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280 several Versions and Fathers; while one representative of the Old Latin omits it altogether. External evidence is here strongly favourable to, as must be felt even by those who do not see any special significance in the concordance of and B. Internal evidence of transcription is absolutely certain on the same side, for  fully accounts for all four other readings, two of them being conjectural substitutes, two less audacious manipulations; while no other reading will account for the rest. Yet it is hardly less certain by intrinsic probability that cannot be right: in other words, it is the most original of recorded readings, the parent of the rest, and yet itself corrupt. Conditions of reading essentially the same, in a less striking form, occur here and there in other places.

366. But there is no adequate justification for assuming that primitive corruption must be confined to passages where it was obvious enough to catch the eye of ancient scribes, and would naturally thus lead to variation. Especially where the grammar runs with deceptive smoothness, and a wrong construction yields a sense plausible enough to cause no misgivings to an ordinary reader, there is nothing surprising if the kind of scrutiny required for deliberate criticism detects impossible readings accepted without suspicion by all transcribers. On the various kinds of primitive errors, and the nature of the evidence on which in each case their existence can be affirmed, we have said enough in the Second Part (§§ 85—92).

367. Little is gained by speculating as to the precise point at which such corruptions came in. They may be due to the original writer, or to his amanuensis if he wrote from dictation, or they may be due to one of the