragment suggests it would have been crucial evidence for the true state of the early Gospels (see IX). By the 5th century, the Syriac Bible, called the Peshitta, was formalized, accepting Philemon, along with James, 1 Peter and 1 John, but excluding 2 John, 3 John, 2
Synoptic Gospels as the Hebrew logia mentioned by Papias, the Jewish–Christian gospels, and the Gospel of Marcion. Ancient sources virtually unanimously ascribe the synoptic gospels to the apostle Matthew, to Peter's interpreter Mark, and to Paul's companion Luke - hence their respective canonical names. A remark by Augustine at the beginning of the fifth century presents the gospels as composed in their canonical order (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), with each evangelist thoughtfully building upon and supplementing the work of his predecessors—the Augustinian hypothesis (Matthew–Mark). This view (when any model of dependence was considered at all) seldom came into question until the late