§ 4.
Recent Editors are agreed that we are henceforth to read in St. John xviii. 14 αποθανειν instead of απολεσθαι:—'Now Caiaphas was he who counselled the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die' (instead of 'perish') 'for the people.' There is certainly a considerable amount of ancient testimony in favour of this reading: for besides [Symbol: Aleph]BC, it is found in the Old Latin copies, the Egyptian, and Peshitto versions, besides the Lewis MS., the Chronicon, Cyril, Nonnus, Chrysostom. Yet may it be regarded as certain that St. John wrote απολεσθαι in this place. The proper proof of the statement is the consentient voice of all the copies,—except about nineteen of loose character:—we know their vagaries but too well, and decline to let them impose upon us. In real fact, nothing else is αποθανειν but a critical assimilation of St. John xviii. 14 to xi. 50,—somewhat as 'die' in our A. V. has been retained by King James' translators, though they certainly had απολεσθαι before them.
Many of these glosses are rank, patent, palpable. Such is the substitution (St. Mark vi. 11) of 'ος αν τοπος μη δεξηται 'υμας by [Symbol: Aleph]BLΔ for 'οσοι αν μη δεξωνται 'υμας,—which latter is the reading of the Old Latin and Peshitto, as well as of the whole body of uncials and cursives alike. Some Critic evidently considered that the words which follow, 'when you go out thence,' imply that place, not persons, should have gone before. Accordingly, he substituted 'whatsoever place' for 'whosoever[396]': another has bequeathed to us in four uncial MSS. a lasting record of his rashness and incompetency. Since however he left behind the words μηδε ακουσωσιν 'υμων, which immediately follow, who sees not that the fabricator has betrayed himself? I am astonished that so patent a fraud should have imposed upon Tischendorf, and Tregelles, and Lachmann, and Alford, and Westcott and Hort. But in fact it does not stand alone. From the same copies [Symbol: Aleph]BLΔ (with two others, CD) we find the woe denounced in the same verse on the unbelieving city erased (αμην λεγω 'υμιν, ανεκτοτερον εσται Σοδομοις η Γομορροις εν 'ημεραι κρισεως, η τη πολει εκεινη). Quite idle is it to pretend (with Tischendorf) that these words are an importation from the parallel place in St. Matthew. A memorable note of diversity has been set on the two places, which in all the copies is religiously maintained, viz. Σοδομοις η Γομορροις, in St. Mark: γη Σοδομων και Γομορρων, in St. Matt. It is simply incredible that this could have been done if the received text in this place had been of spurious origin.