lilee (xxiii. 55, cf. viii. 2). In anticipation
therefore of what he will have to relate in ver. 10, he says in ver. 1,
'and certain with them.'
But how, I shall be asked, would you explain the omission of these words
which to yourself seem necessary? And after insisting that one is never
bound to explain how the text of any particular passage came to be
corrupted, I answer, that these words were originally ejected from the
text in order to bring St. Luke's statement into harmony with that of
the first Evangelist, who mentions none but Mary Magdalene and Mary the
mother of James and Joses. The proof is that four of the same Latin
copies which are for the omission of [Greek: kai tines syn autais] are
observed to begin St. Luke xxiii. 55 as follows,--[Greek:
katakolouthesasai de DUO gynaikes]. The same fabricated reading is found
in D. It exists also in the Codex which Eusebius employed when he wrote
his Demonstratio Evangelica. Instead therefore of wearying the reader
with the evidence, which is simply overwhelming, for letting the text
alone, I shall content myself with inviting him to notice that the
tables have been unexpectedly turned on our opponents. There is indeed
found to have been a corruption of the text hereabouts, and of the words
just now under discussion; but it belongs to an exceedingly remote age;
and happily the record of it survives at this day only in [Symbol:
Aleph]BCDL and certain of the Old Latin copies. Calamitous however it
is, that what the Church has long since deliberately refused to part
with should, at the end of so many centuries, by Lachmann and Tregelles
and Tischendorf, by Alford and Westcott and Hort, be resolutely thrust
out of place; and indeed excluded from the Sacred Text by a majority of
the Revisers.
[A very interesting instance of such Harmonistic Influence may be found
in the substitution of 'wine' ([Greek: oinon]) for vinegar ([Greek:
oxos]), respecting which the details are given in the second Appendix to
the Traditional Text.]
[Observe yet another instance of harmonizing propensities in the Ancient
Church.]
In St. Luke's Gospel iv. 1-13, no less than six copies of the Old Latin
versions (b c f g^{1} l q) besides Ambrose (Com. St. Luke, 1340), are
observed to transpose the second and third temptations; introducing
verses 9-12 between verses 4 and 5; in order to make the history of the
Temptation as given by St. Luke correspond with the account given by St.
Matthew.
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