of their successive particles, and therefore often but imperfectly.
354. For some six centuries after it was written Β appears to have undergone no changes in its text except from the hand of the 'corrector', the 'second hand'. Among his corrections of clerical errors are scattered some textual changes, clearly marked as such by the existence of very early authority for both readings: the readings which he thus introduces imply the use of a second exemplar, having a text less pure than that of the primary exemplar, but free from clear traces of Syrian influence. The occurrence of these definite diversities of text renders it unsafe to assume that all singular readings which he alters were individualisms of the first hand, though doubtless many of them had no other origin. The scale of alteration was however very limited: hardly any of the corrections affect more than two or three letters, except the insertions of rightly or wrongly omitted words. Some few of the early corrections perceptible in the MS appear to have been made by the original scribe himself; and to his hand Tischendorf refers seven alternative readings placed in the margin of Matt. xiii 52; xiv 5; xvi 4; xxii 10; xxvii 4; Luke iii i (bis). In the tenth or eleventh century, according to Tischendorf's apparently well founded judgement, the faded characters of the fourth century were retraced in darker ink. The readings adopted for renewal were almost always those of the second hand; and words or longer portions of text wrongly repeated by the original scribe were left untouched. There was no systematic attempt to correct the text itself, except as regards the orthography, which was for the most part assimilated to the common literary standard; but Syrian readings were introduced here and there, though rarely, if ever, in cases where there would be more than a trifling difference in the space occupied by the old and the new readings respectively. We have passed over the readings of this third hand of Β in the Appendix because they not only were inserted at a very late period, but exhibit no distinctive internal character. Confusion between the second and third hands of Β has led to much error; and it is only of late that the true history of the changes undergone by the MS has been fully understood.
355. The original writing of א has escaped retracement, but it has been altered much at different times. The three principal hands alone need mention here. The 'cor-