27. On the other hand, when the meaning of a passage ap peared to the transcribers elliptical, obscure, or imperfect, they frequently supplied the noun, verb, or pronoun, etc., from the context. This also is audacity.
1 " Glossema." The meaning is, that where Canon 25 is cited in the Crisis, the author considers the reading in question a gloss. — (I. B.)
2 Eberhard David Hauber, a learned Lutheran divine of the last century, was author of" Harmonie der Evangelisten." — (I. B.)
This is also contained in Canon 35, to which the reader is therefore referred.
28. It frequently occurred, that when transcribers had changed a previous expression, verb, number, case, or tense, being unwill ing to erase what they had written, and thus blot the copy, they have adhered to their mistake throughout the whole pas sage. Innumerable examples of such continuous alteration occur.
The principle of this Canon is identical with that of the fourth, to which the reader is therefore referred.
29. The Reading of the Received Text is to be the more effective.
The genuine reading is always the most effective : but effi ciency, the companion of native simplicity, must be distinguished from that false colouring so pleasing to the Greeks. Thus, in Matt, xxiii. 8 ; 2 Cor. viii. 8 ; Rev. xi. 1 7, this Canon, though brought by Maestricht in defence of the Text, fights bravely in support of the marginal reading.
30. Every Manuscript usually omits something.
An useless Canon. It is clearly contained in Canon 9.
31. Every Manuscript usually adds something. A Canon of the same value.
32. Differences of punctuation (or commas and full stops placed differently), as well as the conjunction or division of words, which occur in MSS., do not amount to a diversity of reading, because in ancient MSS. the text is frequently un- punctuated, and the words run into each other. Hence have frequently arisen the fusion of two words into one, or the division of one word into two. But this belongs rather to the inter preters and explainers of the text, than to criticism.
This is not a Canon at all.
33. An omission or variation has frequently occurred, when the construction of a verb or preposition might be equally ap plied to the words farther off, or to ike nearer words. Trans cribers have frequently erred from this cause.
As far as Variation is concerned, this Observation does not determine, which is the genuine Reading. We have already spoken of omission, when considering the twenty-sixth Canon.
34. Refer also the number or numbers of the Canons, which