the Vatican, the Sinaitic, and the Alexandrine. Its origin is best accounted for by the supposition that whoever formed the Gospel collection wished to arrange the Gospels in accordance with the respective date which tradition assigned to their composition. Thus, the first place was given to St. Matthew’s Gospel, because a very early tradition described the work as originally written in Hebrew, that is, in the Aramaic language of Palestine. This, it was thought, proved that it had been composed for the Jewish believers in the Holy Land, at a date when the Apostles had not yet started to preach the glad tidings of salvation outside of Palestine, so that it must be prior to the other Gospels written in Greek and for converts in Greek-speaking countries. In like manner, it is clear that St. John’s Gospel was assigned the last place, because tradition at a very early date looked upon it as the last in the order of time. As to St. Mark and St. Luke, tradition ever spoke of them as posterior to St. Matthew and anterior to St. John, so that their Gospels were naturally placed between those of St. Matthew and St. John. In this way, as it seems, was obtained the present general order of the Gospels in which we find, at the beginning, an Apostle as author; at the end, the other Apostle; between the two, those who have to derive their authority from Apostles.
