Of these propositions only the last two need be illustrated further, particularly the second last. For it is really remarkable to what extent this consideration has been neglected hitherto. To the best of my knowledge there is as yet no monograph in which the =proper names= are treated from a critical point of view. And yet these are for the critic frequently the only points of light in vast regions of darkness. They are to him what the lighthouse is to the mariner or the fossil to the geologist. This makes their neglect all the more strange. Had there been a systematic examination of the proper names of the New Testament, Lippelt’s important discovery with regard to the spellings Ἰωάνης and Ἰωάννης might have been made long ere now (see above, p. 162 f.). Weiss’s critical studies in Acts deserve honourable mention in this connection. But Westcott and Hort, who have paid attention to these things with their usual exactitude, were simply on the wrong tack in this case when they asked whether the various persons who bore this name might not have spelt it differently, as in the case of Smith, Smyth, Smythe, etc. Similarly the genealogies give rise to a whole host of problems of which no account has been taken hitherto. See above, p. 165, for the reading Ζαρέ exhibited by B in Matt. i. 3; and compare Sela, given by Syr^{sin} in verses 4 and 5, with Σαλά in Luke iii. 32. Tischendorf omits the testimony in Matt. i. 5, while Baljon passes over both the variants, though they are certainly of more importance than the variation in the spelling of Βοές, Βοός, Βοόζ. In Luke iii. 27 the word רֵאשָׁא is converted into a proper name Ῥησά. From this fact some very interesting conclusions might be drawn with regard to the sources of Luke’s Gospel, but this is a matter lying outside the scope of this chapter. On the other hand, the fact that in the fourth Gospel the traitor is called not Ἰσκαριώτης, or anything like it, but ἀπὸ Καρυώτου by א in ch. vi. 71, where his name first occurs, and by D in every other place in that Gospel (xii. 4; xiii. 2, 26; xiv. 22), raises a very strong presumption in favour of these two manuscripts and indeed of the fourth Gospel. On this see my _Philologica Sacra_, p. 14, and my notes, with Chase’s unconvincing replies, in the _Expository Times_ for December 1897, and January, February, and March 1898. I am very glad to see that Zahn now inclines to the same view (_Einl._, ii. 561). Considerable weight is given to it by the fact that these two manuscripts seem to be the only ones that have preserved the correct reading in the case of other names as well.