Gebhardt alludes to the objections raised partly against the entire method of Westcott and Hort, partly against their particular estimate of Codex Vaticanus, and partly also against the position they have assigned to what they call the Western text, and he too says: ‘If these objections are valid, then the sure foundation which they seemed at last to have secured for the text of the New Testament begins once more to totter.’” Since this was written, my impressions have been greatly confirmed, particularly by Zahn’s _Einleitung_; only I must admit that I am now less in a position than ever to make any definite proposals as to the way in which the goal of the textual criticism of the New Testament is to be reached. To follow one witness or one group of witnesses through thick and thin, which would really be the only consistent course, will seemingly not do.[241] And the “eclectic method” to which Bousset was led in his work on the Apocalypse as the only possible one, is surely the opposite of the genealogical, which we must acknowledge to be in theory the only correct method. But first of all, a fresh application of it would require to be made. And as the task is too great for any single worker, might it not be well if, in the exegetical classes of our Theological Faculties, the separate witnesses were either examined anew, or, conversely, selected passages of the text, quite small passages—a single chapter, or a single epistle like 2 or 3 John or Philemon—were given out to different students to examine thoroughly all the witnesses for each passage, and the results then compared with one another? Furthermore, the critical apparatus would require at once to be lightened of all those manuscripts which are unmistakably recognised to be the representatives of a definite recension, and the Lucianic recension printed separately with or without an apparatus, just as was done by Lagarde himself for half of the Old Testament. Finally, the Western text would require to be much more thoroughly examined than has hitherto been the case. It is true that Weiss has given a special part of _Texte und Untersuchungen_ to an examination of Codex D in Acts, but without prejudice one may be quite sure that a solution of the problem is not to be found in the way in which Weiss seeks it. No doubt he establishes among other things the fact, that in the Speeches of Peter β displays almost no variation, but then he makes no attempt to explain this fact or make any use of it. It is an indication of considerable progress to find Zahn going so carefully into matters of the text in an Introduction to the New Testament, and his appreciation of the Western text is most gratifying. [Sidenote: Luke and Acts in D.] At the same time the reader will naturally ask whether Zahn’s verdict on the β text in Luke is not fatal to his own conclusions with regard to Acts. Is it not true in this connection that “he who says A must also say B”? If you