Dean Burgon on Manuscript Transmission

“[S]urely, if it be allowable to assume (with Hort) that for 1532 years, (viz. from A.D. 350 to A.D. 1882) the Antiochian standard has been faithfully retained and transmitted,- it will be impossible to assign any valid reason why the inspired Original itself, the Apostolic standard, should not have been as faithfully transmitted and retained from the Apostolic age to the Antiochian,- i.e. throughout an interval of less than 250 years, or one-sixth of the period.” – Dean Burgon, The Revision Revised, 295-296