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.