iii. 31. We have here to choose between καλοῦντες (א B C L etc.), φωνοῦντες (D etc.), and ζητοῦντες (A): Δ leaves a space. I am inclined to think that φωνοῦντες is the original reading, which was improved by the substitution of the more usual word καλοῦντες, just as οὐ φωνεῦντος ἀκούω was altered to λαλέοντος in the Delphic Oracle in Herodotus i. 47. Compare a similar variation in Heb. xi. 13, where the original reading κομισάμενοι (א* P) was thought to be improved by the substitution of λαβόντες (א^c D E K) or προσδεξάμενοι (A). Here, too, A stands alone. Was it never copied? vi. 16. There is a discrepancy in the Eusebian Canons in this verse which has not been explained. Both Tischendorf and Wordsworth and White number this verse 58/2. But according to the table in _TiGr._, p. 152, W-W, p. 10, pericope 58 belongs to the _tenth_ Canon as being one that is peculiar to Mark. As a matter of fact it is not so, unless Eusebius meant ἀκούσας δέ at the beginning of the verse. It is remarkable that Eusebius did not make the whole of verses 14-20 one pericope of the second canon, but numbered 14, 15 as 57/2 and 17-20 as 59/2. He must therefore have found something peculiar in verse 16 to make it 58. vi. 20. This passage is very instructive from a textual point of view. Most authorities read that “Herod had put John in prison, heard him and did much,” or “heard much of what he did,” ἀκούσας αὐτοῦ πολλὰ (ἃ) ἐποίει. But in place of this last word א B L and the Bohairic version alone read ἠπόρει, “was much perplexed when he heard him.” The great majority of expositors decide at once in favour of the latter reading, setting aside ἐποίει as the _scriptio proclivior_. But in that case should it not have been ἠπορεῖτο? In classical Greek it should undoubtedly, but in Biblical Greek we find ἠπόρει in _Wisd._ xi. 5, 17, for example, and what is specially worth noting, διηπόρει in the parallel passage Luke ix. 7, for which D, it is true, has ἠπορεῖτο. The passage may therefore be taken as showing that the correct reading has been preserved in a very few witnesses. Strict logic, moreover, would lead us to infer that not one of our 1300 manuscripts is derived from any one of these three, but that א B L continued childless. Is that likely? Field, it may be added, decides in favour of ἐποίει (_Otium Norvicense_; see _Expository Times_, August 1899, p. 483), and so, too, does Burkitt (_Texts and Studies_, v. 5, p. xix). In Philo, i. 264, line 8 (ed. Cohn), the manuscripts vary between μετεωροπολειν, —πορειν, —ποιειν, and —λογειν.