In the case of Holl’s researches on the _Sacra Parallela_ of John Damascene, published in the same Collection,[160] matters are too complicated for beginners in textual criticism, but of non-biblical texts mention may be made of the _Recherches sur la tradition manuscrite des lettres de l’Empereur Julien_ by S. Bidez and Fr. Cumont (Brussels, 1898), as showing how much can be attained by combining the internal and external history of the transmission of literary texts.[161] [Sidenote: Latin New Testament.] In the field of Biblical texts, and particularly of the New Testament, the study of Wordsworth and White’s _Epilogus_ to the first volume of their _Novum Testamentum Latine_ is to be specially recommended, particularly c. iv. _De Patria et Indole Codicum nostrorum_, c. v. _De Textus Historia_, and c. vi. _De Regulis a nobis in Textu constituendo adhibitis_. As was said before, Jerome undertook his revision of the Gospels in the year 383; his work was of an entirely uniform texture, apart from a few passages where a correction may have occurred even in the original manuscript; and there is a sufficiency of manuscripts extant, some of them going back to the sixth century. One of these, which formerly belonged to the Church of St. Willibrord at Echternach, contains a note dated 558, and copied into it from the parent manuscript, to the effect: proemendavi ut potui secundum codicem in bibliotheca Eugipi presbyteri, quem ferunt fuisse sancti Hieronymi. (See above, p. 122.) In these circumstances it must surely be possible, one would think, to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion. And yet, in spite of all this, and in spite of long years of labour, many a problem remains to perplex the editor of the Vulgate. To begin with, there is one striking circumstance. Jerome executed his work at Rome, in obedience to the commission of Pope Damasus. One would therefore expect to find the best manuscripts in Rome, or at least originating from Rome. But that is by no means the case: “praeter expectationem accidit ut pauci vel nulli ex codicibus optimis et antiquissimis originem Romanam clare ostendant.” The manuscript that editors consider the best—viz. Codex Amiatinus, now at Florence—was certainly at Rome for a long time, but it was sent there as a present from beyond the Alps; indeed, it came from England. And on the other hand it was not from Rome that the Latin Bible came to England, or to Canterbury in particular, although Augustine was sent thither by Pope Gregory the Great, but from the South of Italy; in fact, it was from Naples. Codex Fuldensis, which may have been brought to Fulda by Boniface, formerly belonged to Bishop Victor of Capua; the Echternach manuscript referred to above came from the Lucullan Monastery at Naples, while the manuscript from which Codex Amiatinus was copied was written by Cassiodorus of Vivarium, and therefore came from Calabria. The history of the transmission of the