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. CHAPTER XI. CONSIDERATIONS DERIVED FROM THE PECULIAR CHARACTER AND GRAMMATICAL FORM OF THE DIALECT OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT. 1. It will not be expected of us to enter in this place upon the wide subject of the origin, genius, and peculiarities, whether in respect to grammar or orthography, of that dialect of the Greek in which the N. T. was written, except so far as it bears directly upon the criticism of the sacred volume. Questions, however, are perpetually arising, when we come to examine the oldest manuscripts of Scripture, which cannot be resolved unless we bear in mind the leading particulars wherein the diction of the Evangelists and Apostles differs not only from that of pure classical models, but also of their own contemporaries who composed in the Greek language, or used it as their ordinary tongue.