taken for granted that the clause in dispute can have had no place in
the sacred autograph. It is henceforth treated as an unauthorized
accretion to the text. Quite idle henceforth becomes the appeal to the
ninety-nine copies out of a hundred which contain the missing words. I
proceed to give an instance of my meaning.

Our Saviour, having declared (St. Matt. xix. 9) that whosoever putteth
away his wife [Greek: ei me epi porneia, kai gamese allen,
moichatai],--adds [Greek: kai ho apolelymenen gamesas moichatai]. Those
five words are not found in Codd. [Symbol: Aleph]DLS, nor in several
copies of the Old Latin nor in some copies of the Bohairic, and the
Sahidic. Tischendorf and Tregelles accordingly reject them.

And yet it is perfectly certain that the words are genuine. Those
thirty-one letters probably formed three lines in the oldest copies of
all. Hence they are observed to exist in the Syriac (Peshitto, Harkleian
and Jerusalem), the Vulgate, some copies of the Old Latin, the Armenian,
and the Ethiopic, besides at least seventeen uncials (including
B[Symbol: Phi][Symbol: Sigma]), and the vast majority of the cursives.
So that there can be no question of the genuineness of the clause.

A somewhat graver instance of omission resulting from precisely the same
cause meets us a little further on in the same Gospel. The threefold
recurrence of [Greek: ton] in the expression [Greek: TON psichion TON
piptonTON] (St. Luke xvi. 21), has (naturally enough) resulted in the
dropping of the words [Greek: psichion ton] out of some copies.
Unhappily the sense is not destroyed by the omission. We are not
surprised therefore to discover that the words are wanting in--[Symbol:
Aleph]BL: or to find that [Symbol: Aleph]BL are supported here by copies
of the Old Latin, and (as usual) by the Egyptian versions, nor by
Clemens Alex.[50] and the author of the Dialogus[51]. Jerome, on the
other hand, condemns the Latin reading, and the Syriac Versions are
observed to approve of Jerome's verdict, as well as the Gothic. But what
settles the question is the fact that every known Greek MS., except
those three, witnesses against the omission: besides Ambrose[52],
Jerome[53], Eusebius[54] Alex., Gregory[55] Naz., Asterius[56],
Basil[57], Ephraim[58] Syr., Chrysostom[59], and Cyril[60] of
Alexandria. Perplexing it is notwithstanding to discover, and
distressing to have to record, that all the recent Editors of the
Gospels are more or less agreed