Why Four Gospels?

Standing Up said:

A couple of people mentioned Irenaeus who speaks to the reason for 4. He does give a number of reasons from world observation (4 winds,etc) to scripture (Rev--lion, man, ox, eagle) to tradition. This writing was in reaction to some heretics who were trying to subtract and add gospels. But Irenaeus is clear that the 4 specifically (M, M, L, J) were handed down as divine.

Here's the citation (his argument really begins from #8).
ANF01. The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus | Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Thoughts? Comments?

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I acknowledge that there are four gospels, but I do not think there is anything special about the number four.

IMO this would be numerology.

edit: This is interesting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerology_and_the_Church_Fathers
Does the EO, OO or RC practice numerology?

Standing Up said:

You're not aware of the 4 living creatures as a scripturally possible connection? Or just automatically reject it?

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The lectern from which the Gospels are read in an Orthodox liturgy often are adorned with images of the four l.c. paired with images of the 4 authors.
Yes, we're aware.

OpenDoor said:

According to St. Irenaeus since there are 4 points on a compass there should be 4 gospels...

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Four cardinal points, but many ordinal ones

MKJ said:

I've heard some moderns hypothesize that the four Gospels appeal or are more easily understood by various personality types - a sort of psychological rational. Which seems to be the case, though I don't know that it is the reason to have four.

Really, all we can say is that is the number it took for God to say what he wanted to say in the way he wanted to say it. Anything more is speculation. I don't think there is anything wrong with speculating, so long as we are clear that it is nothing more.

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Looking back at why four Gospels were chosen isn't much different from a person looking back at her own life, and asking why she married the man she did. Why that particular man over any other? There were how many millions of other men in her country that she could have chosen? It's a trick of what it means to reflect on the past. In other words, four wasn't a necessary number. The hand that God dealt out in the canon was just given that way.

Standing Up said:

In what sense completeness? Where do you get that notion?

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It represents completeness in the sense that it encompasses all the important directional points. Even the word, encompasses suggests an inclusion of things.

Standing Up said:

Why four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)? Why not one or ten or some other number?

Doe scripture say anything about it? Does tradition?

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Four because that is all folks will read. Some folks might read one, a few more might read two, if they are very studious they might read three and the fourth one needed to be written in English. LOL

Because it's God's favorite number.

Walter Kovacs said:

Because it's God's favorite number.

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I think God's favorite number is three, by default.

Standing Up said:

Aside from Irenaeus, I don't find any other ECFs commenting on it. Do you?

What else?

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Augustine, Jerome, and Pseudo-Athanasius made use of the animal symbolism, which included man, lion, ox, and eagle.

Symbols of the Four Evangelists

OpenDoor said:

The Gospels could not possibly be either more or less in number than they are. Since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is spread over all the earth, and the pillar and foundation of the Church is the gospel, and the Spirit of life, it fittingly has four pillars, everywhere breathing out incorruption and revivifying men. From this it is clear that the Word, the artificer of all things, being manifested to men gave us the gospel, fourfold in form but held together by one Spirit. As David said, when asking for his coming, 'O sitter upon the cherubim, show yourself '. For the cherubim have four faces, and their faces are images of the activity of the Son of God. For the first living creature, it says, was like a lion, signifying his active and princely and royal character; the second was like an ox, showing his sacrificial and priestly order; the third had the face of a man, indicating very clearly his coming in human guise; and the fourth was like a flying eagle, making plain the giving of the Spirit who broods over the Church. Now the Gospels, in which Christ is enthroned, are like these.

St. Irenaeus
Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies)

Apparently for its time this was a very good argument

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St. Irenaeus is amazing.

Montalban said:

Four cardinal points, but many ordinal ones

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I agree.

OpenDoor said:

I acknowledge that there are four gospels, but I do not think there is anything special about the number four.

IMO this would be numerology.

edit: This is interesting Numerology and the Church Fathers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Does the EO, OO or RC practice numerology?

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The way I understand it, the numbers in Revelation and throughout the Bible do mean something - 12, 7, 8, 3, 6, 144,000, etc. Fr. Tom Hopko explains a bit of that in his CDs on the Apocalypse.

Dorothea said:

The way I understand it, the numbers in Revelation and throughout the Bible do mean something - 12, 7, 8, 3, 6, 144,000, etc. Fr. Tom Hopko explains a bit of that in his CDs on the Apocalypse.

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So the EO consider numerology a Christian practices past down by tradition?

OpenDoor said:

So the EO consider numerology a Christian practices past down by tradition?

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No, not numerology; unless the use of 666 in the Scriptures is considered numerology. Consider - 12 tribes, 12 apostles; 40 years in the desert, 40 days of fasting. There is meaning - to the extent that there is correlation (even when numbers are used to mean "a long time").

Irenaeus notes the repetitive use of four in the Scriptures, and describes the Gospels in this light.

Grrrr... I had typed an entire section and then my browser locked up... so Im typing this again...

Irenaeus would have been familiar with the Jewish use of numbers as symbols. Not to predict the future but rather because numbers represented something. Even today, we might say that 13 is an unlucky number because there were 13 people (that we know of) at the Last Supper.
Years ago, I had a Bible study (Lutheran) that we studied Revelation and got a basic introduction into the numbers in Rev. This is what I remember, so forgive me if Im off on some things...

One - represents divinity - The Lord thy God is one.
two - represents the Jewish law, as in the 2 tablets of the Law that Moses brought down. (Laughing as I think of Mel Brooks in History of the World Part 1... "I have here 15, <crash> 10, 10 commandments)
Three- a complete number. Of course for us, the Trinity, but for Jews this would have represented a spiritual completeness, of body, mind and soul
Four - a complete number. Represents the earthly completeness, the four directions, the four elements, and in Irenaeus case, 4 Gospels
Five - represents man - five fingers on a hand
Six - an incomplete number, falling short of the great complete number, seven. 666 can be taken to mean a being who tries to counterfit God, and falls short by one, three times.
Seven - THE complete number. 3+4 meaning spiritual and earthly completeness. In the wisdom literature like Proverbs, you'll see, 6 times you do this, 7 times you do this. In this case, Proverbs is giving a "complete" list. In Christianity we have the 7 deadly sins, and the 7 heavenly virtues
Eight - Dont think this one had a meaning
Nine - 3x3, so spiritual completeness by spiritual completeness. Paul says there are nine sets of spiritual beings: thrones, principalities, angels, archangels etc.
Ten - Another complete number, ten commandments, ten fingers, ten toes, also representing man.
12 - represents Israel, with the 12 tribes of Israel.
1000 - 10 x 10 x 10 - Ten in its completeness
144,000 - Israel in its completeness 12 x 12 x 1000

Jesus uses these numbers when Peter asks how many times should I forgive someone. Not just seven times, but 7 times 70. So here the disciples would have understood that this doesnt mean once you forgive someone 490 times and at 491 you can tell him to shove off. Rather, they would have taken it to me ALWAYS forgiving, 7 x 7 x 10 as forgive as God forgives.

Brian

This is interesting... Your Turn: Gilligan : In Character : NPR

According to Sherwood Schwartz, the 7 members of the Gilligan's Castaways each represented a deadly sin. The article lists a couple, Im guessing at the rest.

Gilligan - sloth
Skipper - anger
Professor - pride
Ginger - lust (but I lusted after Maryanne!)
Maryanne - envy (of Ginger?)
Mr. Howell - greed
Mrs. Howell - gluttony (?)

Why Four Gospels?

Subscribing.
Anyone here ever looked at the [I first saw this about 6 yrs ago]:

The Fourfold Gospel [Title Page].

The Fourfold
Gospel
================ O R =================
A HARMONY of the
FOUR GOSPELS