The collation of n with c d k q has been given with a view to possible utility in other enquiries; it has not a direct bearing on the main question before us. Turning back to the parts where a is extant, the aspect of the pages alone will show how very close is the relation of a and n in this Gospel-closer even than in St. Matthew. The left hand column is almost a blank, the greater number of the few variations that occur in it may be merely clerical. Among these must of course be included Mark viii. 35, where k n have 'salvavit,' a 'salvabit:' the tense is the same; it is only a very common instance of the interchange of b and v, such as we have again in xiii. 9: in both these cases n is in fault. The only points of real importance are five, those in Mark vii. 15, viii. 38, ix. 6, xiii. 11, 14. In the first of these a with 'foris hominis quod intrans in eum' is pretty certainly right: the reading in ʼn looks like a grammatical correction in the Latin, when it was no longer accompanied by the Greek. A somewhat similar process has taken place in viii. 38, this time on the side of a. There is more room to doubt about the reading in ix. 6. The Greek is eκpoßoɩ yàp ¿yévovto, with a variant oav yàp eκpoßol, of the Latins c i q have 'timore enim exterriti erant,' fl Vulg. 'erant enim timore exterriti' (apparently from the Greek alternative), b'timore enim perterriti erant,' a 'timore enim perterriti sunt,' n 'timore enim repleti sunt.' Here, if we simply follow the rule of going with the main body of the European MSS. we must obviously give

priority to a. But is not the reading of this main body open to some suspicion? 'Timore.. exterriti' has much the look of a conflation or double rendering: 'exterriti sunt' (or 'erant') alone would have been a quite sufficient rendering of ἔκφοβοι ἐγένοντο, which is only overloaded by the addition of 'timore.' Is it not possible that there were originally two renderings 'timore repleti sunt' (as n) and 'exterriti sunt' and that 'timore exterriti sunt' is a combination of them? This is, however, only put forward as a speculation which there is no means of verifying satisfactorily. The only other place where expoßos occurs, Heb. xii. 21, might appear to be slightly in its favour, as d Vulg. the two Latin authorities, extant, both have 'exterritus sum' and the dropping of 'timore' would hardly be accounted for by the difference between expoẞós elu and ěкpoßoɩ èyévovтo. In xiii. 11, n has a striking Graecism 'nec praemeletare,' corresponding to a Greek addition μŋdè πpoμeλetâte (found in Origen and apparently suggested by Luke xxi. 14) or μndè μedetâte (the reading of AX, &c.); a has 'nec praemeditare,' which we may take to be an improvement on the reading of n. This would seem to be a case in which the priority is on the side of n. The remaining reading, xiii. 14, is somewhat more ambiguous, 'intellegat quid dicit 'n, 'intellegat quidquid legit' a. The presence of 'quid legit' in d (b f are deficient) seems to make it probable that this was the original European reading, for which 'dicit' in n and the reduplication of 'quid' in a are scribe's

errors.

We reserve the further examination of the common element in a and n until we have before us the analysis of the 18 verses extant in St. John. Small as this fragment is, the divergences of the text are much greater than those with which we have come in contact hitherto.