συνελθόντας with A, the uncial 23, and four cursives at least, and of εἰσελθόντας of the Roman edition and the mass of cursives. III. “Brevior lectio, nisi testium vetustorum et gravium auctoritate penitus destituatur, praeferenda est verbosiori. Librarii enim multò proniores ad addendum fuerunt, quam ad omittendum” (Griesbach, N. T., Proleg. p. lxiv. vol. i). This canon bears an influential part in the system of Griesbach and his successors, and by the aid of Cod. B and a few others, has brought great changes into the text as approved by some critics. Dr. Green too (Course of Developed Criticism on Text of N. T.) sometimes carries it to excess in his desire to remove what he considers _accretions_. It is so far true, that scribes were no doubt prone to receive marginal notes into the text which they were originally designed only to explain or enforce (e.g. 1 John v. 7, 8)(250); or sought to amplify a brief account from a fuller narrative of the same event found elsewhere, whether in the same book (e.g. Act. ix. 5 compared with ch. xxvi. 14), or in the parallel passage of one of the other synoptical Gospels. In quotations, also, from the Old Testament the shorter form is always the more probably correct (_ibid._). Circumstances too will be supplied which were deemed essential for the preservation of historical truth (e.g. Act. viii. 37), or names of persons and places may be inserted from the Lectionaries: and to this head we must refer the graver and more deliberate interpolations so frequently met with in Cod. D and a few other documents. Yet it is just as true that words and clauses are sometimes wilfully omitted for the sake of removing apparent difficulties (e.g. υἱοῦ βαραχίου, Matt, xxiii. 35 in Cod. א and a few others), and that the negligent loss of whole passages through ὁμοιοτέλευτον is common to manuscripts of every age and character. On the whole, therefore, the indiscriminate rejection of portions of the text regarded as supplementary, on the evidence of but a few authorities, must be viewed with considerable distrust and suspicion.