And if the Evangelist
himself had so written, is it credible that a majority of the copies
would have forsaken the easier and more obvious, in order to exhibit the
less usual and even slightly difficult expression? Many, by writing
[Greek: pros to mnemeio], betray themselves; for they retain a sure
token that the accusative ought to end the sentence. I am not concerned
however just now to discuss these matters of detail. I am only bent on
illustrating how fatal to the purity of the Text of the Gospels has been
the desire of critics, who did not understand those divine compositions,
to bring them into enforced agreement with one another. The sectional
system of Eusebius, I suspect, is not so much the cause as the
consequence of the ancient and inveterate misapprehensions which
prevailed in respect of the history of the Resurrection. It is time
however to proceed.

Sec. 2.

Those writers who overlook the corruptions which the text has actually
experienced through a mistaken solicitude on the part of ancient critics
to reconcile what seemed to them the conflicting statements of different
Evangelists, are frequently observed to attribute to this kind of
officiousness expressions which are unquestionably portions of the
genuine text. Thus, there is a general consensus amongst critics of the
destructive school to omit the words [Greek: kai tines syn autais] from
St. Luke xxiv. 1. Their only plea is the testimony of [Symbol: Aleph]BCL
and certain of the Latin copies,--a conjunction of authorities which,
when they stand alone, we have already observed to bear invariably false
witness. Indeed, before we proceed to examine the evidence, we discover
that those four words of St. Luke are even required in this place. For
St. Matthew (xxvii. 61), and St. Mark after him (xv. 47), had distinctly
specified two women as witnesses of how and where our Lord's body was
laid. Now they were the same women apparently who prepared the spices
and ointment and hastened therewith at break of day to the sepulchre.
Had we therefore only St. Matthew's Gospel we should have assumed that
'the ointment-bearers,' for so the ancients called them, were but two
(St. Matt. xxviii. 1). That they were at least three, even St. Mark
shews by adding to their number Salome (xvi. 1). But in fact their
company consisted of more than four; as St. Luke explains when he states
that it was the same little band of holy women who had accompanied our
Saviour out of Ga