The four oldest of the six available uncials conspire however in representing the words which immediately precede in the following unintelligible fashion:--[Greek: ho de Kyrios prosetithei tous sozomenous kath' hemeran epi to auto. Petros de k.t.l.] How is it to be thought that this strange and vapid presentment of the passage had its beginning? It results, I answer, from the ecclesiastical practice of beginning a fresh lection at the name of 'Peter,' prefaced by the usual formula 'In those days.' It is accordingly usual to find the liturgical word [Greek: arche]--indicative of the beginning of a lection,--thrust in between [Greek: epi to auto de] and [Greek: Petros]. At a yet earlier period I suppose some more effectual severance of the text was made in that place, which unhappily misled some early scribe[165]. And so it came to pass that in the first instance the place stood thus: [Greek: ho de Kyrios prosetithei tous sozomenous kath' hemeran te ekklesia epi to auto],--which was plainly intolerable. What I am saying will commend itself to any unprejudiced reader when it has been stated that Cod. D in this place actually reads as follows:--[Greek: kathemeran epi to auto en te ekklesia. En de tais hemerais tautais Petros k.t.l.]: the scribe with simplicity both giving us the liturgical formula with which it was usual to introduce the Gospel for the Friday after Easter, and permitting us to witness the perplexity with which the evident surplusage of [Greek: te ekklesia epi to auto] occasioned him. He inverts those two expressions and thrusts in a preposition. How obvious it now was to solve the difficulty by getting rid of [Greek: te ekklesia]. It does not help the adverse case to shew that the Vulgate as well as the copy of Cyril of Alexandria are disfigured with the same corrupt reading as [Symbol: Aleph]ABC. It does but prove how early and how widespread is this depravation of the Text. But the indirect proof thus afforded that the actual Lectionary System must needs date from a period long anterior to our oldest Codexes is a far more important as well as a more interesting inference. In the meantime I suspect that it was in Western Christendom that this corruption of the text had its beginning: for proof is not wanting that the expression [Greek: epi to auto] seemed hard to the Latins[166]. Hence too the omission of [Greek: palin] from [Symbol: Aleph]BD (St. Matt, xiii. 43). A glance at the place in an actual Codex[167] will explain the matter to a novice better than a whole page of writing:-- [Greek: akoueto. telos] [Greek: palin. arche. eipen o Kurios ten parabolen tauten.] [Greek: Omoia estin k.t.l.]