edible[95].

The sum of the matter is probably this:--Some inattentive second century
copyist [probably a Western Translator into Syriac who was an
indifferent Greek scholar] mistook the final syllable of '_unto you_'
([Greek: UMIN]) for the word '_Jesus_' ([Greek: IN]): in other words,
carelessly reduplicated the last two letters of [Greek: UMIN],--from
which, strange to say, results the form of inquiry noticed at the
outset. Origen caught sight of the extravagance, and condemned it though
he fancied it to be prevalent, and the thing slept for 1500 years. Then
about just fifty years ago Drs. Lachmann, Tischendorf and Tregelles
began to construct that 'fabric of Textual Criticism' which has been the
cause of the present treatise [though indeed Tischendorf does not adopt
the suggestion of those few aberrant cursives which is supported by no
surviving uncial, and in fact advocates the very origin of the mischief
which has been just described]. But, as every one must see, 'such things
as these are not 'readings' at all, nor even the work of 'the heretics;'
but simply transcriptional mistakes. How Dr. Hort, admitting the
blunder, yet pleads that 'this remarkable reading is attractive by the
new and interesting fact which it seems to attest, and by the antithetic
force which it seems to add to the question in ver. 17,' [is more than
we can understand. To us the expression seems most repulsive. No
'antithetic force' can outweigh our dislike to the idea that Barabbas
was our Saviour's namesake! We prefer Origen's account, though he
mistook the cause, to that of the modern critic.]

FOOTNOTES:

[61] It is clearly unsafe to draw any inference from the mere omission
of [Greek: ede] in ver. 35, by those Fathers who do not shew how they
would have began ver. 36--as Eusebius (see below, note 2), Theodoret (i.
1398: ii. 233), and Hilary (78. 443. 941. 1041).

[62] i. 219: iii. 158: iv. 248, 250 _bis_, 251 _bis_, 252, 253, 255
_bis_, 256, 257. Also iv. 440 note, which = cat^{ox} iv. 21.

[63] _dem._ 440. But not _in cs._ 426: _theoph._ 262, 275.

[64] vii. 488, 662: ix. 32.

[65] i. 397. 98. (Palladius) 611: iii. 57. So also in iv. 199, [Greek:
etoimos ede pros to pisteuein].

[66] Ambrose, ii. 279, has '_Et qui metit_.' Iren.^{int} substitutes
'_nam_' for '_et_,' and omits '_jam_.' Jerome 9 times introduces '_jam_'
before '_albae sunt_.' So Aug. (iii.^2 417): but elsewhere (iv. 639: v.
531) he omits the word altogether.

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