Page:The Library (Lang).djvu/116

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88
THE LIBRARY.
[CHAP.

Museum, there is a long colophon, in which, after the name of the writer—"hunc librum scripsit Wills de Hales,"—there is a prayer for Ralph of Nebham, who had called Hales to the writing of the book, followed by a date—"Fes. fuit liber anno M.cc.l. quarto ab incarnatione domini." In this Bible the books of the New Testament were in the following order:—the Evangelists, the Acts, the Epistles of S. Peter, S. James, and S. John, the Epistles of S. Paul, and the Apocalypse. In a Bible at Brussels I found the colophon after the index:—"Hic expliciunt interpretationes Hebrayorum nominum Dō grīs qui potens est p. sūp. omia." Some of these Bibles are of marvellously small dimensions. The smallest I ever saw was at Ghent, but it was very imperfect. I have one in which there are thirteen lines of writing in an inch of the column. The order of the books of the New Testament in Bibles of the thirteenth century is usually according to one or other of the three following arrangements:—

(1.) The Evangelists, Romans to Hebrews, Acts, Epistles of S. Peter, S. James, and S. John, Apocalypse.

(2.) The Evangelists, Acts, Epistles of S. Peter, S. James, and S. John, Epistles of S. Paul, Apocalypse. This is the most common.