In order to ascertain the relationship of the manuscripts we must select passages that exhibit a considerable divergence of meaning with a small variation of form. Such a passage occurs in the last chapter. In Apoc. xxii. 14, after the words “blessed are they,” we read, in the one class of witnesses, “that wash their robes,” in the other, “that do his commandments.” That is to say, we have in the one case ΟΙΠΛΥΝΟΝΤΕϹΤΑϹϹΤΟΛΑϹΑΥΤΩΝ and in the other ΟΙΠΟΙΟΥΝΤΕϹΤΑϹΕ̅ΤΟΛΑϹΑΥΤΟΥ. The difference is exceedingly small, especially when we consider that in early times ΟΙ was frequently written Υ, and ΕΝ at the end of a line Ε̅. I have no doubt that “wash their robes” is the original reading here and that “do his commandments” is the later alteration, though, of course, others will hold the opposite view. For the former we have the authority of א A, for the latter that of Q (_i.e._, B^{apoc}; see above, p. 80) with its associates. The question now becomes: Are there any passages where א and A part company, and which are decisive in favour of א? It is impossible to say offhand whether א or A has preserved the correct text. א contains corrections that A does not, and _vice versa_. Take another example. The author of the Apocalypse follows the Hebrew idiom, according to which the word or phrase in apposition to an oblique case is put in the nominative.[292] Thus we have: ii. 20. τὴν γυναῖκα Ἰεζαβὲλ ἡ λέγουσα. Q makes this ἣ λέγει, and the corrector of א τὴν λέγουσαν. Similarly, iii. 12, τῆς καινῆς Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἡ καταβαίνουσα, where again Q has ἣ καταβαίνει, and א^c τῆς καταβαινούσης. But it is not only the later corrector of א that does this: the first scribe of that manuscript does it himself. For example: xiv. 12. א has τῶν τηρούντων instead of οἱ τηροῦντες; in verse 14 ἔχοντα instead of ἔχων; in xx. 2, τὸν ὄφιν instead of ὁ ὄφις, etc. In other places A, in this last A _alone_, it appears, has preserved the correct text. There are other places, again, where the correct reading is preserved, perhaps, only in a later manuscript, or in none at all. We may compare with the idiom in the Apocalypse what we find at the beginning of the book in the passage about the seven spirits before the throne of God.