ght to introduce a more logical system of
interpunction. Thus was laid the foundation of our present system;
which, however, was not perfected till after the invention of the art of
printing.

In the opinion of some, the use of the dot, at least to some
extent, was earlier than stichometry. From the eighth or ninth
century punctuation in manuscripts became more common and
systematic. In _cursive_ manuscripts--those that employ the
running hand with large and small letters and the separation of
the words, a style of writing that became the common one from
the ninth century and onward--punctuation also prevails, though
not according to any one established system. Tregelles, _ubi
sup_. Various other particulars interesting to those who study
the Greek text in the original, as those relating to the
accents, the smooth and rough breathing, and the iota subscript,
are here omitted.

7. We come next to consider the _ancient divisions_ made in the
_contents_ of the sacred text. _Chapters_ are very early mentioned, as
by Tertullian and Dionysius of Alexandria. But it is uncertain whether
any thing more is meant than parts or sections of given contents. The
earliest formal division of the four gospels that has come down to us
consists of the _Ammonian sections_ (Greek _kephalaia_, _heads_ or
_chapters_), so named from Ammonius of Alexandria, who, about the middle
of the third century, prepared a harmony of the four gospels--_the
Gospel by four_, as Eusebius calls it. His plan was, to arrange in the
order of Matthew the parallel passages side by side, interpolating those
that were wanting in Matthew. To this end, he divided each of the
gospels into sections the length of which was very various, being wholly
determined by the parallelisms of the other gospels. Of these sections
Matthew contained 355; Mark, 234 (in Wordsworth's Greek Testament, 236
are given); Luke, 342; John, 231 (in Wordsworth's Greek Testament, 232).
The infelicity of this arrangement was that, with the exception of the
first gospel, the true order of the evangelists was broken up--"The
train of sequence of the three was destroyed in respect to the orderly
course of reading," as Eusebius says (Letter to Carpianus, given in
Wordsworth's Greek Testament).

To remedy this evil, Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, in the following
century connected with these Ammonian sections his _ten canons_. These
are ten tables, arran