s where it was used in imitation of the mode of writing books
which was brought well-nigh to perfection in that city.

It is evident that the turning-point of the controversy between
ourselves and the Neologian school must lie in the centuries before St.
Chrysostom. If, as Dr. Hort maintains, the Traditional Text not only
gained supremacy at that era but did not exist in the early ages, then
our contention is vain. That Text can be Traditional only if it goes
back without break or intermission to the original autographs, because
if through break or intermission it ceased or failed to exist, it loses
the essential feature of genuine tradition. On the other hand, if it is
proved to reach back in unbroken line to the time of the Evangelists, or
to a period as near to them as surviving testimony can prove, then Dr.
Hort's theory of a 'Syrian' text formed by recension or otherwise just
as evidently falls to the ground. Following mainly upon the lines drawn
by Dean Burgon, though in a divergence of my own devising, I claim to
have proved Dr. Hort to have been conspicuously wrong, and our
maintenance of the Traditional Text in unbroken succession to be
eminently right. The school opposed to us must disprove our arguments,
not by discrediting the testimony of the Fathers to whom all Textual
Critics have appealed including Dr. Hort, but by demonstrating if they
can that the Traditional Text is not recognized by them, or they must
yield eventually to us[1].

In this volume, the other half of the subject will be discussed. Instead
of exploring the genuine Text, we shall treat of the corruptions of it,
and shall track error in its ten thousand forms to a few sources or
heads. The origination of the pure Text in the inspired writings of the
Evangelists will thus be vindicated anew by the evident paternity of
deflections from it discoverable in the natural defects or iniquities of
men. Corruption will the more shew itself in true colours:--

Quinquaginta atris immanis hiatibus hydra[2]:

and it will not so readily be mistaken for genuineness, when the real
history is unfolded, and the mistakes are accounted for. It seems clear
that corruption arose in the very earliest age. As soon as the Gospel
was preached, the incapacity of human nature for preserving accuracy
until long years of intimate acquaintance have bred familiarity must
have asserted itself in constant distortion more or less of the sacred
stories, as they were told a