The undoubtedly genuine expression ?a? t?? ?st?, ????e (which is the traditional reading of St. John ix. 36), loses its characteristic ??? in Cod. ?*AL,—though it retains it in the rest of the uncials and in all the cursives. The ?a? is found in the Complutensian,—because the editors followed their copies: it is not found in the Textus Receptus only because Erasmus did not as in cases before mentioned follow his. The same refinement of expression recurs in the Traditional Text of ch. xiv. 22 (????e, ??? t? ?????e?), [pg 192] and experienced precisely the same fate at the hands of the two earliest editors of the printed Greek Text. It is also again faithfully upheld in its integrity by the whole body of the cursives,—always excepting “33”. But (as before) in uncials of bad character, as BDL (even by AEX) the ?a? is omitted,—for which insufficient reason it has been omitted by the Revisers likewise,—notwithstanding the fact that it is maintained in all the other uncials. As is manifest in most of these instances, the Versions, being made into languages with other idioms than Greek, can bear no witness; and also that these delicate embellishments would be often brushed off in quotations, as well as by scribes and so-called correctors.

We have not far to look for other instances of this. St. Matthew (i. 18) begins his narrative,—??ste??e?s?? G?? t?? ?t??? a?t?? ?a??a? t? ??s?f. Now, as readers of Greek are aware, the little untranslated (because untranslateable) word exhibited in capitals271 stands with peculiar idiomatic force and propriety immediately after the first word of such a sentence as the foregoing, being employed in compliance with strictly classical usage272: and though it might easily come to be omitted through the carelessness or the licentiousness of copyists, yet it could not by any possibility have universally established itself in copies of the Gospel—as it has done—had it been an unauthorized accretion to the text. We find it recognized in St. Matt. i. 18 by Eusebius273, by Basil274, by Epiphanius275, by Chrysostom276, by Nestorius277, by Cyril278, by Andreas Cret.279: which is even extraordinary; for the ??? is not at all required for purposes of quotation. But the essential circumstance as [pg 193] usual is, that ??? is found besides in the whole body of the manuscripts. The only uncials in fact which omit the idiomatic particle are four of older date, viz. B?C*Z.

This same particle (???) has led to an extraordinary amount of confusion in another place, where its idiomatic propriety has evidently been neither felt nor understood,—viz. in St. Luke xviii. 14. “This man” (says our Lord) “went down to his house justified rather than” (? ???) “the other.” Scholars recognize here an exquisitely idiomatic expression, which in fact obtains so universally in the Traditional Text that its genuineness is altogether above suspicion. It is vouched for by 16 uncials headed by A, and by the cursives in the proportion of 500 to 1. The Complutensian has it, of course: and so would the Textus Receptus have it, if Erasmus had followed his MS.: but “praefero” (he says) “quod est usitatius apud probos autores.” Uncongenial as the expression is to the other languages of antiquity, ? ??? is faithfully retained in the Gothic and in the Harkleian Version280. Partly however, because it is of very rare occurrence and was therefore not understood281, and partly because when written in uncials it easily got perverted into something else, the expression has met with a strange fate. ?G?? is found to have suggested, or else to have been mistaken for, both ?p??282 and ????283. The prevailing expedient however was, to get rid of the ?—to turn G?? into ???,—and, for ??e???? to write ??e????284. The [pg 194] uncials which exhibit this strange corruption of the text are exclusively that quaternion which have already come so often before us,—viz. B?DL. But D improves upon the blunder of its predecessors by writing, like a Targum, ????? G??? a??e???? (sic), and by adding (with the Old Latin and the Peshitto) t?? Fa??sa???,—an exhibition of the text which (it is needless to say) is perfectly unique285.

And how has the place fared at the hands of some Textual critics? Lachmann and Tregelles (forsaken by Tischendorf) of course follow Codd. B?DL. The Revisers (with Dr. Hort)—not liking to follow B?DL, and unable to adopt the Traditional Text, suffer the reading of the Textus Receptus (? ??e????) to stand,—though a solitary cursive (Evan. 1) is all the manuscript authority that can be adduced in its favour. In effect, ? ??e???? may be said to be without manuscript authority286.

The point to be noticed in all this is, that the true reading of St. Luke xviii. 14 has been faithfully retained by the MSS. in all countries and all down the ages, not only by the whole body of the cursives, but by every uncial in existence except four. And those four are B?DL.

But really the occasions are without number when minute words have dropped out of ?B and their allies,—and yet have been faithfully retained, all through the centuries, by the later Uncials and despised Cursive copies. In St. John xvii. 2, for instance, we read—d??as?? s?? t?? [pg 195] ????, ??a ??? ? ???? S?? d???s? s?: where ?a? is omitted by ?ABCD: and s?? (after ? ????) by ?BC. Some critics will of course insist that, on the contrary, both words are spurious accretions to the text of the cursives; and they must say so, if they will. But does it not sensibly impair their confidence in ? to find that it, and it only, exhibits ?e?????e? (for ?????se?) in ver. 1,—d?s? a?t? (for d?s? a?t???) in ver. 2, while ?B are peculiar in writing ??s??? without the article in ver. 1?

Enough has surely been said to exhibit and illustrate this rude characteristic of the few Old Copies which out of the vast number of their contemporaries are all that we now possess. The existence of this characteristic is indubitable and undoubted: it is in a measure acknowledged by Dr. Hort in words on which we shall remark in the ensuing chapter287. Our readers should observe that the “rubbing off” process has by no means been confined to particles like ?a? and ???, but has extended to tenses, other forms of words, and in fact to all kinds of delicacies of expression. The results have been found all through the Gospels: sacred and refined meaning, such as accomplished scholars will appreciate in a moment, has been pared off and cast away. If people would only examine B, ? and D in their bare unpresentableness, they would see the loss which those MSS. have sustained, as compared with the Text supported by the overwhelming mass of authorities: and they would refuse to put their trust any longer in such imperfect, rudimentary, and ill-trained guides.