nspired Text.

[The attention of the reader is particularly invited to this last
paragraph. The learned Dean has been sneered at for a supposed
sentimental and effeminate attachment to the Textus Receptus. He was
always ready to reject words and phrases, which have not adequate
support; but he denied the validity of the evidence brought against many
texts by the school of Westcott and Hort, and therefore he refused to
follow them in their surrender of the passages.]

Sec. 3.

Indeed, a great many 'various readings,' so called, are nothing else but
very ancient interpretations,--fabricated readings therefore,--of which
the value may be estimated by the fact that almost every trace of them
has long since disappeared. Such is the substitution of [Greek: pheugei]
for [Greek: anechoresen] in St. John vi. 15;--which, by the way,
Tischendorf thrusts into his text on the sole authority of [Symbol:
Aleph], some Latin copies including the Vulgate, and Cureton's
Syriac[380]: though Tregelles ignores its very existence. That our
Lord's 'withdrawal' to the mountain on that occasion was of the nature
of 'flight,' or 'retreat' is obvious. Hence Chrysostom and Cyril remark
that He '_fled_ to the mountain.' And yet both Fathers (like Origen and
Epiphanius before them) are found to have read [Greek: anechoresen].

Almost as reasonably in the beginning of the same verse might
Tischendorf (with [Symbol: Aleph]) have substituted [Greek:
anadeiknynai] for [Greek: hina poiesosin auton], on the plea that
Cyril[381] says, [Greek: zetein auton anadeixai kai basilea]. We may on
no account suffer ourselves to be imposed upon by such shallow pretences
for tampering with the text of Scripture: or the deposit will never be
safe. A patent gloss,--rather an interpretation,--acquires no claim to
be regarded as the genuine utterance of the Holy Spirit by being merely
found in two or three ancient documents. It is the little handful of
documents which loses in reputation,--not the reading which gains in
authority on such occasions.

In this way we are sometimes presented with what in effect are new
incidents. These are not unfrequently discovered to be introduced in
defiance of the reason of the case; as where (St. John xiii. 34) Simon
Peter is represented (in the Vulgate) as _actually saying_ to St. John,
'Who is it concerning whom He speaks?' Other copies of the Latin
exhibit, 'Ask Him who it is,' &c.: while [Symbol: Aleph]BC (for on such
occasi