v. 13, apparently borrowed from primitive tradition, and supported by the

Peshitto, Vulgate (in its best manuscripts and editions), and Armenian versions.

John iv. 1. After βαπτίζει we find ἤ omitted in AB* (though it is added in what Tischendorf considers an ancient hand, his B2) GLΓ, 262, Origen and Epiphanius, but appears in אCD and all the rest. Tregelles rejects ἤ in his margin, Hort and Westcott put it within brackets. Well may Dr. Hort say (Notes, p. 76), “It remains no easy matter to explain how the verse as it stands can be reasonably understood without ἤ, or how such a mere slip as the loss of Η after ΕΙ should have so much excellent Greek authority, more especially as the absence of ἤ increases the obvious no less than the real difficulty of the verse.”

John vii. 39. One of the worst faults a manuscript (the same is not true of a version) can have is a habit of supplying, either from the margin or from the scribe’s misplaced ingenuity, some word that may clear up a difficulty, or limit the writer’s meaning. Certainly this is not a common fault with Cod. B, but we have here a conspicuous example of it. It stands almost alone in receiving δεδομένον after πνεῦμα: one cursive (254) has δοθέν, and so read _a b c e ff_2 _g l q_, the Vulgate, the Peshitto, and the Georgian (Malan, St. John), the Jerusalem Syriac, the Polyglott Persic, a catena, Eusebius and Origen in a Latin version: the margin of the Harkleian Syriac makes a yet further addition. The Sahidic, Ethiopic, and Erpenius’ Arabic also supply some word. But the versions and commentators, like our own English translations, probably meant no more than a bold exposition. The whole blame of this evident corruption rests with the two manuscripts. No editor follows B here.

John ix. 4. Most readers will think with Dean Burgon that the reading ἡμᾶς δεῖ ἐργάζεσθαι τὰ ἔργα τοῦ πέμψαντος (whether followed by με or ἡμᾶς) “carries with it its own sufficient condemnation” (Last Twelve Verses, &c., p. 81). The single or double ἡμᾶς, turning the whole clause into a general statement, applicable to every one, is found in א*BDL, the two Egyptian, Jerusalem Syriac, Erpenius’ Arabic, and Roman Ethiopic versions, in the younger Cyril and the versifier Nonnus. Origen and Jerome cite the passage as if the reading were ἐργάζεσθε, which, by a familiar _itacism_ (_see_ p. 11), is the reading of the first hand of B. The first ἡμᾶς is adopted by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort: the second by Tischendorf alone after א*L, the Bohairic, Roman Ethiopic, Erpenius’ Arabic, and Cyril. Certainly με of BD, the Sahidic, and Jerusalem Syriac, is very harsh.

John x. 22. For δέ after ἐγένετο Westcott and Hort read τότε with BL, 33, the Sahidic, Gothic, Slavonic, and Armenian versions. No such use of τότε in this order, and without another particle, will be found in the New Testament, or easily elsewhere. The Bohairic and _gat._ of the Vulgate have δὲ τότε, which is a different thing. Moreover, the sense will not admit so sharp a definition of sameness in time as τότε implies. Three months intervened between the feast of Tabernacles, in and after which all the events named from ch. vii downwards took place, and this winter feast of Dedication.

John xviii. 5. For λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ ἰησοῦς ἐγώ ἐιμι, B and a have the miserable variation λέγει αὐτοῖς ἐγώ ἐιμι ἰησοῦς, which Westcott and Hort advance to a place in their margin. The first ΙΣ (omitting ὁ) was absorbed in the last syllable of ΑΥΤΟΙΣ, the second being a mere repetition of the first syllable of ΙΣΤΗΚΕΙ (_sic_ B _primâ manu_). Compare Vol. I. p. 10. With so little care was this capital document written(317).

Acts iv. 25. We have here, upheld by nearly all the authorities to which students usually defer, that which cannot possibly be right, though critical editors, in mere helplessness, feel obliged to put it in their text: ὁ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου στόματος δαυεὶδ παιδός σου εἰπών. Thus read אABE, 13, 15, 27, 29, 36, 38. Apost. 12, a catena and Athanasius. The Vulgate and Latin Fathers, the Harkleian Syriac and Armenian versions conspire, but with such wide variations as only serve to display their perplexity. We have here two several readings, either of which might be true, combined into one that cannot. We might either adopt with D ὃς διὰ _μνς_ ἁγίου διὰ τοῦ στόματος λαλήσας δαυεὶδ παιδός σου (but _david puero tuo_ d), or better with Didymus ὁ διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου στόματος δὲ δαυεὶδ παιδός σου εἰπών (which will fairly suit the Peshitto and Bohairic); or we might prefer the easier form of the Received text ὁ διὰ στόματος δαβὶδ τοῦ παιδός σου εἰπών, which has no support except from P(318) and the cursives 1, 31, 40, 220, 221, &c. (the valuable copy 224 reads ὁ διὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν ἐν _δαδ_), and from Theophylact, Chrysostom being doubtful. Tischendorf justly pleads for the form he edits that it has second, third, and fourth century authority, adding “singula verba praeter morem sed non sine caussâ collocata sunt.” _Praeter morem_ they certainly are, and _non sine caussâ_ too, if this and like examples shall lead us to a higher style of criticism than will be attained by setting up one or more of the oldest copies as objects of unreasonable idolatry.

Acts vii. 46. ᾐτήσατο εὑρεῖν σκήνωμα τῷ θεῷ Ἰακώβ. The portentous variant οἴκῳ for θεῷ is adopted by Lachmann, and by Tischendorf, who observes of it “minimè sensu caret:” even Tregelles sets it in the margin, but Westcott and Hort simply obelize θεῷ as if they would read τῷ Ἰακώβ (compare Psalm xxiv. 6, cxxxii. 5 with Gen. xlix. 24). Yet οἴκῳ appears in א*BDH against אcACEP, all cursives (including 13, 31, 61, 220, 221), all versions. Observe also in ch. viii. 5 καισαρίας in א* for σαμαρείας on account of ver. 40 and ch. xxi. 8.

Acts x. 19. Ἰδοὺ ἄνδρες δύο is the reading of Westcott and Hort’s text ([τρεῖς] margin) after B only, the true number being three (ver. 7): in ch. xi. 11 Epiphanius only has δύο. There might be some grounds for omitting τρεῖς here, as Tischendorf does, and Tregelles more doubtfully in his margin (with DHLP, 24, 31, 111, 182, 183, 184, 185, 188, 189, 220, 221, 224, _m_, the later Syriac, the Apostolical Constitutions, the elder Cyril, Chrysostom and Theophylact, Augustine and Ambrose), no reason surely for representing the Spirit as speaking only of the δύο οἰκέται.

Acts xii. 25. An important passage for our present purpose. That the two Apostles returned from, not to, Jerusalem is too plain for argument (ch.