s [Greek:
kardias], the MSS. largely preponderate which read [Greek: kardiais] in
H. E. Mart. Pal. cxiii. Sec. 6. See Burton's ed. p. 637):--Cyril in one
place, as explained above:--and lastly, a quotation from Chrysostom on
the Maccabees, given in Cramer's Catena, vii. 595 ([Greek: en plaxi
kardiais sarkinais]), which reappears at the end of eight lines without
the word [Greek: plaxi].

[257] [The papers on Assimilation and Attraction were left by the Dean
in the same portfolio. No doubt he would have separated them, if he had
lived to complete his work, and amplified his treatment of the latter,
for the materials under that head were scanty.--For 2 Cor. iii. 3, see
also a note of my own to p. 65 of The Traditional Text.]

CHAPTER X.

CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL.

IV. Omission.

[We have now to consider the largest of all classes of corrupt
variations from the genuine Text[258]--the omission of words and clauses
and sentences,--a truly fertile province of inquiry. Omissions are much
in favour with a particular school of critics; though a habit of
admitting them whether in ancient or modern times cannot but be
symptomatic of a tendency to scepticism.]

Sec. 1.

Omissions are often treated as 'Various Readings.' Yet only by an
Hibernian licence can words omitted be so reckoned: for in truth the
very essence of the matter is that on such occasions nothing is read. It
is to the case of words omitted however that this chapter is to be
exclusively devoted. And it will be borne in mind that I speak now of
those words alone where the words are observed to exist in ninety-nine
MSS. out of a hundred, so to speak;--being away only from that hundredth
copy.

Now it becomes evident, as soon as attention has been called to the
circumstance, that such a phenomenon requires separate treatment. Words
so omitted labour _prima facie_ under a disadvantage which is all their
own. My meaning will be best illustrated if I may be allowed to adduce
and briefly discuss a few examples. And I will begin with a crucial
case;--the most conspicuous doubtless within the whole compass of the
New Testament. I mean the last twelve verses of St. Mark's Gospel; which
verses are either bracketed off, or else entirely severed from the rest
of the Gospel, by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford and others.

The warrant of those critics for dealing thus unceremoniously with a
portion of the sacred deposit is the fact that whereas