Rom. xv. 31. Lachmann and Tregelles (in his margin only) accept the manifest gloss δωροφορία for διακονία with B (see Vol. I. p. 290 for its “Western element”) D*FG (d e have remuneratio) and Ambrosiaster (munerum meorum ministratio). But διακονία is found in אACD2 and 3 and consequently in E (see Vol. I. p. 176), f (ministratio), g (administratio), Vulg. (obsequii mei oblatio), so d***, fuld. and Origen in the Latin (ministerium), with both Syriac, the Bohairic, Armenian and Ethiopic versions, Chrysostom, Theodoret, and John Damascene.
1 Cor. xiii. 5. Never was a noble speech more cruelly pared down to a trite commonplace than by the reading of B and Clement of Alexandria (very expressly) οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ μὴ ἑαυτῆς, in the place of οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ (or τὸ) ἑαυτῆς of the self-same Clement just as expressly elsewhere (see p. [262] and note 3), and of all other authorities of every description. Here Westcott and Hort place τὸ μή in their margin.
Col. iv. 15. For αὐτοῦ Lachmann, Tregelles' margin, Hort and Westcott have αὐτῆς from B, 676**, and the text of the later Syriac, thus implying that νύμφα is the Doric feminine form, which is very unlikely.
1 Thess. v. 4. Lachmann with Hort and Westcott (but not their margin) reads κλέπτας for κλέπτης with AB and the Bohairic, but this cannot be right.
Heb. vii. 1. For ὁ συναντήσας Lachmann, Tregelles, Hort and Westcott's text have ὃς συναντήσας with אABC**DEK, 17, a broken sentence: but this is too much even for Dr. Hort, who says, in the language habitual to him, that ὁ seems “a right emendation of the Syrian revisers” (Notes, p. 130).
James i. 17. What can be meant by ἀποσκιάσματος of א*B it is hard to say. The versions are not clear as to the sense, but ff alone seems to suggest the genitive (modicum obumbrationis). That valuable Cod. 184, now known only by Sanderson's collation at Lambeth (No. 1255, 10-14)[320], is said by him to add to the end of the verse οὐδὲ μέχρι ὑπονοίας τινὸς ὑποβολὴ ἀποσκιάσματος, which seems like a scholion on the preceding clause, and is found also in Cod. 221.
Nor will any one praise certain readings of Cod. B in James i. 9; 1 Pet. i. 9; 11; ii. 1; 12; 25; iii. 7; 14; 18 (om. τῷ θεῷ); iv. 1; v. 3; [pg 311] 2 Pet. i. 17; 1 John i. 2; ii. 14; 20; 25; 27; iii. 15; 3 John 4; 9; Jude 9, which passages the student may work out for himself.
Enough of the weary and ungracious task of finding fault. The foregoing list of errors patent in the most ancient codices might be largely increased: two or three more will occur incidentally in Chapter [XII] (1 Cor. xiii. 3; Phil. ii. 1; 1 Pet. i. 23; see also pp. [254], [319]). Even if the reader has not gone with me in every case, more than enough has been alleged to prove to demonstration that the true and pure text of the sacred writers is not to be looked for in א or B, in אB, or BD, or BL, or any like combination of a select few authorities, but demands, in every fresh case as it arises, the free and impartial use of every available source of information. Yet after all, Cod. B is a document of such value, that it grows by experience even upon those who may have been a little prejudiced against it by reason of the excessive claims of its too zealous friends[321]. Its best associate, in our judgement, is Cod. C, where the testimony of that precious palimpsest can be had. BC together will often carry us safe through difficulties of the most complicated character, as for instance, through that vexatious passage John xiii. 25, 26. Compare also Acts xxvi. 16. Yet even here it is necessary to commend with reserve: BC stand almost alone in maintaining the ingenious but improbable variation ἐκσῶσαι in Acts xxvii. 39 (see Chap. [XII]), and the frigid gloss κρίνοντι in 1 Pet. iv. 5: they unite with others in foisting on St. Matthew's text its worst corruption, ch. xxvii. 49. In Gal. iii. 1, C against AB contains the gloss τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι. Again, since no fact relating to these pursuits is more certain than the absolute independence of the sources from which A and B are derived, it is manifest that their occasional agreement is always of the greatest weight, and is little less than conclusive in those portions of the N. T. where other evidence is slender in amount or consideration, e.g. 1 Pet. i. 21 and v. 10 (with the Vulgate); v. 11: also supported by those admirable cursives 27, 29, in 1 Pet. v. 14; 1 John iv. 3; 19; 2 John 3; 12. See also 1 John v. 18, to be discussed in Chap. [XII].