rinted as Noteworthy Rejected Readings in a ist at the end of the volume. Whether this list would have received large additions had they had access to Syr-si is an interesting question on which something must be said presently. The only point which it is worth while to emphasize at this stage is this. They state expressly that they were not prevented by any genealogical considerations from accepting any ‘Western’ reading. Only, they found very few that seemed to them commended by internal evidence (§§ 269-273).
We must postpone for the present the question, raised by Mr. Burkitt,}+ whether we are bound to attach such weight to the demonstrable antiquity of the readings supported by a combination of the earliest Syriac and the earliest Latin authorities as to enable us to dispense with the necessity of applying the test of ‘the Internal Evidence of Documents’ to the readings of this as of any other group, before taking it as the foundation for a reconstruction of the text.
64. The Alexandrian readings in our passage are few, but thoroughly representative of the class. They include—
(1) The insertion of cat before «nptcowy in v.4.
(2) The omission of eice\év, with various rearrangements of the words in v.21,
(3) The insertion of "Ea in v.24,
(4) otdamev for otda in the same verse.
To these we should add—
(5) V.? ins. ey, also Syrian,
(6) V.14 6é for cal, also Syrian.
(7) V.*" rpés abrovs, perhaps Alex. as well as Western and Syrian.
These readings are relatively far less numerous and less startling than the ‘ Western,’ and in con- sequence their identification by WH as a dis- tinct class was a triumph of delicate and patient analysis,} and writers who are not alive to the necessity for finding a clue through the maze of the concordia discors of the small group of demon- strably early authorities, still find it possible and
* See esp. Dr. Chase’s note, zbid. p. 180.
t Introd. to Barnard’s Biblical Test of Clement, p. xvii ff.
{ It is important to bear in mind the fact, to which attention has already been called, that the discovery was only rendered possible by the help in different ways of both x and B. Gries- bach, therefore, whom we might naturally have expected to
lead the way in this as in other directions, had not the materials on which to show his skill as a pioneer,
convenient to despise the evidence on which this part of WH’s classification rests. No one, however, who will be at the pains to study the readings of the group NCLA through the rest of the Gospel will doubt either the soundness or the importance of the conclusion. WH tabulate upwards of 70 examples, printing 11 either in text or margin; see 121. 24, 45 35. 7 48 921. 25 1048 qj 151, The readings similarly treated, 31” 422 5% 614. 23. 8 99.30 1930 544, seem to differ from these only by the fact that they were adopted by the Syrian revisers. We must not, however, forget that these are all picked specimens, and cannot be fairly judged apart from their companions.
65. The results of our examination were not favourable to the genuineness of any of the 6 (or 7) examples that are immediately before us. Our study will, however, help us to appreciate the accuracy of WH’s sketch of the general character- istics of the class (§ 183). ‘The changes made have usually more to do with language than matter, and are marked by an effort after correct- ness of phrase. They are evidently the work of careful leisurely hands, and not seldom display a delicate philological tact which unavoidably lends them at first sight a deceptive appearance of origin- ality.’ ‘Some of the modes of change described above as belonging to incipient paraphrase occur as distinctly here as in the Western texts, though as a rule much more sparingly ; and the various forms of assimilation, especially harmonistic alteration and interpolation in the Gospels, recur likewise, and at times are carried out in a very skilful manner.’
The example in vy.‘ is an excellent specimen of the class referred to in the closing sentence of § 184: ‘The most instructive distributions, as ex- hibiting distinctly the residual pre-Syrian text, which is neither Western nor Alexandrian, are those produced by the simultaneous aberration of the Western and Alexandrian texts, especially when they severally exhibit independent modes of easing an apparent difficulty in the text ante- cedent to both.’
66. The subsidiary attestation that they receive both from versions and from ante-Nicene Patristic quotations is remarkable.
In (1) they have the support of the Bohairic.
In (2) (in one form or another) of Boh Syr-sin ond some old Latin MSS, besides Origen in 4 places.
In (3) they are supported by Origen and Eusebius.
‘ In (4) by Boh Orig? Eus‘, besides Origi™*? Trenint1 ert.
In (5) by Orig 3 Eus.
Tn (6) by Orig Eus.
67. We come now to the last and in many respects the most difficult part of our task—the examina- tion of the evidence for ‘the residual pre-Syrian Text, which is neither Western nor Alexandrian,’ and to which in consequence WH gave, as we have seen, the name ‘Neutral.’ The specimens peter’ us, with the authorities attesting them, are these—
(1) V.2 ré ’Ho. 7G rpop., NB(D)LA 1 33 Latt Syr-vg Boh: Orig Irens™ Porph.