Stated in this way the question invites an affirmative answer, but there are other factors which have yet to be considered. As a matter of fact, there is little profit in a broad and general discussion. We touch the heart of the problem only when we consider the _types_ or classes into which such insertions might conceivably fall. On the whole it is best, even if only for purposes of argument, to admit the possibility that insertions unmarked by signs of textual variation exist, and to ask: Of what character may we suppose these insertions to be, and can we define any limits within which they are more probable than others? In particular, is Lk. i. 34 f. a likely or probable instance? It is obvious that hard and fast lines cannot be drawn in individual cases. Nevertheless, it ought to be possible to say whether or not a passage like the one we are considering is, or is not, the work of a redactor. Those instances of insertions, _where textual variations can be cited_, supply us with the safest criterion for other suspected cases. Of these instances many, as we have seen, were drawn from the floating tradition of the Christian communities. An interesting case is suggested by Dr. J. H. Moulton (_From Egyptian Rubbish Heaps_, p. 101 f.). He traces the saying, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”, to the reminiscences of the centurion who was present at the death of Jesus. “The words are not in Luke’s original Gospel, but as the great Professor Hort said in regard to the fact that these words cannot be textually defended, ‘Few if any words in all the Gospels bear more intrinsic witness to the truth of what they relate than these’ ” (p. 103). On general grounds, it may very well be, that similar items of tradition have found their way into the existing texts, leaving the surface of the textual stream unruffled. But it is clear that, in any suspected case, the insertion could be the act of the author himself and not the reader. If the latter really is the case, the insertion must have been made very early, and must have been of such a kind as not to awaken comment or dissent. A second kind of insertions may possibly be found in _explanatory words or phrases_, introduced with the intention of bringing out the original writer’s meaning. We may take as an instance Rom. iv. 1 (“What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, hath found?” εὐρηκέναι), where Sanday and Headlam say that they “regard the omission of εὐρηκέναι as probable with WH. text Tr. RV. marg.” (ICC., Rom., p. 99).(46) In this case, however, as in so many others, the gloss, if gloss it is, is reflected in the textual evidence. Nevertheless, the possibility may be allowed, that such glosses exist even where variants cannot be cited. In these cases, however, it is clear that the insertions must have been very early and very happy, and that in specific cases their presence can rarely be conceded with complete confidence.