The Gospels are four in number, neither more nor less. Mystic reasons for this.

[moobu2]

This is from a book written by an early Christian Church father named Irenaeus and is the earliest known reference to the four-fold gospel. Here, he's arguing against the questions being raised about the reasoning behind four Gospels being the number chosen and not more or less because at the tome there were dozens and dozens of Gospels floating around the Mediterranean. Interesting to see the magical thinking behind his argument. The number four, five, seven twelve and thirty were powerful magical numbers to these very superstitious people.

8. It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the “pillar and ground” of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh. From which fact, it is evident that the Word, the Artificer of all, He that sitteth upon the cherubim, and contains all things, He who was manifested to men, has given us the Gospel under four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit. As also David says, when entreating His manifestation, “Thou that sittest between the cherubim, shine forth.” For the cherubim, too, were four-faced, and their faces were images of the dispensation of the Son of God. For, says, “The first living creature was like a lion,” symbolizing His effectual working, His leadership, and royal power; the second was like a calf, signifying sacrificial and sacerdotal order; but “the third had, as it were, the face as of a man,”—an evident description of His advent as a human being; “the fourth was like a flying eagle,” pointing out the gift of the Spirit hovering with His wings over the Church. And therefore the Gospels are in accord with these things, among which Christ Jesus is seated. For that according to John relates His original, effectual, and glorious generation from the Father, thus declaring, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
bla bla bla...
From the book 'Against Heresies' by Irenaeus of Lyonsc 175-185 CE

[somone]

1. While many other people consider 4 a very bad number

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture

Number 4 is considered an unlucky number in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cultures because it is nearly homophonous to the word "death". Due to that, many numbered product lines skip the "4": e.g. Nokia cell phones (there is no series beginning with a 4), Palm PDAs, Canon PowerShot G's series (after G3 goes G5), etc. In East Asia, some buildings do not have a 4th floor. (Compare with the Western practice of some buildings not having a 13th floor because 13 is considered unlucky.) In Hong Kong, some high-rise residential buildings literally miss all floor numbers with "4", e.g. 4, 14, 24, 34 and all 40–49 floors, in addition to not having a 13th floor. As a result, a building whose highest floor is number 50 may actually have only 35 physical floors.

[LiberalEsto]

2. And if you add the 1 and 3 from 13, 1+3=4

The mind boggles at the implications

:hide:

[randr]

3. Native Americans have a spiritual connection to the four directions

It always amazes me how humans can make so much out of the plan and simple obvious.
Without reason we would all be like BO astounded by the fact that the tides come in and go out. OMG, I just got it--going in and going out--!!!!!

[On the Road]

4. He Was Trying to Come With a Reason to Discredit Gnostic Gospels

"John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks...to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men...who are an offset of that “knowledge” falsely so called...."

A lot of the apocryphal gospels, such as the Gospels of Mary and Peter, were written during the generation before Irenaus's book, which is generally dated to the 180s. It's kind of strange, because gnostics looked at scripture allegorically and saw Jesus as more of a spirit than a historical figure. But the canonical gospels might have had biographical and historical material added during the second century also as a way of substantiating Jesus' earthly existence.

.

[edhopper]

5. It reminds me of this

From the Pyhton boys;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOrgLj9lOwk

[MorningGlow]

6. Yanno, Irenaeus, if you're gonna steal from pagans, at least get it right

Yes, four is significant in many cases, but if you're going to use numbers to symbolize the balance of the cosmos, you should use six--two more for above and below as well.

And I just keep thinking of all the gospels that got kicked to the curb because they included teachings the Church didn't want to acknowledge.

[backscatter712]

7. In other words, it was a marketing decision.

The same reason why George Carlin said they made ten commandments. "The Eleven Commandments? Get the fuck outta here!"

[Iggo]

8. Five is right out!

[struggle4progress]

9. It's rhetoric from two millennia ago. It comes from a different time and place, so

naturally it sounds strange

The Christian theology, developed in the period of the Roman empire, has significant Greek influences -- but Greek rationality (an intellectual achievement to which we owe an enormous debt) had a significant idealistic component, as one sees in the Pythagorean tradition, for example, which assumes that everything reduces to whole numbers and which leans heavily on numerological mysticism

The Pythagorean school, and later generations of Greek idealists, made real contributions -- but many of their their notions must nevertheless strike us today as strange. The discovery, of the incommensurability of a square's diagonal with its side, struck them as such an abomination (contrary to their doctrine of whole numbers) that (according to tradition and perhaps also in actual fact) the discoverer Hippasus was drowned at sea as punishment for this blasphemy

Irenaeus, like the rest of us, was a product of his time: he exhorts his contemporaries, using notions familiar to himself and his audience