Origen caught sight of the extravagance, and condemned it though he fancied it to be prevalent, and the thing slept for 1500 years.

Then about just fifty years ago Drs.

Lachmann, Tischendorf and Tregelles began to construct that 'fabric of Textual Criticism' which has been the cause of the present treatise [though indeed Tischendorf does not adopt the suggestion of those few aberrant cursives which is supported by no surviving uncial, and in fact advocates the very origin of the mischief which has been just described].

But, as every one must see, 'such things as these are not 'readings' at all, nor even the work of 'the heretics;' but simply transcriptional mistakes.

How Dr.Hort, admitting the blunder, yet pleads that 'this remarkable reading is attractive by the new and interesting fact which it seems to attest, and by the antithetic force which it seems to add to the question in ver.