A difficult reading is one which presents something apparently incongruous in the sense, or anomalous in the construction, which an ignorant or half-learned copyist would endeavour, by the use of such critical faculty as he possessed, to remove; but which a true critic is able, by probable explanation, and a comparison of similar cases, to defend against all such fancied improvements.

In the reading before us, [Greek: all' oudenos logou poioumai ten psychen timian emauto], it is the construction, and not the sense, which is in question; and this is not simply difficult, but impossible.

There is really no way of getting over it; it baffles novices and experts alike[43].' When will men believe that a reading vouched for by only B[Symbol: Aleph]C is safe to be a fabrication[44]?
But at least when Copies and Fathers combine, as here they do, against those three copies, what can justify critics in upholding a text which carries on its face its own condemnation?
Sec.

3.
We now come to the inattention of those long-since-forgotten Ist or IInd century scribes who, beguiled by the similarity of the letters [Greek: EN] and [Greek: AN] (in the expression [Greek: ENANthropois eudokia], St.Luke ii.

14), left out the preposition.