ys in fact been a process of elimination
going on, as well as of self-propagation: a corrective force at work, as
well as one of deterioration. How else are we to account for the utter
disappearance of the many _monstra potius quam variae lectiones_ which
the ancients nevertheless insist were prevalent in their times? It is
enough to appeal to a single place in Jerome, in illustration of what I
have been saying[286]. To return however from this digression.

We are invited then to believe,--for it is well to know at the outset
exactly what is required of us,--that from the fifth century downwards
every _extant copy of the Gospels except five_ (DLT^{c}, 33, 124)
exhibits a text arbitrarily interpolated in order to bring it into
conformity with the Greek version of Isa. xxix. 13. On this wild
hypothesis I have the following observations to make:--

1. It is altogether unaccountable, if this be indeed a true account of
the matter, how it has come to pass that in no single MS. in the world,
so far as I am aware, has this conformity been successfully achieved:
for whereas the Septuagintal reading is [Greek: engizei moi ho laos
outos EN to stomati AUTOU, kai EN tois cheilesin AUTON TIMOSI me],--the
Evangelical Text is observed to differ therefrom in no less than six
particulars.

2. Further,--If there really did exist this strange determination on the
part of the ancients in general to assimilate the text of St. Matthew to
the text of Isaiah, how does it happen that not one of them ever
conceived the like design in respect of the parallel place in St. Mark?

3. It naturally follows to inquire,--Why are we to suspect the mass of
MSS. of having experienced such wholesale depravation in respect of the
text of St. Matthew in this place, while yet we recognize in them such a
marked constancy to their own peculiar type; which however, as already
explained, is _not_ the text of Isaiah?

4. Further,--I discover in this place a minute illustration of the
general fidelity of the ancient copyists: for whereas in St. Matthew it
is invariably [Greek: ho laos outos], I observe that in the copies of
St. Mark,--except to be sure in (_a_) Codd. B and D, (_b_) copies of the
Old Latin, (_c_) the Vulgate, and (_d_) the Peshitto (all of which are
confessedly corrupt in this particular,)--it is invariably [Greek: outos
ho laos]. But now,--Is it reasonable that the very copies which have
been in this way convicted of licentiousness in respect of