of which by far the largest proportion is found in S. Mark's Gospel. Many
of these, no doubt, are to be accounted for by the proximity of a "like
ending."(125) The Vatican MS. (like the Sinaitic(126)) was originally
derived from an older Codex which contained about twelve or thirteen
letters in a line.(127) And it will be found that some of its omissions
which have given rise to prolonged discussion are probably to be referred
to nothing else but the oscitancy of a transcriber with such a codex
before him:(128) without having recourse to any more abstruse hypothesis;
without any imputation of bad faith;--_certainly without supposing that the
words omitted did not exist in the inspired autograph of the Evangelist_.
But then it is undeniable that some of the omissions in Cod. B are not to
be so explained. On the other hand, I can testify to the fact that the
codex is disfigured throughout with _repetitions_. The original scribe is
often found to have not only written the same words twice over, but to
have failed whenever he did so to take any notice with his pen of what he
had done.

What then, (I must again inquire,) are the grounds for the superstitious
reverence which is entertained in certain quarters for the readings of
Codex B? If it be a secret known to the recent Editors of the New
Testament, they have certainly contrived to keep it wondrous close.

II. More recently, a claim to co-ordinate primacy has been set up on
behalf of the Codex Sinaiticus. Tischendorf is actually engaged in
remodelling his seventh Leipsic edition, chiefly in conformity with the
readings of his lately discovered MS.(129) And yet the Codex in question
abounds with "errors of the the eye and pen, to an extent not
unparalleled, but happily rather unusual in documents of first-rate
importance." On many occasions, 10, 20, 30, 40 words are dropped through
very carelessness.(130) "Letters and words, even whole sentences, are
frequently written twice over, or begun and immediately cancelled: while
that gross blunder ... whereby a clause is omitted because it happens to
end in the same words as the clause preceding, occurs no less than 115
times in the New Testament. Tregelles has freely pronounced that 'the
state of the text, as proceeding from the first scribe, may be regarded as
_very rough_.' "(131) But when "the first scribe" and his "very rough"
performance have been thus unceremoniously disposed of, one would like to
be informed what remains