The variety in the order of the Catholic Epistles is even more significant than that of the Pauline. When the Syrian Church of Edessa obtained the New Testament, it consisted only of the Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, and the Acts. It contained neither the Apocalypse nor the Catholic Epistles. This is proved among other things by the fact that not a single quotation from these writings is found in the Homilies of Aphraates, the date of which falls between 336 and 345. At a later date the Syrian Church accepted the Epistle of James, 1 Peter, and 1 John, but the four so-called Antilegomena—viz. 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude—are to this day excluded from their Canon of the New Testament. Even in the West, James was not reckoned among the books of the New Testament previous to the fourth century. There is no mention made of it in Africa about the year 300, although it was cited at Rome and Carthage at an earlier date. At Alexandria, however, all the seven Catholic Epistles were counted in the New Testament as early as the time of Clement,[286] and their place in the Canon becomes more and more firmly assured from the time of Eusebius onwards.[287] At the same time, the order of their arrangement varies very considerably. Indeed, every possible variety occurs, except that Jude seems never to have been placed first, nor 2 Peter last. Thus we find James, 2 Peter, 3 John, Jude; James, Jude, 2 Peter, 3 John; 2 Peter, James, Jude, 3 John; 2 Peter, 3 John, James, Jude; 2 Peter, 3 John, Jude, James, etc.[288] It follows that in the case of this group of New Testament writings, as well as in that of the preceding, it is necessary and possible to distinguish the three longer from the four shorter epistles in tracing the history of the text. And we see at the same time what justification Luther had in drawing a line between these epistles and the principal books of the New Testament as having been held in quite a different estimation in early times. 1 Peter. iii. 22. After θεοῦ the Vulgate inserts _deglutiens mortem ut vitae aeternae haeredes efficeremur_, “apparently from a Greek original which had the aorist participle καταπιών; _cf._ 1 Cor. xv. 54” (W-H, _Notes_, _in loco_). See Vetter, _Der dritte Korintherbrief_. 2 Peter. i. 1. Zahn considers ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ the original reading, and εἰς δικαιοσύνην a later correction due to taking πίστιν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ together as “faith in righteousness.” The last two words are to be taken with λαχοῦσιν. _Einleitung_, ii. 59.