When it is abruptly stated that ?BCD—four out of “the five old uncials”—omit from the text of St. John's Gospel the account of the angel descending into the pool and troubling the water,—it is straightway supposed that the genuineness of St. John v. 4 must be surrendered. But this is not at all the way to settle questions of this kind. Let the witnesses be called in afresh and examined.

Now I submit that since these four witnesses omitting A, (besides a multitude of lesser discrepancies,) are unable to agree among themselves whether “there was at Jerusalem a sheep-pool” (?), or “a pool at the sheep-gate”: whether it was “surnamed” (BC), or “named” (D), or neither (?):—which appellation, out of thirty which have been proposed for this pool, they will adopt,—seeing that [pg 083] C is for “Bethesda”; B for “Bethsaida”; ? for “Bethzatha”; D for “Belzetha”:—whether or no the crowd was great, of which they all know nothing,—and whether some were “paralytics,”—a fact which was evidently revealed only to D:—to say nothing of the vagaries of construction discoverable in verses 11 and 12:—when, you see, at last these four witnesses conspire to suppress the fact that an Angel went down into the pool to trouble the water;—this concord of theirs derives suggestive illustration from their conspicuous discord. Since, I say, there is so much discrepancy hereabouts in B and ? and their two associates on this occasion, nothing short of unanimity in respect of the thirty-two contested words—five in verse 3, and twenty-seven in verse 4—would free their evidence from suspicion. But here we make the notable discovery that only three of them omit all the words in question, and that the second Corrector of C replaces them in that manuscript. D retains the first five, and surrenders the last twenty-seven: in this step D is contradicted by another of the “Old Uncials,” A, whose first reading retains the last twenty-seven, and surrenders the first five. Even their satellite L forsakes them, except so far as to follow the first hand of A. Only five Cursives have been led astray, and they exhibit strikingly this Concordia discors. One (157) follows the extreme members of the loving company throughout. Two (18, 314) imitate A and L: and two more (33, 134) have the advantage of D for their leader. When witnesses prevaricate so hopelessly, how far can you believe them?

Now—to turn for a moment to the other side—this is a matter on which the translations and such Fathers as quote the passage are able to render just as good evidence as the Greek copies: and it is found that the Peshitto, most of the Old Latin, as well as the Vulgate and the Jerusalem, with Tertullian, Ammonius, Hilary, Ephraem [pg 084] the Syrian, Ambrose (two), Didymus, Chrysostom (eight), Nilus (four), Jerome, Cyril of Alexandria (five), Augustine (two), and Theodorus Studita, besides the rest of the Uncials93, and the Cursives94, with the slight exception already mentioned, are opposed to the Old Uncials95.

Let me next remind you of a remarkable instance of this inconsistency which I have already described in my book on The Revision Revised (pp. 34-36). “The five Old Uncials” (?ABCD) falsify the Lord's Prayer as given by St. Luke in no less than forty-five words. But so little do they agree among themselves, that they throw themselves into six different combinations in their departures from the Traditional Text; and yet they are never able to agree among themselves as to one single various reading: while only once are more than two of them observed to stand together, and their grand point of union is no less than an omission of the article. Such is their eccentric tendency, that in respect of thirty-two out of the whole forty-five words they bear in turn solitary evidence.