ecisive when it is
unconscious. That the Gospels as used by the Christian writers at
the end of the first century, so far from being of recent
composition, had already a long history behind them, is nothing
less than certain. At this date they exhibit a text which bears
the marks of frequent transcription and advanced corruption.
'Origen's,' says Dr. Scrivener [Endnote 328:1], 'is the highest
name among the critics and expositors of the early Church; he is
perpetually engaged in the discussion of various readings of the
New Testament, and employs language in describing the then state
of the text, which would be deemed strong if applied even to its
present condition with the changes which sixteen more centuries
must needs have produced ... Respecting the sacred autographs,
their fate or their continued existence, he seems to have had no
information, and to have entertained no curiosity: they had simply
passed by and were out of his reach. Had it not been for the
diversities of copies in all the Gospels on other points (he
writes) he should not have ventured to object to the authenticity
of a certain passage (Matt. xix. 19) on internal grounds: "But
now," saith he, "great in truth has become the diversity of
copies, be it from the negligence of certain scribes, or from the
evil daring of some who correct what is written, or from those who
in correcting add or take away what they think fit."' This is
respecting the MSS. of one region only, and now for another
[Endnote 328:2]: 'It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in
sound, that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has
ever been subjected, originated within a hundred years after it
was composed; that Irenaeus and the African Fathers and the whole
Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior
manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephens
thirteen centuries later, when moulding the Textus Receptus.'
Possibly this is an exaggeration, but no one will maintain that it
is a very large exaggeration of the facts.

I proceed to give a few examples which serve to bring out the
antiquity of the text. And first from Irenaeus.

There is a very remarkable passage in the work Against Heresies
[Endnote 329:1], bearing not indeed directly upon the Gospels, but
upon another book of the New Testament, and yet throwing so much
light upon the condition of the text in Irenaeus' time that it may
be well to refer to it here. In discussin