Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/359

Rh

Epistles. The connexion between these two portions, commended by its intrinsic appropriateness, is preserved in a large proportion of Greek MSS of all ages, and corresponds to marked affinities of textual history. This connexion is not sacrificed in the arrangement found in the Sinai MS and elsewhere, by which the Pauline Epistles are placed next to the Gospels. The Sinaitic order has the undoubted advantage of keeping together those books of the New Testament which were most decisively invested with a scriptural character in the earlier ages. But there is a manifest incongruity in placing the Acts in the midst of the Epistles; and moreover, since the choice lies between what are after all only rival traditions, strong reasons would be needed to justify us in forsaking the highest ancient Greek authority, in accordance with which the Pauline Epistles stand after the Catholic Epistles, Secondly, the Epistle to the Hebrews stands before the Pastoral Epistles. It is certainly not satisfactory to ourselves personally to separate what we believe to be genuine writings of St Paul from the bulk of his works by an epistle in which we cannot recognise his authorship. But no violence has, we trust, been here done to truth in deferring throughout to the most eminent precedent, since the Epistle to the Hebrews is on all hands acknowledged as in some sense Pauline, and St Paul's epistles addressed to single persons may very well be placed by themselves. We have therefore been content to indicate the existence of three groups in the table prefixed to the whole Pauline collection.

423. The titles of the books of the New Testament are no part of the text of the books themselves. Their ultimate authority is traditional, not documentary. In employing them according to universal custom, we neither affirm nor question their accuracy in respect of authorship or destination. In length and elaboration they vary much in different documents: we have adopted the concise and extremely ancient form preserved in B and some other documents, which is apparently the foundation of the fuller titles. In prefixing the name in the singular to the quaternion of 'Gospels', we have wished to supply the antecedent which alone gives an adequate sense to the preposition  in the several titles. The idea, if not the name, of a collective 'Gospel' is implied throughout the well known passage in the third book of Irenæus, who doubtless received it from earlier genera-

&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;23