Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Clement of Alexandria,--among the Fathers: some Old Latin MSS.[448] the Bohairic and Sahidic, and coming later on, the Curetonian and Lewis,--among the Versions: of the copies Codd.

B and [Symbol: Aleph]: and above all, coming later down still, Cod.

D:--these venerable monuments of a primitive age occasionally present us with deformities which it is worse than useless to extenuate,--quite impossible to overlook.

Unauthorized appendixes,--tasteless and stupid amplifications,--plain perversions of the meaning of the Evangelists,--wholly gratuitous assimilations of one Gospel to another,--the unprovoked omission of passages of profound interest and not unfrequently of high doctrinal import:--How are such phenomena as these to be accounted for?
Again, in one quarter, we light upon a systematic mutilation of the text so extraordinary that it is as if some one had amused himself by running his pen through every clause which was not absolutely necessary to the intelligibleness of what remained.

In another quarter we encounter the thrusting in of fabulous stories and apocryphal sayings which disfigure as well as encumber the text .-- How will any one explain all this?
Let me however at the risk of repeating what has been already said dispose at once of an uneasy suspicion which is pretty sure to suggest itself to a person of intelligence after reading what goes before.