Reference would have been made to any other copy of the third Gospel, and together with the omitted preposition ([Greek: en]) sense would have been restored to the passage.

But unhappily one of the two supposed Copyists being a learned grammarian who had no other copy at hand to refer to, undertook, good man that he was, _proprio Marte_ to force a meaning into the manifestly corrupted text of the copy before him: and he did it by affixing to [Greek: eudokia] the sign of the genitive case ([Greek: s]).

Unhappy effort of misplaced skill! That copy [or those copies] became the immediate progenitor [or progenitors] of a large family,--from which all the Latin copies are descended; whereby it comes to pass that Latin Christendom sings the Hymn 'Gloria in excelsis' incorrectly to the present hour, and may possibly sing it incorrectly to the end of time.

The error committed by that same venerable Copyist survives in the four oldest copies of the passage extant, B* and [Symbol: Aleph]*, A and D,--though happily in no others,--in the Old Latin, Vulgate, and Gothic, alone of Versions; in Irenaeus and Origen (who contradict themselves), and in the Latin Fathers.

All the Greek authorities, with the few exceptions just recorded, of which A and D are the only consistent witnesses, unite in condemning the evident blunder[16].
I once hoped that it might be possible to refer all the Corruptions of the Text of Scripture to ordinary causes: as, careless transcription,-- divers accidents,--misplaced critical assiduity,--doctrinal animus,--small acts of unpardonable licence.
But increased attention and enlarged acquaintance with the subject, have convinced me that by far the larger number of the omissions of such Codexes as [Symbol: Aleph]BLD must needs be due to quite a different cause.