ix. 17. For ὑακινθίνους Primasius has _spineas_ (= ἀκανθίνους), a reading which neither Bousset nor Baljon, strange to say, think worth recording. Bousset rightly observes that in the following verse πῦρ corresponds to πύρινος, and θεῖον to θειώδης, so that καπνός lets us see what the writer understood as the colour of hyacinth—viz. the colour of smoke. But the ideas of “thorns” (_spineae_) and “smoke” are even more closely related. xiii. 18. Irenæus found 616 given as the number of the beast in some manuscripts, which he could only explain as a transcriptional error: “hoc autem arbitror scriptorum peccatum fuisse ut solet fieri quoniam et per literas numeri ponuntur, facile literam Graecam quae sexaginta enuntiat numerum in _iota_ Graecorum literam expansam.” In reality, however, the change from ξ to ι would be a contraction rather than an expansion, and the alteration would seem to be intentional, seeing that 666 in Hebrew characters gives the Greek form Neron Kesar, and 616 the Latin Nero Kesar. Irenæus himself, however, appeals to the fact that the number 666 was found ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς σπουδαίοις καὶ ἀρχαίοις ἀντιγράφοις, μαρτυρούντων αὐτῶν ἐκείνων τῶν κατ’ ὄψιν τὸν Ἰωάννην ἑωρακότων (v. 30, 1-3). The opening words in the Latin translation run, “in omnibus antiquis et probatissimis et veteribus scripturis.” The subscription which he himself appended to his own principal work (see above, p. 149) shows how scrupulously exact he was with respect to ἀντίγραφα, so that we may give him credit for having consulted old and reliable manuscripts of the Apocalypse. The erroneous reading (616) is now found only in C and two minuscules (5 and 11). xxii. 11. The only authorities cited by Tischendorf in support of the reading δικαιωθήτω (in place of δικαιοσύνην ποιησάτω) are the two minuscules 38 and 79 and the Clementine Vulgate. But we find the passage alluded to in the epistle which the Church of Lyons wrote giving an account of the Martyrdom of the year 177: ἵνα πληρωθῇ ἡ γραφή· ὁ ἄνομος ἀνομησάτω ἔτι, καὶ ὁ δίκαιος δικαιωθήτω ἔτι (apud Euseb., _Eccles. Hist._, v. 1, 58). This lends such support to the reading δικαιωθήτω in Apoc. xxii. 11, that Zahn not unnaturally speaks of it as “certainly the original text” (_GK._ i. 201). E. A. Abbott places the date of the Epistle of the Church of Lyons as early as 155 (see _Expositor_, 1896, i. 111-126). Another aspect would be given to the question if the Greek form of the Epistle were derived from a Latin, or if, as Resch supposed, the words were a quotation of a saying of Jesus (_Agrapha_, § 133, p. 263 ff.).