(c) Mark is put first, followed by Matthew; in the fragment of a Bobbian MS. of the Itala at Turin marked k.
(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.