I dismiss this feature of the case by saying that if any person desires a sample of the process I have been describing, he cannot do better than bestow a little attention on the “Preface” (ὑπόθεσις) at the beginning of Victor’s Commentary. It consists of thirty-eight lines in Cramer’s edition: of which Possinus omits eleven; and Matthaei also, eleven;—_but not the same eleven_. On the other hand, Matthaei(516) _prolongs_ the Preface by eight lines. Strange to relate, the MS. from which Cramer professes to publish, goes on differently. If I may depend on my hasty pencilling, after ἐκκλησίαις [_Cramer_, i. p. 264, line 16,] Evan. 300, [ = Reg. 186, _fol._ 93, line 16 from bottom] proceeds,—Κλήμης ἐν ἕκτῳ τῶν ὑποτυπώσεων, (thirty-one lines, ending) χαρακτήρ ἐγένετο. On referring to the work of Possinus, “Anonymus Vaticanus” is found to exhibit so admirable a condensation (?) of the ὑπόθεσις in question, that it is difficult to divest oneself of the suspicion that it must needs be an original and independent composition; the germ out of which the longer Preface has grown.... We inspect the first few pages of the Commentary, and nothing but perplexity awaits us at every step. It is not till we have turned over a few pages that we begin to find something like exact correspondence. As for the Work,—(for I must now divest myself of the perplexing recollections which the hurried collation of so many MSS. left behind; and plainly state that, in spite of all, I yet distinctly ascertained, and am fully persuaded that the original work was _one_,—the production, no doubt, of “Victor, Presbyter of Antioch,” as 19 out of the 52 MSS. declare):—For the Commentary itself, I say, Victor explains at the outset what his method had been. Having failed to discover any separate exposition of S. Mark’s Gospel, he had determined to construct one, by collecting the occasional notices scattered up and down the writings of Fathers of the Church.(517) Accordingly, he presents us in the first few lines of his Commentary (p. 266) with a brief quotation from the work of Eusebius “to Marinus, on the seeming inconsistency of the Evangelical accounts of the Resurrection;” following it up with a passage from “the vith [viith?] tome of Origen’s Exegetics on S. John’s Gospel.” We are thus presented at the outset with _two_ of Victor’s favorite authorities. The work of Eusebius just named he was evidently thoroughly familiar with.(518) I suspect that he has many an unsuspected quotation from its pages. Towards the end of his Commentary, (as already elsewhere explained,) he quotes it once and again.