Appendix I. Honeycomb— Àx ¼µ»¹ÃÃw¿Å º·Áw¿Å. [The Dean left positive instructions for the publication of this Dissertation, as being finished for Press.] I propose next to call attention to the omission from St. Luke xxiv. 42 of a precious incident in the history of our Lord's Resurrection. It was in order effectually to convince the Disciples that it was Himself, in His human body, who stood before them in the upper chamber on the evening of the first Easter Day, that He inquired, [ver. 41] “Have ye here any meat? [ver. 42] and they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, AND OF AN HONEYCOMB.” But those four last words (º±v Àx ¼µ»¹ÃÃw¿Å º·Áw¿Å) because they are not found in six copies of the Gospel, are by Westcott and Hort ejected from the text. Calamitous to relate, the Revisers of 1881 were by those critics persuaded to exclude them also. How do men suppose that such a clause as that established itself universally in the sacred text, if it be spurious? “How do you suppose,” I shall be asked in reply, “if it be genuine, that such a clause became omitted from any manuscript at all?” I answer,—The omission is due to the prevalence in the earliest age of fabricated exhibitions of the Gospel narrative; in which, singular to relate, the incident recorded in St. Luke xxiv. 41-43 was identified with that other mysterious repast which St. John describes in his last chapter405 . It seems incredible, at first sight, that an attempt would ever be made to establish an enforced harmony between incidents exhibiting so many points of marked contrast: for St. Luke speaks of (1) “broiled fish [0Ǹ{¿Â @ÀÄ¿æ] 405
St. John xxi. 9-13.
[241]