(_d_) Matthew, Mark, John, Luke; in the Curetonian Syriac gospels. They are mentioned in the same order in Origen’s I. Homily on Luke. The reason of the order in, (_a_) and (_b_) lies in apostleship. The works of apostles precede those of evangelists. The established sequence, which is already sanctioned by Irenæus and Origen, has respect to the supposed dates of the gospels. Clement of Alexandria says that ancient tradition supposed those gospels having the genealogies to have been written before the others. IV. As to the _Acts of the Apostles_, not only is this work put immediately after the gospels, which is the order in the Muratorian canon, but we find it in other positions. (_a_) Gospels, Pauline Epistles, Acts; in the Sinaitic MS., the Peshito,(368) Jerome,(369) and Epiphanius. (_b_) Gospels, Pauline Epistles, Catholic Epistles, Acts; in Augustine, the third council of Toledo, Isidore, Innocent I., Eugenius IV., and the Spanish Church generally. (_c_) Gospels, Pauline, Catholic Epistles, Apocalypse, Acts; in the stichometry of the Clermont MS. V. As to _the Epistles of Paul_, besides the place they now occupy in our Bibles, they sometimes follow the gospels immediately. (_a_) Gospels, Pauline Epistles; the Sinaitic MS., Jerome, Epiphanius, Augustine, the third council of Toledo, Isidore, Innocent I., Eugenius IV., the stichometry of the Clermont MS. (_b_) The usual order of the Greek Church is, Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Pauline, &c., as in Cyril of Jerusalem, the Laodicean Council (60), Athanasius, Leontius of Byzantium, the MSS. A. B., but not א. The critical Greek Testaments of Lachmann and Tischendorf adopt this order. (_c_) They are placed last of all in a homily attributed to Origen, but this does not necessarily show that father’s opinion.(370) (_d_) They stand first of all in a Gallican _Sacramentarium_ cited by Hody.(371) VI. With respect to the order of the individual epistles, the current one has been thought as old as Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. But the proof of this is precarious. It appears in the fourth century, and may have been prior to that. It is in Epiphanius, who supposes that the arrangement was the apostle’s own. Not only was it the prevalent one in the Greek Church, but also in the Latin as we see from the codex Amiatinus, and the Vulgate MSS. generally. It rests upon the extent of the epistles and the relative importance of the localities in which the believers addressed resided. (_a_) Marcion had but ten Pauline epistles in the following order: Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, the Laodiceans, (Ephesians), Colossians, Philemon, Philippians. (_b_) 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Romans, Philemon, Titus, 1 and 2 Timothy, to the Laodiceans, the Alexandrians (the Epistle to the Hebrews); in the Muratorian canon.