[This may be however from Matt.xvii.5, where Tertullian's reading has somewhat stronger support.] The variations in quotations from St.Luke have been perhaps sufficiently illustrated in the chapter on Marcion.

We may therefore omit this Gospel and pass to St.John.A very remarkable reading meets us at the outset.
John i.13.Non ex sanguine nec ex voluntate carnis nec ex voluntate viri, sed ex deo natus est.

The Greek of all the MSS.
and Versions, with the single exception of b of the Old Latin, is [Greek: oi egennaethaesan].

A sentence is thus applied to Christ that was originally intended to be applied to the Christian.
Tertullian (_De Carne Christ._ 19, 24), though he also had the right reading before him, boldly accuses the Valentinians of a falsification, and lays stress upon the reading which he adopts as proof of the veritable birth of Christ from a virgin.

The same text is found in b (Codex Veronensis) of the Old Latin, Pseudo- Athanasius, the Latin translator of Origen's commentary on St.
Matthew, in Augustine, and three times in Irenaeus.