On the other hand, there is a great question as to the order of the first three Beatitudes in Matthew v. 3-5, whether they are to be read in the order given in the common text, πτωχοί ... πενθοῦντες ... πραεῖς ..., or as our recent editors prefer πτωχοί ... πραεῖς ... πενθοῦντες.[144] The latter arrangement is attested by only two Greek manuscripts—D and 33. Now, if their evidence is accepted here in spite of its apparent weakness, how can we justify the refusal to acknowledge the authority of D in other similar cases? Verse 22, but a short way down, is a case in point. Here D, with most authorities, exhibits the sorely-contested εἰκῇ. But our modern critics will have nothing to do with it, going by א B, Origen, Jerome, and Athanasius. Merx (_Die vier kanonischen Evangelien_, pp. 231-237) has recently come forward as a strong supporter of it, on the ground that Syr^{sin} also has it,[145] but how is its omission, especially by Jerome, to be explained? The Vulgate itself shows that it was easier to insert it than to omit it, because out of twenty-four manuscripts collated in W.-W. three have it, though it certainly does not belong to the text of the Vulgate.[146] In view of these illustrations, which serve to show the somewhat haphazard way in which the text of our editions hitherto has been arrived at, the question becomes very important how the original text is to be restored in disputed or doubtful cases. [Sidenote: Conjectural emendation.] The first case, or, if we like to call it, the last, but at all events the one most easy of settlement, is when the correct reading is no longer found in any of our witnesses, neither in Greek manuscript, version, nor patristic quotation. Here we must simply have recourse to =conjecture=. Not long ago philologists evinced such a fondness for conjectural emendation that the question might not unreasonably be asked why they did not rather themselves write the text that they took in hand to explain. At the same time, the aversion to this method of criticism which till recently prevailed and still to some extent prevails, especially in the matter of the New Testament text, is just as unreasonable. Tischendorf, _e.g._, did not admit a single emendation of this nature into his text, while Westcott and Hort consider it to be necessary in only a very few cases, such as Colossians ii. 18, though they also decline to adopt any conjectural readings in their text. For ΑΕΟΡΑΚΕΝΕΜΒΑΤΕΥΩΝ in this passage, which Weizsäcker renders “pluming himself upon his visions,” they would read ΑΕΡΑ ΚΕΝΕΜΒΑΤΕΥΩΝ, which is obtained by the omission of a single letter and a different division of the words. In Holland conjectural criticism is freely indulged in,[147] the example of Cobet and his school being followed by such critics as S. A. Naber, W. C. van Manen, W. H. van de Sande-Bakhuyzen, van de Becke Callenfels, D. Harting, S. S. de Koe, H. Franssen, J. M. S. Baljon, J. H. A. Michelsen, and J.