utterance of the
Spirit. Thus I do not call the clause [Greek: nekrous egeirete] in St.
Matt. x. 8 'a gloss.' It is a gratuitous and unwarrantable
interpolation,--nothing else but a clumsy encumbrance of the text[353].

[Glosses, or _scholia_, or comments, or interpretations, are of various
kinds, but are generally confined to Additions or Substitutions, since
of course we do not omit in order to explain, and transposition of words
already placed in lucid order, such as the sacred Text may be reasonably
supposed to have observed, would confuse rather than illustrate the
meaning. A clause, added in Hebrew fashion[354], which may perhaps
appear to modern taste to be hardly wanted, must not therefore be taken
to be a gloss.]

Sometimes a 'various reading' is nothing else but a gratuitous
gloss;--the unauthorized substitution of a common for an uncommon word.
This phenomenon is of frequent occurrence, but only in Codexes of a
remarkable type like B[Symbol: Aleph]CD. A few instances follow:--

1. The disciples on a certain occasion (St. Matt. xiii. 36), requested
our Lord to 'explain' to them ([Greek: PHRASON hemin], 'they said') the
parable of the tares. So every known copy, except two: so, all the
Fathers who quote the place,--viz. Origen, five times[355],--
Basil[356],--J. Damascene[357]. And so _all_ the Versions[358]. But
because B-[Symbol: Aleph], instead of [Greek: phrason], exhibit [Greek:
DIASAPHESON] ('make clear to us'),--which is also _once_ the reading of
Origen[359], who was but too well acquainted with Codexes of the same
depraved character as the archetype of B and [Symbol: Aleph],--Lachmann,
Tregelles (not Tischendorf), Westcott and Hort, and the Revisers of
1881, assume that [Greek: diasapheson] (a palpable gloss) stood in the
inspired autograph of the Evangelist. They therefore thrust out [Greek:
phrason] and thrust in [Greek: diasapheson]. I am wholly unable to
discern any connexion between the premisses of these critics and their
conclusions[360].

2. Take another instance. [Greek: Pygme],--the obscure expression
([Symbol: Delta] leaves it out) which St. Mark employs in vii. 3 to
denote the strenuous frequency of the Pharisees' ceremonial
washings,--is exchanged by Cod. [Symbol: Aleph], but by no other known
copy of the Gospels, for [Greek: pykna], which last word is of course
nothing else but a sorry gloss. Yet Tischendorf degrades [Greek: pygme]
and promotes [Greek: pykna] to honour,--happily stan