The Order of Gospel Books

Early Christian thinkers organized books and readers in order to address a wide range of historical, theological, and ecclesial questions. As part of this late ancient habit of »bibliographic thinking,« texts from varied genres advance arguments about the sequence in which gospel books were written, the nature of the authorship involved, and the literary structures of a gospel corpus. This article analyzes how theories of gospel order functioned as loci of heresiological argument and authorial definition in the Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, late ancient »anti-Marcionite« gospel prefaces, and the Acts of Timothy.