our Lord's Presence. Of course the scribe in
question found followers in [Symbol: Aleph]BL.]

It will be seen therefore that some cases of transposition are of a kind
which is without excuse and inadmissible. Such transposition consists in
drawing back a word which occurs further on, but is thus introduced into
a new context, and gives a new sense. It seems to be assumed that since
the words are all there, so long as they be preserved, their exact
collocation is of no moment. Transpositions of that kind, to speak
plainly, are important only as affording conclusive proof that such
copies as B[Symbol: Aleph]D preserve a text which has undergone a sort
of critical treatment which is so obviously indefensible that the
Codexes themselves, however interesting as monuments of a primitive
age,--however valuable commercially and to be prized by learned and
unlearned alike for their unique importance,--are yet to be prized
chiefly as beacon-lights preserved by a watchful Providence to warn
every voyaging bark against making shipwreck on a shore already strewn
with wrecks[339].

Transposition may sometimes be as conveniently illustrated in English as
in Greek. St. Luke relates (Acts ii. 45, 46) that the first believers
sold their goods 'and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And
they, continuing daily,' &c. For this, Cod. D reads, 'and parted them
daily to all men as every man had need. And they continued in the
temple.'

Sec. 2.

It is difficult to divine for what possible reason most of these
transpositions were made. On countless occasions they do not in the
least affect the sense. Often, they are incapable of being idiomatically
represented, in English. Generally speaking, they are of no manner of
importance, except as tokens of the licence which was claimed by
disciples, as I suspect, of the Alexandrian school [or exercised
unintentionally by careless or ignorant Western copyists]. But there
arise occasions when we cannot afford to be so trifled with. An
important change in the meaning of a sentence is sometimes effected by
transposing its clauses; and on one occasion, as I venture to think, the
prophetic intention of the Speaker is obscured in consequence. I allude
to St. Luke xiii. 9, where under the figure of a barren fig-tree, our
Lord hints at what is to befall the Jewish people, because in the fourth
year of His Ministry it remained unfruitful. 'Lo, these three years,'
(saith He to the dresser of His