Note 129 — Chapter III · THEORY AND PRAXIS OF THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.[129]

I could desire no better motto for this third section than the words of Augustine: Codicibus emendandis primitus debet invigilare sollertia eorum qui scripturas nosse desiderant, ut emendatis non emendati cedant (De Doctrina Christiana, ii. 14, 21, where the saying about the interpretum numerositas, cited on page 108, is also found). Or if not these words, then those of our Lord himself, γίνεσθε δόκιμοι τραπεζῖται, which Origen applied to the verification of the canon, but which, taken in the sense of 1 Thess. v. 21, are equally applicable to the work of the “lower” criticism. Apollos, the pupil of Marcion, also vindicated the right of Biblical criticism with these same words. Epiphanius, Haeres., xliv. 2 (Zahn, GK., i. 175).