188 One is rather surprised to find the facts of the case so unfairly represented in addressing unlearned readers; who are entitled to the largest amount of ingenuousness, and to entire sincerity of statement. The facts are these:— (1) Valentt. (_apud_ Irenæum), (2) Clemens Alex., and (3) Theodotus (_apud_ Clem.) read ἔστι: but then (1) Irenæus himself, (2) Clemens Alex., and (3) Theodotus (_apud_ Clem.) _also_ read ἦν. These testimonies, therefore, clearly neutralize each other. Cyprian also has _both_ readings.—Hippolytus, on the other hand, reads ἔστι; but Origen, (though he remarks that ἔστι is “perhaps not an improbable reading,”) reads ἦν _ten or eleven times_. Ἦν is also the reading of Eusebius, of Chrysostom, of Cyril, of Nonnus, of Theodoret,—of the Vulgate, of the Memphitic, of the Peshito, and of the Philoxenian Versions; as well as of B, A, C,—in fact of _all the MSS. in the world_, except of א and D. All that remains to be set on the other side are the Thebaic and Cureton’s Syriac, together with most copies of the early Latin. And now, with the evidence thus all before us, will any one say that it is lawfully a question for discussion which of these two readings must exhibit the genuine text of S. John i. 4? (For I treat it as a question of authority, and reason from _the evidence_,—declining to import into the argument what may be called _logical_ considerations; though I conceive them to be all on my side.) I suspect, in fact, that the inveterate practice of the primitive age of reading the place after the following strange fashion,—ὁ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, was what led to this depravation of the text. Cyril in his Commentary [heading of lib. i, c. vi.] so reads S. John i. 3, 4. And to substitute ἐστί (for ἦν) in such a sentence as _that_, was obvious.... Chrysostom’s opinion is well known, “Let us beware of putting the full stop” (he says) “at the words οὐδὲ ἐν,—as do the heretics.” [He alludes to Valentinus, Heracleon (Orig. _Opp._ i. 130), and to Theodotus (_apud_ Clem. Alex.). But it must be confessed that Irenæus, Hippolytus (_Routh, Opusc._ i. 68), Clemens Alex., Origen, Concil. Antioch. (A.D. 269, _Routh_ iii. 293), Theophilus Antioch., Athanasius, Cyril of Jer.,—besides of the Latins, Tertullian, Lactantius, Victorinus (_Routh_ iii. 459), and Augustine,—point the place in the same way. “It is worth our observation,” (says Pearson,) “that Eusebius citing the place of S. John to prove that the HOLY GHOST was made by the SON, leaves out those words twice together by which the Catholics used to refute that heresy of the Arians, viz. ὁ γέγονεν.”]