weighty, but
also different. Codexes B and [Symbol: Aleph] are now forsaken by all
their former allies except L[Symbol: Xi] and a single cursive copy.
True, they are supported by the Curetonian Syriac, the Vulgate and two
copies of the Old Latin. But this time they find themselves confronted
by Codexes ACD with thirteen other uncials and the whole body of the
cursives; the Peshitto, Coptic, Gothic, and Harkleian versions; by
Clemens, Jerome, Chrysostom, Cyril and pseudo-Basil. In respect of
antiquity, variety, respectability, numbers, they are therefore
hopelessly outvoted.

Do any inquire, How then has all this contradiction and depravation of
Codexes [Symbol: Aleph]ABC(D) come about? I answer as follows:--

It was a favourite tenet with the Gnostic heretics that the Law and the
Gospel are at variance. In order to establish this, Marcion (in a work
called Antitheses) set passages of the New Testament against passages of
the Old; from the seeming disagreement between which his followers were
taught to infer that the Law and the Gospel cannot have proceeded from
one and the same author[567]. Now here was a place exactly suited to his
purpose. The God of the Old Testament had twice sent down fire from
heaven to consume fifty men. But 'the Son of Man,' said our Saviour,
when invited to do the like, 'came not to destroy men's lives but to
save them.' Accordingly, Tertullian in his fourth book against Marcion,
refuting this teaching, acquaints us that one of Marcion's 'Contrasts'
was Elijah's severity in calling down fire from Heaven,--and the
gentleness of Christ. 'I acknowledge the seventy of the judge,'
Tertullian replies; 'but I recognize the same severity on the part of
Christ towards His Disciples when they proposed to bring down a similar
calamity on a Samaritan village[568].' From all of which it is plain
that within seventy years of the time when the Gospel was published, the
text of St. Luke ix. 54-6 stood very much as at present.

But then it is further discovered that at the same remote period (about
A.D. 130) this place of Scripture was much fastened on by the enemies of
the Gospel. The Manichaean heretics pressed believers with it[569]. The
disciples' appeal to the example of Elijah, and the reproof they
incurred, became inconvenient facts. The consequence might be foreseen.
With commendable solicitude for God's honour, but through mistaken
piety, certain of the orthodox (without suspicion of the evil they we