St. John certainly wrote the familiar words,--[Greek: ho pater mou] [Greek: os dedoke moi, meizon panton esti]. But, with the licentiousness [or inaccuracy] which prevailed in the earliest age, some remote copyist is found to have substituted for [Greek: hos dedoke], its grammatical equivalent [Greek: ho dedokos]. And this proved fatal; for it was only necessary that another scribe should substitute [Greek: meizon] for [Greek: meizon] (after the example of such places as St. Matt. xii. 6, 41, 42, &c.), and thus the door had been opened to at least four distinct deflections from the evangelical verity,--which straightway found their way into manuscripts:--(1) [Greek: o dedokos ... meizon]--of which reading at this day D is the sole representative: (2) [Greek: os dedoke ... meizon]--which survives only in AX: (3) [Greek: o dedoke ... meizon]--which is only found in [Symbol: Aleph]L: (4) [Greek: o dedoke ... meizon]--which is the peculiar property of B. The 1st and 2nd of these sufficiently represent the Evangelist's meaning, though neither of them is what he actually wrote; but the 3rd is untranslatable: while the 4th is nothing else but a desperate attempt to force a meaning into the 3rd, by writing [Greek: meizon] for [Greek: meizon]; treating [Greek: o] not as the article but as the neuter of the relative [Greek: os]. This last exhibition of the text, which in fact scarcely yields an intelligible meaning and rests upon the minimum of manuscript evidence, would long since have been forgotten, but that, calamitously for the Western Church, its Version of the New Testament Scriptures was executed from MSS. of the same vicious type as Cod. B[18]. Accordingly, all the Latin copies, and therefore all the Latin Fathers[19], translate,-- 'Pater [meus] quod dedit mihi, majus omnibus est[20].' The Westerns resolutely extracted a meaning from whatever they presumed to be genuine Scripture: and one can but admire the piety which insists on finding sound Divinity in what proves after all to be nothing else but a sorry blunder. What, asks Augustine, was 'the thing, greater than all,' which the Father gave to the Son? To be the Word of the Father (he answers), His only-begotten Son and the brightness of His glory[21]. The Greeks knew better. Basil[22], Chrysostom[23], Cyril on nine occasions[24], Theodoret[25]--as many as quote the place--invariably exhibit the _textus receptus_ [Greek: os ... meizon], which is obviously the true reading and may on no account suffer molestation.