Tregelles and Westcott alone accept the reading λίθον; all the other editors regard it as an early transcriptional error. Holtzmann refers to the parallel passages i. 13, iv. 4, vii. 9, 13, xvii. 4, xviii. 16, xix. 8, 14, in support of λίνον, but they point rather the other way. For “fine linen” Apocalypse has βύσσινος five times, but never once λίνος, which means only the material, and not the garment made of it. Moreover, we find a parallel in the Old Testament, though in another connection, in Ezekiel xxviii. 13, where we read πάντα λίθον χρηστὸν ἐνδέδεσαι, so that λίθον here must not be so confidently rejected. Λίθον was more liable to be changed to λίνον than _vice versa_, as the Vulgate shows, in which the authorised printed edition has _linteo_ where the manuscripts read _lapidem_. At the same time one cannot but admit that primitive transcriptional errors do occur. The reading ἀγγέλου in viii. 13, to which certain manuscripts prefix ἑνὸς, seems to me to be corroborated by _ἄλλον_ ἄγγελον πετόμενον in xiv. 6. Or are we to read ἀετόν there in the face of all the witnesses? v. 1. The correct text here is that adopted by Zahn: γεγραμμένον ἔσωθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν κατεσφραγισμένον. Grotius, though mistaken as to the true text, was the first to give the right interpretation of the words by taking ἔσω (ἔσωθεν) with γεγραμμένον, and ἔξωθεν (ὄπισθεν) with κατεσφραγισμένον. “Locus sic distinguendus γεγραμμένον ἔσω, καὶ ἔξωθεν κατεσφραγισμένον.” This combination of the words (“haec nova distinctio”) was combated for the reason among others that it deprived them of all their force and rendered them superfluous, for who ever saw a roll that was written on the outside and sealed on the inside. See Pole’s _Synopsis_, where it is said of Grotius, “tam infelix interpres Apocalypseos est magnus ille Hugo in rebus minusculis.” Zahn (_Einleitung_, ii. 596) improves the text of Grotius, but retains his connection of the words. He holds that ἔσωθεν and ὄπισθεν are not correlative terms, and that the idea of a papyrus roll written on both sides (ὀπισθόγραφον) must be abandoned; compare above, p. 43, n. 2. The book was, in fact, not a roll but a codex. Two things point to this. There is, first, the fact that is said to be ἐπὶ τὴν δεξιὰν. Had it been a roll it would have been ἐν τῇ δεξιᾷ. Moreover, the word used for opening the book is ἀνοῖξαι, and not, as in the case of rolls, ἀνελίσσειν, ἀνειλεῖν, or ἀναπτύσσειν. That it was not written on the outside is also shown by the fact that it was sealed with seven seals, the purpose of which was to make the reading of the book impossible. Not till the seventh seal is broken is the book open and its contents displayed. This βιβλίον is quite different from the βιβλαρίδιον mentioned in chapter x. 2, 9. See also E. Huschke, _Das Buch mit 7 Siegeln_ (1860), to which Zahn refers (_lib. cit._ 597).