What we learn from collations It may seem that working with collations is a rather specialized task, and that the use of a critical apparatus is enough for the ordinary student. This is true in some instances, but much oversimplified. A collation can teach us a great deal about a manuscript that cannot be learned from the apparatus criticus. The collation, unlike the apparatus, teaches us something about the nature of the manuscript itself. We learn, therefore, that Claromontanus has no authority when there are genuine variants of this type.
Most manuscripts have some such idiosyncrasies.
1799 inserts adelfoi according to the lectionary, and so is unreliable for the handful of legitimate variants involving this word. And so forth. None of these facts can be learned from a critical apparatus, and most are quickly obvious in a collation. In addition, a collation is a complete catalog of the readings of a manuscript, whereas a critical apparatus is always limited. As an example, consider the collation of Hebrews already cited above.