Now the second clause of the sentence, viz. the words [Greek: oude echo ten psychen mou timian emauto], may on no account be surrendered. It is indeed beyond the reach of suspicion, being found in Codd. A, D, E, H, L, P, 13, 31,--in fact in every known copy of the Acts, except the discordant [Symbol: Aleph]BC. The clause in question is further witnessed to by the Vulgate[35],--by the Harkleian[36],--by Basil[37],--by Chrysostom[38],--by Cyril[39],--by Euthalius[40],--and by the interpolator of Ignatius[41]. What are we to think of our guides (Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, and the Revisers) who have nevertheless surrendered the Traditional Text and presented us instead with what Dr. Field,--who is indeed a Master in Israel,--describes as the impossible [Greek: all' oudenos logou poioumai ten psychen timian emauto][42]? The words of the last-named eminent scholar on the reading just cited are so valuable in themselves, and are observed to be so often in point, that they shall find place here:--'Modern Critics,' he says, 'in deference to the authority of the older MSS., and to certain critical canons which prescribe that preference should be given to the shorter and more difficult reading over the longer and easier one, have decided that the T.R. in this passage is to be replaced by that which is contained in those older MSS. 'In regard to the difficulty of this reading, that term seems hardly applicable to the present case. A difficult reading is one which presents something apparently incongruous in the sense, or anomalous in the construction, which an ignorant or half-learned copyist would endeavour, by the use of such critical faculty as he possessed, to remove; but which a true critic is able, by probable explanation, and a comparison of similar cases, to defend against all such fancied improvements. In the reading before us, [Greek: all' oudenos logou poioumai ten psychen timian emauto], it is the construction, and not the sense, which is in question; and this is not simply difficult, but impossible. There is really no way of getting over it; it baffles novices and experts alike[43].' When will men believe that a reading vouched for by only B[Symbol: Aleph]C is safe to be a fabrication[44]? But at least when Copies and Fathers combine, as here they do, against those three copies, what can justify critics in upholding a text which carries on its face its own condemnation? Sec. 3. We now come to the inattention of those long-since-forgotten Ist or IInd century scribes who, beguiled by the similarity of the letters [Greek: EN] and [Greek: AN] (in the expression [Greek: ENANthropois eudokia], St. Luke ii. 14), left out the preposition. An unintelligible clause was the consequence, as has been explained above (p. 21): which some one next sought to remedy by adding to [Greek: eudokia] the sign of the genitive ([Greek: S]). Thus the Old Latin translations were made.