ook to you. If I can but get this
case fairly tried, I have no doubt whatever about the result.

Whether you are able to find time to read these pages, or not, it shall
content me to have shewn in this manner the confidence with which I
advocate my cause; the kind of test to which I propose to bring my
reasonings. If I may be allowed to say so,--_S. Mark's last Twelve Verses
shall no longer remain a subject of dispute among men._ I am able to prove
that this portion of the Gospel has been declared to be spurious on wholly
mistaken grounds: and this ought in fairness to close the discussion. But
I claim to have done more. I claim to have shewn, from considerations
which have been hitherto overlooked, that its genuineness must needs be
reckoned among the things that are absolutely certain.

I am, with sincere regard and respect,
Dear Sir Roundell,
Very faithfully yours,
JOHN W. BURGON.

ORIEL,
July, 1871.

PREFACE.

This volume is my contribution towards the better understanding of a
subject which is destined, when it shall have grown into a Science, to
vindicate for itself a mighty province, and to enjoy paramount attention.
I allude to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament Scriptures.

That this Study is still in its infancy, all may see. The very principles
on which it is based are as yet only imperfectly understood. The reason is
obvious. It is because the very foundations have not yet been laid,
(except to a wholly inadequate extent,) on which the future superstructure
is to rise. A careful collation of every extant Codex, (executed after the
manner of the Rev. F. H. Scrivener's labours in this department,) is the
first indispensable preliminary to any real progress. Another, is a
revised Text, not to say a more exact knowledge, of the oldest Versions.
Scarcely of inferior importance would be critically correct editions of
the Fathers of the Church; and these must by all means be furnished with
far completer Indices of Texts than have ever yet been attempted.--There is
not a single Father to be named whose Works have been hitherto furnished
with even a tolerably complete Index of the places in which he either
quotes, or else clearly refers to, the Text of the New Testament: while
scarcely a tithe of the known MSS. of the Gospels have as yet been
satisfactorily collated. Strange to relate, we are to this hour without so
much as a satisfactory Catalogue of the Copies which are known to be
extant