toric
record. The mighty system of prophecies contained in the book of
Revelation, which stretches over the whole future history of the church
to the end of time, forms an appropriate close to the entire collection
of writings.

3. Equally appropriate is the order of the two _subdivisions_ of the
historic part--first, the four Gospels, containing the history of our
Lord's life; secondly, the Acts of the Apostles. In the general
arrangement of the epistles, the thirteen which bear the name of Paul
stand first in order. The seven so-called catholic epistles occupy the
last place. Intermediate between these two subdivisions stands the
epistle to the Hebrews, which is anonymous, though generally ascribed to
Paul. The epistles which bear the name of Paul fall into two
groups--nine addressed to _Christian churches_, which occupy the first
place; then four to _particular persons_. Of these last, the first
three, being addressed to Timothy and Titus, the apostle's companions in
travel and in the gospel ministry, are appropriately named from their
contents the _pastoral_ epistles. The letter to Philemon, a private
member of the church in Colosse, naturally stands last of all.

We add from Bleek (Introduc. to New Test., secs. 18 and 254) the
following additional notices:

The present order of the Gospels is very ancient. Only in some
manuscripts of the Old Latin version, in one Greco-Latin
manuscript (the so-called Codex Bezae or Cambridge Codex), and
in the manuscript of the Gothic version, the two apostles
Matthew and John stand first; then the two companions of
apostles, Luke and Mark, or sometimes Mark and Luke. In the very
ancient Curetonian-Syrian manuscript the order is Matthew, Mark,
John, Luke.

The Acts of the Apostles stand in some manuscripts after the
Pauline or after the catholic epistles.

In the oldest Greek manuscripts, and generally in the greatest
number of Greek manuscripts which contain the whole New
Testament, the catholic epistles stand before the Pauline; an
arrangement which some modern editors, as Lachmann and
Tischendorf, have followed. In many manuscripts, the oldest
Greek included, the epistle to the Hebrews stands after 2
Thessalonians, immediately before the pastoral epistles. Luther
placed together, at the end of his version, the epistles to the
Hebrews, the epistles of James and Jude, and the Apocalypse. But