(2) V.2 om. éyé, BD am fu Syr-vg Boh: Iren Orig +t Tert.
(3) V.4 71. 6 Barrigwy év 7H ép. knptoowr, B33. (4) V.° bm’ atrod after éBarr., BL 33 (8 69). (5) V.° xat for dé, NBL 33 Lat-vg bd ff! g! Boh. (6) V.6 6’Iw. for Iw., XBPL al® 1 69, (7) V.2 om. wév, NBL 33 69: Orig. (8) V.8 om. év, 1° NBAH 33 al8 Lat-ve: Orig. (9) V.8 om. év, 2° BL b Lat-vg.
(10) V.2° cis for én’, BD 69 a 8.
TEXTUAL CRITICISM (OF NT)
(11) V.% hi hu. for qu. reco, NBL 33: Orig us.
(12) V."4 kat for 5é, BD# a (c) Boh ?.
(13) V.14 om. rijs Baoidelas, NBL 1 33 69 be ff!
Boh Syr-sin: Orig.
(14) V.28 Siuwvos, NBLM (a Boh AE? A 1 69).
(15) V.18 dugiBdddovras without add., NBL 33.
(16) V.8 om. avrév, NBCL ff! g? Lat-vg Boh (D).
(Liz) WY epee: ér\lyor, BDL labit? Syr-vg oh. :
(18) V.?9 om. atrév, RABC*DL Latt Boh.
(19) V.2 add ed@vs, NBL 133 Boh: Orig.
(20) V. om.”Ea, SBD Latt Syr-sin-vg Boh.
* gwricav for xpdgav, NBL 33: Orig.
abrovs for mpés abro’s, NB (b e ff? q).
tl éorw Totro; didaxh Kawh Kar’ éfouciav,
NBL (1) 33 Boh. cat for dé, SBCDLAM 33.
(25) V.°8 add mwavraxod, BC(N°L) 69 b e 9 Boh.
68. The internal evidence, as we have seen, is strongly in favour of the ‘ Neutral’ Text in many of these cases. In none is it clearly unfavour- able. What are we to say of the documents by which it is supported ?
The first point that will strike us as we go through the list is the variation in size in the attesting groups. At times, ¢.g., (1) we have an array as strong and varied in its contents as we could desire, including 7 good MSS, all the early Versions, and abundant ante-Nicene Patristic evi- dence. Side by side with this we find in (3) only one uncial and one cursive. In fact the only constant supporter of the whole series of readings is the single uncial MS, B. Clearly we must test our ground most carefully if we are to rest securely on evidence that is liable from time to time to be reduced to such slender proportions.
69. What, then, is the real foundation for the authority which WH claim for B?
First and foremost it rests, they tell us, on ‘Internal Evidence of Readings.’* They claim that the great majority of readings, even when but slenderly supported, approve themselves as genu- ine after repeated examination. The 25 examples before us certainly tend to confirm this judgment. The case does not, however, rest purely on inter- nal considerations. It is confirmed, so far as the evidence at our disposal will enable us to speak, by ‘genealogy.’ In this connexion the reading in v.4 is once more most instructive. It supplies us with a clear proof of the existence of a third type of text distinct alike from the Western and Alex- andrian, and presenting a reading which may well explain the origin of both, and it helps us to ap- preciate the significance of the fact that in other cases the same MS, which in cases like this is seen to preserve a text independent of both the other early groups, supports now one and now the other of hone groups against its rival. In other words, except in the comparatively rare cases in which both the Western and Alexandrian text have gone astray in the same place, B has uniformly the support of one set of authorities or the other, i.e. it would naturally rank both as an early Western authority as compared with the Alexandrian group, and as an early Alexandrian authority against the Westerns. Or, to put the same thing from the
* Dr. Bernhard Weiss has published in various numbers of Texte und Untersuchungen a careful examination of the text of the leading uncials as determined exclusively by a study of ‘the Internal Evidence of Readings.’ His results are sum- marized conveniently in Kenyon’s Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the NT, p. 264f. They supply a striking and entirely independent corroboration of WH’s estimate of the relative purity of the text of B. f ;
The present writer is glad of this opportunity of calling attention to Dr. Kenyon’s Handbook. It contains, besides other matter which none but so expert a paleographer could supply, a statement of the questions at issue in the present state of Textual Criticism which is eminently clear and fair.
eee
TEXTUAL CRITICISM (OF NT) 231
other side, both the Western and the Alexandrian texts are fundamentally ‘neutral’ in a large pro- portion of their readings. And the further back we can trace either of them, and more especially the Western, where the evidence, though still far from complete, is yet relatively abundant, the more closely do its readings as a whole approximate to the ‘ Neutral’ Text.
70. In the light of this fact we may estimate more truly the extent of the confirmation which the text of B receives from other primary authorities. f.g. in the passage before us it is supported by 8 in 19, by Lin 18, by 33 in 12, by D in 9 out of the 25 cases. C is extant in 10, and supports B in 3. _ Latin evidence of one kind or another supports B in 16, the Bohairic in 13, Syr-sin in 2 out of 8 passages where it definitely supports one or other of the variants (in 3 passages Syr-sin presents us with a new variant). Origen, who in some cases supports the rival reading as well, is quoted in support of B in 8 cases, and Irenzeus in 2. These results correspond closely with the anticipations which Dr. Hort’s words in § 235 would have led us to form.