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Rh ments. The comparison leaves little room for doubt that they merely belong to an extreme type of paraphrastic alteration, and are not essentially different from readings which betray an equally lax conception of transcription, and yet are transparently guiltless of any fraudulent intention. In a word, they bear witness to rashness, not to bad faith.

370. It is true that dogmatic preferences to a great extent determined theologians, and probably scribes, in their choice between rival readings already in existence: scientific criticism was virtually unknown, and in its absence the temptation was strong to believe and assert that a reading used by theological opponents had also been invented by them. Accusations of wilful tampering with the text are accordingly not unfrequent in Christian antiquity: but, with a single exception, wherever they can be verified they prove to be groundless, being in fact hasty and unjust inferences from mere diversities of inherited text. The one known exception is in the case of Marcion's dogmatic mutilation of the books accepted by him: and this was, strictly speaking, an adaptation for the use of his followers; nor had it apparently any influence outside the sect. Other readings of his, which he was equally accused of introducing, belonged manifestly to the texts of the copies which came into his hands, and had no exceptional character or origin. The evidence which has recently come to light as to his disciple Tatian's Diatessaron has shown that Tatian habitually abridged the language of the passages which he combined; so that the very few known omissions which might be referred to a dogmatic purpose can as easily receive another explanation. The absence of perceptible fraud in the origination of any of the various readings