for if anyone were able to gather every single manuscript, his power to alter some of the wording in all of them would be far easier than collating everything found in one copy with everything found in the rest.

Take, for instance, ten copies of a single book. Altering a few words in all ten is simpler than comparing each of the ten with the remaining nine, for collation requires knowing every word in every manuscript and confirming its correspondence with the others, whereas alteration only requires changing in each copy whatever one has changed in the others. Thus, if it is ordinarily impossible to tamper with every manuscript, then possessing certain knowledge that they are all identical is even more impossible. Conversely, if knowing their agreement is possible, then the possibility of altering some of their wording is still easier and more attainable.

As for their objection—“If it is said that some copies were altered while others were left unchanged, this cannot be, because the whole corpus is one and the wording is the same in every language”—we reply: The very possibility of such an assertion is obvious; no rational person can deny it, and in fact it has already occurred. We have seen the Torah held by the Samaritans differing from the Torah of the Jews and Christians (even within the Ten Commandments: the Samaritans include a command to face the mountain, which is absent from the Jewish and Christian manuscripts). Likewise, differences exist among the Jewish and Christian manuscripts themselves.