The Rule consists of a prologue and 73 chapters.
The beginning is given in the Authorized Version as "A prologue made by an uncertain author."
Towards the end of this conversation the evangelist passes imperceptibly from reporting the words of the Lord into an interpretation or amplification of them, and in language which recalls the prologue he unfolds the meaning of Christ's mission and indicates the crisis of self-judgment which necessarily accompanies the manifestation of the Light to each individual.
Tales, Prologue 676, where the Pardoner's hair is compared with a "strike of flax."
Their confusing effect, for modern readers, is increased by a curiously irrelevant prologue.
