the other disciple.'
When the women, their visit ended, had in turn departed from the
Sepulchre, she was left in the garden alone. 'Mary was standing [with
her face] _towards the sepulchre_ weeping,--_outside_[173].'

All this, singular to relate, was completely misunderstood by the
critics of the two first centuries. Not only did they identify the
incident recorded in St. John xx. 11, 12 with St. Mark xv. 5 and St.
Luke xxiv. 3, 4, from which, as we have seen, the first-named Evangelist
is careful to distinguish it;--not only did they further identify both
places with St. Matt, xxviii. 2, 3[174], from which they are clearly
separate;--but they considered themselves at liberty to tamper with the
inspired text in order to bring it into harmony with their own
convictions. Some of them accordingly altered [Greek: pros to mnemeion]
into [Greek: pros to mnemeio] (which is just as ambiguous in Greek as
'_at_ the sepulchre' in English[175]), and [Greek: exo] they boldly
erased. It is thus that Codex A exhibits the text. But in fact this
depravation must have begun at a very remote period and prevailed to an
extraordinary extent: for it disfigures the best copies of the Old
Latin, (the Syriac being doubtful): a memorable circumstance truly, and
in a high degree suggestive. Codex B, to be sure, reads [Greek:
heistekei pros to mnemeio, exo klaiousa],--merely transposing (with many
other authorities) the last two words. But then Codex B substitutes
[Greek: elthousai] for [Greek: eiselthousai] in St. Mark xvi. 5, in
order that the second Evangelist may not seem to contradict St. Matt,
xxviii. 2, 3. So that, according to this view of the matter, the Angelic
appearance was outside the sepulchre[176]. Codex [Symbol: Aleph], on the
contrary, is thorough. Not content with omitting [Greek: exo],--(as in
the next verse it leaves out [Greek: duo], in order to prevent St. John
xx. 12 from seeming to contradict St. Matt. xxviii. 2, 3, and St. Mark
xvi. 5),--it stands alone in reading [Greek: EN to mnemeio]. (C and D
are lost here.) When will men learn that these 'old uncials' are _ignes
fatui_,--not beacon lights; and admit that the texts which they exhibit
are not only inconsistent but corrupt?

There is no reason for distrusting the received reading of the present
place in any particular. True, that most of the uncials and many of the
cursives read [Greek: pros to mnemeio]: but so did neither
Chrysostom[177] nor Cyril[178] read the place.