Chrysostom, in a certain place, after quoting our Lord's saying about taking up the cross and following Him, remarks that the words 'do not mean that we are actually to bear the wood upon our shoulders, but to keep the prospect of death steadily before us, and like St.Paul to "die daily"[376].' The same Father, in the two other places already quoted from his writings, is observed similarly to connect the Saviour's mention of 'bearing the Cross' with the Apostle's announcement--'I die daily.' Add, that Ephraem Syrus[377], and Jerome quoted already,--persistently connect the same two places together; the last named Father even citing them in immediate succession;--and the inference is unavoidable.

The phrase in St.Luke ix.

23 must needs be a very ancient as well as very interesting expository gloss, imported into the Gospel from 1 Cor.xv.

31,--as Mill[378] and Matthaei[379] long since suggested.
Sincerely regretting the necessity of parting with an expression with which one has been so long familiar, we cannot suffer the sentimental plea to weigh with us when the Truth of the Gospel is at stake.

Certain it is that but for Erasmus, we should never have known the regret: for it was he that introduced [Greek: kath hemeran] into the Received Text.
The MS.