consequently, after the Acts of the Apostles (which were written during the life of Paul, Chap. 5, No. 5), after all the Pauline epistles, and probably after all the Catholic epistles except those which are ascribed to John himself.  The Acts of the Apostles, again, are of later date than several of Paul’s epistles.  Finally, neither the Pauline nor the catholic epistles are arranged in chronological order.  See below, Chap. 30, No. 6.  The intelligent student of the New Testament will avail himself of all the means at his command to ascertain the date, proximately at least, of each particular book; that he may thus connect it with the development of Christianity in the threefold line of doctrine, practice, and polity.

5.  The present distinction of large letters (capitals) and small did not come into use before the ninth century.  In conformity with ancient usage, the manuscripts executed before this period are written in large disconnected letters (the so-called uncial), without any marks of interpunction, or even division of words.  This is called the continuous writing (scriptio continua), in which it is left to the reader’s discretion to make the necessary division of words and sentences; as if the beginning of the Gospel according to John were written thus in Latin and English: 

Latin. English.

INPRINCIPIOERATVERBUMET INTHEBEGINNINGWASTHEWORDAND
VERBUMERATAPUDDEUMETDEUSE THEWORDWASWITHGODANDGODW
RATVERBUMHOCERATINPRINCIPI ASTHEWORDTHESAMEWASINTHEBEGIN
OAPUDDEUMOMNIAPERIPSUMFA NINGWITHGODALLTHINGSBYHIMWEREMA

Writers before our Saviour’s time do indeed speak of signs of interpunction; but they seem to have been in use only in the grammatical schools, and with a limited application to certain doubtful passages in the ancient writers.  That they were unknown in the older manuscripts of the New Testament is evident from the discussions that arose among the church fathers respecting the right division of certain passages, in which they never appeal to the authority of manuscripts, but argue solely from the nature of the connection.  The reader may see a collection of examples in Hug’s Introduction to the New Testament, Sec. 43, where are also some curious examples of the wrong division of words.

6.  To obviate the inconvenience of this continuous mode of writing, there was introduced, about the middle of the fifth century, what is called the stichometrical mode (Greek stichos, a row or line, and metron, a measure).  This consisted in arranging in a single line only so many words as could be read, consistently with the sense, at a single inspiration.