e two codices; and that connexion is fatal to
any claim which might be set up on their behalf as wholly independent
witnesses.(135)

(_c_) Further, it is evident that both alike have been subjected, probably
during the process of transcription, to the same depraving influences. But
because such statements require to be established by an induction of
instances, the reader's attention must now be invited to a few samples of
the grave blemishes which disfigure our two oldest copies of the Gospel.

1. And first, since it is the omission of the end of S. Mark's Gospel
which has given rise to the present discussion, it becomes a highly
significant circumstance that the original scribe of Cod. {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~} had _also_
omitted the _end of the Gospel according to S. John_.(136) In this
suppression of ver. 25, Cod. {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~} stands _alone_ among MSS. A cloud of
primitive witnesses vouch for the genuineness of the verse. Surely, it is
nothing else but the _reductio ad absurdum_ of a theory of recension,
(with Tischendorf in his last edition,) to accommodate our printed text to
the vicious standard of the original penman of Cod. {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~} and bring the last
chapter of S. John's Gospel to a close at ver. 24!

Cod. B, on the other hand, omits the whole of those two solemn verses
wherein S. Luke describes our LORD's "Agony and bloody Sweat," together
with the act of the ministering Angel.(137) As to the genuineness of those
verses, recognised as they are by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus,
Epiphanius, Didymus, Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom, Theodoret, by all
the oldest versions, and by almost every MS. in existence, including Cod.
{~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~},--it admits of _no_ doubt. Here then is proof positive that in order to
account for omissions from the Gospel in the oldest of the uncials, there
is no need whatever to resort to the hypothesis that such portions of the
Gospel are not the genuine work of the Evangelist. "The admitted error of
Cod. B in this place," (to quote the words of Scrivener,) "ought to make
some of its advocates more chary of their confidence in cases where it is
less countenanced by other witnesses than in the instance before us."

Cod. B (not Cod. {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~}) is further guilty of the "grave error" (as Dean Alford
justly styles it,) of omitting that solemn record of the Evangelist:--"Then
said JESUS, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." It