re us, [Greek: all' oudenos logou
poioumai ten psychen timian emauto], it is the construction, and not the
sense, which is in question; and this is not simply difficult, but
impossible. There is really no way of getting over it; it baffles
novices and experts alike[43].' When will men believe that a reading
vouched for by only B[Symbol: Aleph]C is safe to be a fabrication[44]?
But at least when Copies and Fathers combine, as here they do, against
those three copies, what can justify critics in upholding a text which
carries on its face its own condemnation?

Sec. 3.

We now come to the inattention of those long-since-forgotten Ist or IInd
century scribes who, beguiled by the similarity of the letters [Greek:
EN] and [Greek: AN] (in the expression [Greek: ENANthropois eudokia],
St. Luke ii. 14), left out the preposition. An unintelligible clause was
the consequence, as has been explained above (p. 21): which some one
next sought to remedy by adding to [Greek: eudokia] the sign of the
genitive ([Greek: S]). Thus the Old Latin translations were made.

That this is the true history of a blunder which the latest Editors of
the New Testament have mistaken for genuine Gospel, is I submit
certain[45]. Most Latin copies (except 14[46]) exhibit 'pax hominibus
bonae voluntatis,' as well as many Latin Fathers[47]. On the other hand,
the preposition [Greek: EN] is retained in every known Greek copy of St.
Luke without exception, while the reading [Greek: eudokias] is
absolutely limited to the four uncials AB[Symbol: Aleph]D. The witness
of antiquity on this head is thus overwhelming and decisive.

Sec. 4.

In other cases the source, the very progress of a blunder,--is
discoverable. Thus whereas St. Mark (in xv. 6) certainly wrote [Greek:
hena desmion], [Greek: ONPER etounto], the scribe of [Symbol: Delta],
who evidently derived his text from an earlier copy in uncial letters is
found to have divided the Evangelist's syllables wrongly, and to exhibit
in this place [Greek: ON.PERETOUNTO]. The consequence might have been
predicted. [Symbol: Aleph]AB transform this into [Greek: ON PARETOUNTO]:
which accordingly is the reading adopted by Tischendorf and by Westcott
and Hort.

Whenever in fact the final syllable of one word can possibly be mistaken
for the first syllable of the next, or _vice versa_, it is safe sooner
or later to have misled somebody. Thus, we are not at all surprised to
find St. Mark's [Greek: ha parelabon] (v