No one who finds the syllable [Greek: OI] recurring six times over in about as many words,--e.g. [Greek: kai egeneto, hos apelthon ... OI angelOI, kai OI anthropOI OI pOImenes eipon],--is surprised to learn that MSS. of a certain type exhibit serious perturbation in that place. Accordingly, BL[Symbol: Xi] leave out the words [Greek: kai hoi anthropoi]; and in that mutilated form the modern critical editors are contented to exhibit St. Luke ii. 15. One would have supposed that Tischendorf's eyes would have been opened when he noticed that in his own Codex ([Symbol: Aleph]) one word more ([Greek: hoi]) is dropped,--whereby nonsense is made of the passage (viz. [Greek: hoi angeloi poimenes]). Self-evident it is that a line with a 'like ending' has been omitted by the copyist of some very early codex of St. Luke's Gospel; which either read,-- [Greek: OI ANGELOI] } {[Greek: OI ANGELOI] [[Greek: KAI OI A[=NO]I OI]] } or else {[[Greek: KAI OI A[=NO]I]] [Greek: POIMENES] } {[Greek: OI POIMENES] Another such place is found in St. John vi. 11. The Evangelist certainly described the act of our Saviour on a famous occasion in the well-known words,--[Greek: kai eucharistesas] [Greek: diedoke tois [mathetais, oi de mathetai tois] anakeimenois.] The one sufficient proof that St. John did so write, being the testimony of the MSS. Moreover, we are expressly assured by St. Matthew (xiv. 19), St. Mark (vi. 41), and St. Luke (ix. 16), that our Saviour's act was performed in this way. It is clear however that some scribe has suffered his eye to wander from [Greek: tois] in l. 2 to [Greek: tois] in l. 4,--whereby St. John is made to say that our Saviour himself distributed to the 5000. The blunder is a very ancient one; for it has crept into the Syriac, Bohairic, and Gothic versions, besides many copies of the Old Latin; and has established itself in the Vulgate. Moreover some good Fathers (beginning with Origen) so quote the place. But such evidence is unavailing to support [Symbol: Aleph]ABL[Symbol: Pi], the early reading of [Symbol: Aleph] being also contradicted by the fourth hand in the seventh century against the great cloud of witnesses,--beginning with D and including twelve other uncials, beside the body of the cursives, the Ethiopic and two copies of the Old Latin, as well as Cyril Alex.