Acts8chapter 8

The eunuch's confession of faith before baptism is missing from the earliest Greek manuscripts, though it was already known and quoted in the second century, most likely as a line from the church's baptism service that found its way into the text.

• The earliest Greek manuscripts of Acts, including Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Alexandrinus (4th, 5th centuries): No verse 37. Verse 36 is followed immediately by verse 38 and the descent into the water.
• Codex Laudianus, the earliest Greek manuscript known to carry the verse (about the 6th century): The confession, in a form close to the traditional one.
• Irenaeus and other second- and third-century writers (late 2nd, 3rd centuries): Quote the eunuch's confession as part of the story, so the words were known very early, whatever their origin.
• Latin witnesses and the later Greek tradition (5th century onward): Carry the verse, with noticeable variation in its exact wording from copy to copy, a sign of a text that circulated in speech before it was fixed in writing.