Short introductory statements which are prefixed to each of the four gospels in many manuscripts of the Vulgate. Also known as the Arguments, they contain brief accounts of each evangelist and his reasons for writing his account. These Latin introductions are involved, and their meaning is often remote and vague. The fact that these documents are known from antiquity as the [[Monarchian Prologues]] indicates that they have been held to date from the second or third centuries. But more recent critics have shown them to belong to the fourth century, and that perhaps they are in fact dependent upon the Anti-[[Marcionite Prologues]].