the three 'old uncials' (for A and C are not available
here) advocate as many different readings: the two wrong readings being
respectively countenanced by our two most ancient authorities, viz. the
Peshitto version and the Italic. It only remains to point out that
Tischendorf blinded by his partiality for [Symbol: Aleph] contends here
for the mutilated text, and Westcott and Hort are disposed to do the
same.

Sec. 4.

Recent Editors are agreed that we are henceforth to read in St. John
xviii. 14 [Greek: apothanein] instead of [Greek: apolesthai]:--'Now
Caiaphas was he who counselled the Jews that it was expedient that one
man should _die_' (instead of '_perish_') 'for the people.' There is
certainly a considerable amount of ancient testimony in favour of this
reading: for besides [Symbol: Aleph]BC, it is found in the Old Latin
copies, the Egyptian, and Peshitto versions, besides the Lewis MS., the
Chronicon, Cyril, Nonnus, Chrysostom. Yet may it be regarded as certain
that St. John wrote [Greek: apolesthai] in this place. The proper proof
of the statement is the consentient voice of all the copies,--except
about nineteen of loose character:--we know their vagaries but too well,
and decline to let them impose upon us. In real fact, nothing else is
[Greek: apothanein] but a critical assimilation of St. John xviii. 14 to
xi. 50,--somewhat as 'die' in our A. V. has been retained by King James'
translators, though they certainly had [Greek: apolesthai] before them.

Many of these glosses are rank, patent, palpable. Such is the
substitution (St. Mark vi. 11) of [Greek: hos an topos me dexetai hymas]
by [Symbol: Aleph]BL[Symbol: Delta] for [Greek: hosoi an me dexontai
hymas],--which latter is the reading of the Old Latin and Peshitto, as
well as of the whole body of uncials and cursives alike. Some Critic
evidently considered that the words which follow, 'when you go out
_thence_,' imply that _place_, not _persons_, should have gone before.
Accordingly, he substituted 'whatsoever place' for '_whosoever_[396]':
another has bequeathed to us in four uncial MSS. a lasting record of his
rashness and incompetency. Since however he left behind the words
[Greek: mede akousosin hymon], which immediately follow, who sees not
that the fabricator has betrayed himself? I am astonished that so patent
a fraud should have imposed upon Tischendorf, and Tregelles, and
Lachmann, and Alford, and Westcott and Hort. But in fact it does not
s