Even the condition of the copies that were made from the autograph writings of the apostles does not speak well for the care which the Roman Church took of the Bible, assuming, of course, that she existed in those early centuries.  “It is evident that the original purity (of the New Testament text) was early lost. . . .  Irenaeus (in the second century) alludes to the differences between the copies. . . .  Origen, early in the third century, expressly declares that matters were growing worse. . . .  From the fourth century onward we have the manuscript text of each century, the writings of the Fathers, and the various Oriental and Occidental versions, all testifying to varieties of readings.” (New Schaff-Herzog Encycl., II, 102.) Our sole purpose in calling attention to this fact, which every scholar to-day knows, is, to bring the fervor of Catholic admiration for the Bible-protecting and Bible-preserving Church of Rome somewhat within the bounds of reason.  We do not charge the Roman Church with having corrupted the text, but if the claim of Catholics as to the age of their Church is correct, every corruption in the copies that were made from the original documents occurred while she was exercising her remarkable custodianship over the Bible.  That officials of the Church, especially as we approach the Middle Ages, had something to do with corrupting the sacred text is the belief of the authority just quoted.  “The early Church,” he says, “did not know anything of that anxious clinging to the letter which characterizes the scientific rigor and the piety of modern times, and therefore was not bent upon preserving the exact words.  Moreover, the first copies were made rather for private than for public use.”  Not a few were found in sarcophagi; they had been buried with their owners.  “Copyists were careless, often wrote from dictation, and were liable to misunderstand.  Attempted improvements of the text in grammar and style; efforts to harmonize the quotations in the New Testament with the Greek of the Septuagint, but especially to harmonize the Gospels; the writing out of abbreviations; incorporation of marginal notes in the text; the embellishing of the Gospel narratives with stories drawn from non-apostolic, though trustworthy, sources,—­it is to these that we must attribute the very numerous ‘readings’ or textual variations.  It is true that the copyists were sometimes learned men; but their zeal in making corrections may have obscured the true text as much as the ignorance of the unlearned.  The copies, indeed, came under the eye of an official reviser, but he may have sometimes exceeded his functions, and done more harm than good by his changes.”