xi. 16 they follow Tischendorf and Tregelles in adopting ἑτέροις for

ἑταίροις with BCDZ, and indeed the mass of copies. This last itacism (for it can be nothing better) was admitted so early as to affect many of the chief versions.

Acts xx. 30. Cod. B omits αὐτῶν after ὑμῶν, where it is much wanted, apparently with no countenance except from Cod. 186, for this is just a point in which versions (the Sahidic and both Ethiopic) can be little trusted. The present is one of the countless examples of Cod. B’s inclination to abridge, which in the Old Testament is carried so far as to eject from the text of the Septuagint words that are, and always must have been, in the original Hebrew. Westcott and Hort include αὐτῶν within brackets.

Acts xxv. 13. Agrippa and Bernice went to Caesarea to greet the new governor (ἀσπασόμενοι), not surely after they had sent their greeting before them (ἀσπασάμενοι), which, if it had been a fact, would not have been worth mentioning. Yet, though the reading is so manifestly false, the evidence for the aorist seems overwhelming (אABHLP, the Greek of E, 13, 24*, 31, 68, 105, 180, 220, 224*, a few more copies, and the Coptic and Ethiopic versions). The future is found possibly in C, certainly in 61, 221, and the mass of cursives, in _e_ and other versions, in Chrysostom, and in one form of Theophylact’s commentary. Here again Dr. Hort suspects some kind of prior corruption (Notes, p. 100).

Acts xxviii. 13. For περιελθόντες of all other manuscripts and versions א*B have περιελόντες, evidently borrowed from ch. xxvii. 40. Even this vile error of transcription is set in Westcott and Hort’s text, the alternative not even in their margin. In ver. 15 they once set οἱ within brackets(319) on the evidence of B, 96 only. Cod. B is very prone to omit the article, especially, but not exclusively, with proper names.

Rom. vii. 22. The substitution of τοῦ νοός (cf. ver. 23) for τοῦ θεοῦ seems peculiar to Cod. B.

Rom. xv. 31. Lachmann and Tregelles (in his margin only) accept the manifest gloss δωροφορία for διακονία with B (_see_ Vol. I. p. 290 for its “_Western_ element”) D*FG (_d_ _e_ have _remuneratio_) and Ambrosiaster (_munerum meorum ministratio_). But διακονία is found in אACD2 and 3 and consequently in E (_see_ Vol. I. p. 176), _f_ (_ministratio_), _g_ (_administratio_), Vulg. (_obsequii mei oblatio_), so _d_***, _fuld._ and Origen in the Latin (_ministerium_), with both Syriac, the Bohairic, Armenian and Ethiopic versions, Chrysostom, Theodoret, and John Damascene.

1 Cor. xiii. 5. Never was a noble speech more cruelly pared down to a trite commonplace than by the reading of B and Clement of Alexandria (very expressly) οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ μὴ ἑαυτῆς, in the place of οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ (or τὸ) ἑαυτῆς of the self-same Clement just as expressly elsewhere (_see_ p. 262 and note 3), and of all other authorities of every description. Here Westcott and Hort place τὸ μή in their margin.

Col. iv. 15. For αὐτοῦ Lachmann, Tregelles’ margin, Hort and Westcott have αὐτῆς from B, 676**, and the text of the later Syriac, thus implying that νύμφα is the Doric feminine form, which is very unlikely.

1 Thess. v. 4. Lachmann with Hort and Westcott (but not their margin) reads κλέπτας for κλέπτης with AB and the Bohairic, but this cannot be right.

Heb. vii. 1. For ὁ συναντήσας Lachmann, Tregelles, Hort and Westcott’s text have ὃς συναντήσας with אABC**DEK, 17, a broken sentence: but this is too much even for Dr. Hort, who says, in the language habitual to him, that ὁ seems “a right emendation of the Syrian revisers” (Notes, p. 130).

James i. 17. What can be meant by ἀποσκιάσματος of א*B it is hard to say. The versions are not clear as to the sense, but _ff_ alone seems to suggest the genitive (_modicum obumbrationis_). That valuable Cod. 184, now known only by Sanderson’s collation at Lambeth (No. 1255, 10-14)(320), is said by him to _add_ to the end of the verse οὐδὲ μέχρι ὑπονοίας τινὸς ὑποβολὴ ἀποσκιάσματος, which seems like a scholion on the preceding clause, and is found also in Cod. 221.

Nor will any one praise certain readings of Cod. B in James i. 9; 1 Pet. i. 9; 11; ii. 1; 12; 25; iii. 7; 14; 18 (_om._ τῷ θεῷ); iv. 1; v. 3; 2 Pet. i. 17; 1 John i. 2; ii. 14; 20; 25; 27; iii. 15; 3 John 4; 9; Jude 9, which passages the student may work out for himself.

Enough of the weary and ungracious task of finding fault. The foregoing list of errors patent in the most ancient codices might be largely increased: two or three more will occur incidentally in Chapter XII (1 Cor. xiii. 3; Phil. ii. 1; 1 Pet. i. 23; _see_ also pp. 254, 319). Even if the reader has not gone with me in every case, more than enough has been alleged to prove to demonstration that the true and pure text of the sacred writers is not to be looked for in א or B, in אB, or BD, or BL, or any like combination of a select few authorities, but demands, in every fresh case as it arises, the free and impartial use of every available source of information. Yet after all, Cod. B is a document of such value, that it grows by experience even upon those who may have been a little prejudiced against it by reason of the excessive claims of its too zealous friends(321). Its best associate, in our judgement, is Cod. C, where the testimony of that precious palimpsest can be had. BC together will often carry us safe through difficulties of the most complicated character, as for instance, through that vexatious passage John xiii. 25, 26. Compare also Acts xxvi. 16. Yet even here it is necessary to commend with reserve: BC stand almost alone in maintaining the ingenious but improbable variation ἐκσῶσαι in Acts xxvii. 39 (_see_ Chap. XII), and the frigid gloss κρίνοντι in 1 Pet. iv. 5: they unite with others in foisting on St. Matthew’s text its worst corruption, ch. xxvii. 49. In Gal. iii. 1, C against AB contains the gloss τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι. Again, since no fact relating to these pursuits is more certain than the absolute independence of the sources from which A and B are derived, it is manifest that their occasional agreement is always of the greatest weight, and is little less than conclusive in those portions of the N. T. where other evidence is slender in amount or consideration, e.g. 1 Pet. i. 21 and v. 10 (with the Vulgate); v. 11: also supported by those admirable cursives 27, 29, in 1 Pet. v. 14; 1 John iv. 3; 19; 2 John 3; 12. See also 1 John v. 18, to be discussed in Chap. XII.