t was in a
minority as regards attestation. They must prove that it was nowhere in
the earliest ages, if they are to establish their position that it was
made in the third and fourth centuries. Traditional Text of the Holy
Gospels, p. 95.

[2]
'A hydra in her direful shape,
With fifty darkling throats agape.'--

Altered from Conington's version, Aen. vi. 576.

[3]
'How oft soe'er the truth she tell,
What's false and wrong she loves too well.'--

Altered from Conington, Aen. iv. 188.

[4] Strabo, xvi, enumerates amongst its inhabitants Egyptians, Arabians,
and Phoenicians.

[5] Studia Biblica, i. 50-55. Dr. Neubauer, On the Dialects spoken in
Palestine in the time of Christ.

[6] Isaac Williams, On the Study of the Gospels, 341-352.

[7] My devoted Syrian friend, Miss Helanie Baroody, told me during her
stay in England that a village is pointed out as having been traversed
by our Lord on His way from Caesarea Philippi to Mount Hermon.

[8] It is hardly improbable that these two eminent Christians were some
of those whom St Paul found at Antioch when St. Barnabas brought him
there, and thus came to know intimately as fellow-workers ([Greek:
episemoi en tois apostolois, oi kai pro emou gegonasin en Christo]).
Most of the names in Rom. xvi are either Greek or Hebrew.

[9]
'Jam pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes
Et _linguam_ et mores ... vexit.'

--Juv. Sat. iii. 62-3.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL CORRUPTION.

Sec. 1.

We hear sometimes scholars complain, and with a certain show of reason,
that it is discreditable to us as a Church not to have long since put
forth by authority a revised Greek Text of the New Testament. The chief
writers of antiquity, say they, have been of late years re-edited by the
aid of the best Manuscripts. Why should not the Scriptures enjoy the
same advantage? Men who so speak evidently misunderstand the question.
They assume that the case of the Scriptures and that of other ancient
writings are similar.

Such remonstrances are commonly followed up by statements like the
following:--That the received Text is that of Erasmus:--that it was
constructed in haste, and without skill:--that it is based on a very
few, and those bad Manuscripts:--that it belongs to an age when scarcely
any of our present critical helps were available, and when the Science
of Textual Criticism was unknown. To listen to these advocates for
Revision, you would almost suppos