ject is enough to convince any thoughtful person that the corruptions
in MSS. which have resulted from accidental Assimilation must needs be
inconsiderable in bulk, as well as few in number. At all events, the
phenomenon referred to, when we speak of 'Assimilation,' is not to be so
accounted for: it must needs be explained in some entirely different
way. Let me make my meaning plain:

(_a_) We shall probably be agreed that when the scribe of Cod. [Symbol:
Aleph], in place of [Greek: basanisai hemas] (in St. Matt. viii. 29),
writes [Greek: hemas apolesai],--it may have been his memory which
misled him. He may have been merely thinking of St. Mark i. 24, or of
St. Luke iv. 34.

(_b_) Again, when in Codd. [Symbol: Aleph]B we find [Greek: tassomenos]
thrust without warrant into St. Matt. viii. 9, we see that the word has
lost its way from St. Luke vii. 8; and we are prone to suspect that only
by accident has it crept into the parallel narrative of the earlier
Evangelist.

(_c_) In the same way I make no doubt that [Greek: potamo] (St. Matt.
iii. 6) is indebted for its place in [Symbol: Aleph]BC, &c., to the
influence of the parallel place in St. Mark's Gospel (i. 5); and I am
only astonished that critics should have been beguiled into adopting so
clear a corruption of the text as part of the genuine Gospel.

(_d_) To be brief:--the insertion by [Symbol: Aleph] of [Greek: adelphe]
(in St. Matt. vii. 4) is confessedly the result of the parallel passage
in St. Luke vi. 42. The same scribe may be thought to have written
[Greek: to anemo] instead of [Greek: tois anemois] in St. Matt. viii.
26, only because he was so familiar with [Greek: to anemo] in St. Luke
viii. 24 and in St. Mark iv. 39.--The author of the prototype of
[Symbol: Aleph]BD (with whom by the way are some of the Latin versions)
may have written [Greek: echete] in St. Matt, xvi. 8, only because he
was thinking of the parallel place in St. Mark viii. 17.--[Greek:
Erxanto aganaktein] (St. Matt. xx. 24) can only have been introduced
into [Symbol: Aleph] from the parallel place in St. Mark x. 41, and
_may_ have been supplied _memoriter_.--St. Luke xix. 21 is clearly not
parallel to St. Matt. xxv. 24; yet it evidently furnished the scribe of
[Symbol: Aleph] with the epithet [Greek: austeros] in place of [Greek:
skleros].--The substitution by [Symbol: Aleph] of [Greek: hon
paretounto] in St. Matt. xxvii. 15 for [Greek: hon ethelon] may seem to
be the result of incon