71. In the case of 8 and the oldest form both of the Latin and of the Syriac Versions, it is important to examine the extent and the limitations of their support more closely.
Let us take first the relation of these two MSS of the Greek text to one another. The amount of agreement between 8 and B in readings in which they stand almost or altogether alone is so great that there can be no doubt, on ‘genealogical’ grounds, that for a considerable part of their con- tents they preserve unchanged the text of a common original. What, then, we are forced to ask, is the length of the interval which sepa- rates each of them from this common ancestor? Or, in other words, to what extent are we justi- fied in regarding their testimonies as ‘ independ- ent’?
72. To Mr. Miller the case seems very simple. The MSS were certainly written in the same genera- tion ; in part, as it would seem, by the same scribe. What more is wanted, in view of their admitted agreement in a peculiar type of text, to prove that they are ‘twin products of a lost exemplar,’ and to justify us in quoting them as ‘N-B,’ linked by a hyphen, as certain groups of cursives are linked, and as Mr. Cronin (J7'S vol. ii. p. 590) has proved that the Codices Purpurese (N-2-Sinop) should be linked, because they are all derived directly from one and the same MSS?
Dean Burgon was more cautious. His minute comparison of the two MSS had impressed him very strongly with the extent not only of the agreement, but of the differences between them. He writes of them (Zrad. Text, p. 33) as ‘ closely resembling one another, yet standing apart in every page so seriously that it is easier to find two con- secutive verses in which they differ than two con- secutive verses in which they entirely agree.’ And, though he would have it that the ‘idea of fixing the date of the common ancestor of B and & is based upon pure speculation’ (groups of attested variations being for some unexplained reason ex- cluded from the category of facts), yet he was perfectly well aware that the differences between the two MSS required ‘several generations’ of transcription to account for them. Only he was able to persuade himself that, at a time when the demand for fresh copies must have been very great, these generations could ‘have been given off in two or three years’ (70. p. 73).
73. The treatment of the problem in WH (Jnér. §§ 287-304) is very different in character. Few better examples could be found of Hort’s inexhaustible fer- tility in conceiving hypotheses which might fit the
232 TEXTUAL CRITICISM (OF NT)
facts by which he was confronted, and the patient consideration which he was prepared to give to each before he pronounced judgment on it. The passage is too long to extract, and too condensed already to admit of further condensation. It cannot, however, be too earnestly commended to the consideration of all students.
Far too many of the theories that have been recently put forward have been framed without reference to the facts to which these paragraphs call attention. Meanwhile we must content our- selves with the summary of his conclusions, given by Hort himself (ed. min. p. 559) : ‘If B and 8 were for a great part of their text derived from a proxi- mate common original, that common original, whatever might have been its own date, must have had a very ancient and a very pure text. There is, however, no tangible evidence for this supposition; while various considerations, drawn from careful comparison of the accessory attesta- tion of readings supported by NB together, by B against 8, and by N against B respectively, render it morally certain that the ancestries of B and of N diverged from a point near the autographs, and never came into contact subsequently ; so that the coincidence of NB marks those portions of text in which two primitive and entirely separate lines of transmission had not come to differ from each other through independent corruption in the one or the other.’
74. The passage of Mark already before us will supply material by which we can at once illustrate and test the force of the argument on which this conclusion rests. We have already examined the most remarkable of the readings in which 8 and B agree in the course of our study of the ‘Syrian,’ ‘Western,’ and ‘ Neutral’ texts in these verses; and certainly the standard of excellence which the two MSS reach in combination is very high. Whatever the date of their common original, ‘it must,’ judging by internal considerations in those parts of it which we can at once restore with con- fidence, ‘have had a very pure text.’ The accessory evidence for a large proportion of these readings makes it clear at the same time that it is also ‘a very ancient’ text.
75. The following list of readings in which the two authorities disagree will give us examples of the ‘various considerations’ to which Dr. Hort alludes, and so enable us to appreciate the rest of the pas- sage :—
(1) V.1 + vi0d Ge08, N*BDL ete. : Tren Orig™. —*: Iren 3 Orig Syr-hr. - ¢y, BD am fu Syr-vg Boh: Iren Orig +