Of more importance is the distinction of manuscripts according to their =contents=. Of all our recorded Uncials, only one contains the whole of the New Testament complete. That is the Codex Sinaiticus discovered by Tischendorf in 1859. A few others, like Codices Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Ephraemi, were once complete, but are no longer so. Of the later Minuscules, some twenty-five alone contain the entire New Testament. Of the English Minuscules, five are complete. The fragmentary nature of our manuscripts is intelligible on two grounds. One is that a New Testament codex written in uncial characters is a very bulky and ponderous volume running to about 150 sheets. Comparatively few would be in a position to procure such a costly work all at once. The other reason is that the New Testament itself is not a single book, but a series of different collections, which at first, and even afterwards, were circulated separately. To the same reason is due the great variety in the order of the several parts of the New Testament found in the manuscripts, and still, to a certain extent, in our printed editions. It is not exactly known who it was that first collected and inscribed in one volume the books and the parts that now make up the New Testament. Such a single volume of the entire New Testament was afterwards known as a πανδέκτης, and in Latin, _bibliotheca_. The parts into which the New Testament is divided are— 1. The four Gospels. 2. (_a_) The Acts of the Apostles. (_b_) The so-called Catholic Epistles, _i.e._ those not addressed to any particular church or individual, viz., James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, Jude. 3. The thirteen Pauline Epistles, or, including Hebrews, fourteen. 4. The Apocalypse. [Sidenote: Lectionaries.] Among these incomplete manuscripts of the New Testament may be classed the so-called =lectionaries=—_i.e._ manuscripts containing only those portions read at church services. Following the custom of the Synagogue, in which portions of the Law and the Prophets were read at divine service each Sabbath day, the practice was early adopted in the Christian Church of reading passages from the New Testament books at services. A definite selection of such extracts was formed at an early date from the Gospels and Epistles, and the custom arose of arranging these according to the order of Sundays and Holy days, for greater convenience in use. A collection of selected passages from the Gospels was called a Εὐαγγέλιον, and in Latin _Evangeliarium_,[25] in distinction to the books containing the continuous text, which were called Τετραευαγγέλιον, while the selections from the Epistles were known as Ἀπόστολος or Πραξαπόστολος. These lectionaries, though mostly of later origin, are nevertheless important as indicating the official text of the various provinces of the Church. They show, moreover, how sundry slight alterations found their way into the text of the New Testament.