ucharistias legontas, 'eis tous
aionas ton aionon,' k.t.l.] Contra Haer. lib. i. c. 3.

[171] But the words of Gregory of Nyssa are doubtful. See Scrivener,
Introduction, ii. p. 325, note 1.

[172] See my Textual Guide, Appendix V. pp. 131-3 (G. Bell & Sons). I
have increased the Dean's list with a few additional authorities.

CHAPTER VII.

CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL.

I. Harmonistic Influence.

[It must not be imagined that all the causes of the depravation of the
text of Holy Scripture were instinctive, and that mistakes arose solely
because scribes were overcome by personal infirmity, or were
unconsciously the victims of surrounding circumstances. There was often
more design and method in their error. They, or those who directed them,
wished sometimes to correct and improve the copy or copies before them.
And indeed occasionally they desired to make the Holy Scriptures witness
to their own peculiar belief. Or they had their ideas of taste, and did
not scruple to alter passages to suit what they fancied was their
enlightened judgement.

Thus we can trace a tendency to bring the Four Records into one
harmonious narrative, or at least to excise or vary statements in one
Gospel which appeared to conflict with parallel statements in another.
Or else, some Evangelical Diatessaron, or Harmony, or combined narrative
now forgotten, exercised an influence over them, and whether consciously
or not,--since it is difficult always to keep designed and unintentional
mistakes apart, and we must not be supposed to aim at scientific
exactness in the arrangement adopted in this analysis,--induced them to
adopt alterations of the pure Text.

We now advance to some instances which will severally and conjointly
explain themselves.]

Sec. 1.

Nothing can be more exquisitely precise than St. John's way of
describing an incident to which St. Mark (xvi. 9) only refers; viz. our
Lord's appearance to Mary Magdalene,--the first of His appearances after
His Resurrection. The reason is discoverable for every word the
Evangelist uses:--its form and collocation. Both St. Luke (xxiv. 3) and
previously St. Mark (xvi. 5) expressly stated that the women who visited
the Sepulchre on the first Easter morning, 'after they had entered in'
([Greek: eiselthousai]), saw the Angels. St John explains that at that
time Mary was not with them. She had separated herself from their
company;--had gone in quest of Simon Peter and '