The rule that the shorter text is the more original is a subdivision of Bengel’s canon. It is specially the case when two longer forms are opposed to it which are mutually exclusive and whose origin can be explained from the shorter. As examples of this Zahn adduces, in addition to the double conclusion of Mark’s Gospel, the following:—

John vi. 47: πιστεύων, א B L T, + “in God,” Syr^{cu. sin}, + εἰς ἐμέ A C D Γ Δ Λ Π....

John vii. 39: πνεῦμα, א K T Π, + ἅγιον L X Γ Δ Λ, + δεδομένον it vg^cle, + ἅγιον ἐπ’ αὐτοῖς, D f goth, + ἅγιον δεδομένον, B 254 Syr^{sin. hark}....

James v. 7: πρόϊμον, B 31, pr. ὑετὸν A K L P, pr. καρπὸν א 9 ff etc.

It is equally clear that a reading is incorrect which proves to be a mixture of two others (conflate readings). The respective claims of these others must be adjudged on other considerations. Thus we have—

In general that reading will have the best claim to originality which stands first in the combination. Further illustrations are unnecessary.

In order to fulfil the promise of the title of this chapter, the foregoing exposition of the Theory of New Testament criticism should be succeeded by a further part dealing with its Praxis. Such a part would contain particular illustrations of the way in which the criticism of the text has been handled by our authorities hitherto and the way in which it must be treated in accordance with the foregoing principles. The following notes do not and cannot claim to be a complete fulfilment of this great task, more especially as in the preceding part we were unable to arrive at a finished system of textual criticism. I have therefore contented myself with bringing together a series of passages of interest from a critical point of view. In doing so I have freely drawn upon Zahn’s Introduction. For this I feel sure the reader will thank me, while at the same time I trust that the author will pardon the liberty I have taken. I have made use, as far as possible, of the additional material afforded by editions later than those of Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort, particularly of the Sinai-Syriac. This collection may therefore serve in some degree to supplement our commentaries, which, though their merits in other directions are to be freely conceded, still leave much to be desired in the matter of textual criticism. A purely critical commentary on the New Testament is a great desideratum. The following notes are to be regarded not as the commencement of such a work, but simply as a stimulus thereto. I myself felt it to be a defect in the small Stuttgart edition of the New Testament that want of space obliged me to omit all references to the origin and significance of the various readings selected from manuscripts. For many of these an Annotatio Critica in an Appendix like that in the larger edition of v. Gebhardt would scarcely have been sufficient. What information, e.g., would it have imparted to a reader to have given the numbers of the two minuscules 346, 556 after the reading in Matt. i. 16? What he needs is an Apparatus Criticus or a Commentarius Criticus such as Bengel appended to his edition, or like that which Burk published separately in his second issue. Ed. Miller has promised to give us one for the Gospels, only it will proceed on principles which very few of us will be able to accept.