of such a statement was guilty of monstrous exaggeration. We
are reminded of the loose and random way in which the Fathers,--(giants in
Interpretation, but very children in the Science of Textual
Criticism,)--are sometimes observed to speak about the state of the Text in
their days. We are reminded, for instance, of the confident assertion of
an ancient Critic that the true reading in S. Luke xxiv. 13 is not
"three-score" but "_an hundred_ and three-score;" for that so "the
accurate copies" used to read the place, besides Origen and Eusebius. And
yet (as I have elsewhere explained) the reading {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} is
altogether impossible. "Apud nos mixta sunt omnia," is Jerome's way of
adverting to an evil which, serious as it was, was yet not nearly so great
as he represents; viz. the unauthorized introduction into one Gospel of
what belongs of right to another. And so in a multitude of other
instances. The Fathers are, in fact, constantly observed to make critical
remarks about the ancient copies which simply _cannot_ be correct.

And yet the author of the exaggeration under review, be it observed, is
clearly _not Eusebius_. It is evident that _he_ has nothing to say against
the genuineness of the conclusion of S. Mark's Gospel. Those random
statements about the copies with which he began, do not even purport to
express his own sentiments. Nay, Eusebius in a manner repudiates them; for
he introduces them with a phrase which separates them from himself: and,
"This then is what a person will say,"--is the remark with which he finally
dismisses them. It would, in fact, be to make this learned Father stultify
himself to suppose that he proceeds gravely to discuss a portion of
Scripture which he had already deliberately rejected as spurious. But,
indeed, the evidence before us effectually precludes any such supposition.
"Here are two readings," he says, "(as is so often the case elsewhere:)
_both_ of which are to be received,--inasmuch