ed by your ancestors in the speeches of our Lord, which,
though put forth under his name, agree not with his faith; especially
since--as already it has been often proved by us--that these things were
not written by Christ, nor his Apostles, but a long while after their
assumption, by I know not what sort of half Jews, not even agreeing with
themselves, who made up their tale out of report and opinions merely;
and yet, fathering the whole upon the names of the Apostles of the Lord,
or on those who were supposed to have followed the Apostles; they
mendaciously pretended that they had written their lies and conceits
_according to_ them" (Lib. 33, ch. 3, as quoted and translated in
"Diegesis," pp. 61, 62).

The truth is, that in those days, when books were only written, the
widest door was opened to alterations, additions, and omissions;
incidents or remarks written, perhaps, in the margin of the text by one
transcriber, were transferred into the text itself by the next copyist,
and were thereafter indistinguishable from the original matter. In this
way the celebrated text of the three witnesses (1 John, v. 7) is
supposed to have crept into the text. Dealing with this, in reference to
the New Testament, Eichhorn points out that it was easy to alter a
manuscript in transcribing it, and that, as manuscripts were written for
individual use, such alterations were considered allowable, and that the
altered manuscript, being copied in its turn, such changes passed into
circulation unnoticed. Owners of manuscripts added to them incidents of
the life of Christ, or any of his sayings, which they had heard of, and
which were not recorded in their own copies, and thus the story grew and
grew, and additional legends were incorporated with it, until the
historical basis became overlaid with myth. The vast number of readings
in the New Testament, no less--according to Dr. Angus, one of the
present Revision Committee--than 100,000, prove the facility with which
variations were introduced into MSS. by those who had charge of them. In
heated and angry controversy between different schools of monks appeals
were naturally made to the authority of the Scriptures, and what more
likely--indeed more certain--than that these monks should introduce
variations into their MS. copies favouring the positions for which they
were severally contending?

The most likely way in which the Gospels grew into their present forms
is, that the various traditions