It would be easy to extend this list by including documents Avhich occasionally support the Alex- andrian text, but it will be found that the nucleus of the attestation for most of Hort's readings lies practically in the group i<BCLX 33, often sup- ported by the Egyptian versions.
At the .same time, it is most necessary to bear in mind that the greater part of the attestation for Hort's I'eadings is often aftbrded by documents which he classes as Western, and whose evidence he would put on one side were it not supi)orted by some member or members of the Alexandrian group. We proceed, therefore, to give a list of the main Western documents, which have not already been mentioned as containing an Alexandrian element.
D. Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, of the Gth century. This is in many ways the most interesting MS of the Gospels extant : its text is, to a great extent, unique, and gains in mterest and importance from the sujiport which it often receives from the most ancient versions known, the Old Latin and the Old Syriac. All evidence tends to show that it preserves for vis a text which was widely read in the 2nd cent., and the questions connected with this text are likely to increase rather than to decrease both in importance and in practical interest.
P and Q. Two ]>alimpsests preserved at Wolfenbiittel, assigned respectively to the Gth and ."ith centuries. P contains 31 frag- ments, consisting of 518 verses from all four Gospels ; Q 12 fragments of 247 verses from Lk. and .lohn. The ancient element in these MSS is partly Western and partly Alexandrian.
R. Codex Nitriensis, a palimpsest of the 6th cent., in the British Museum, contains 25 fragments of Lk., consisting of about 51(5 verses. The pre-.^ntiochian readings are mostly Western.
Two groups of minuscules are of importance. 1-118-131-200 are fairly closely related, and offer some interesting readings ; but far more important are the minuscules of the Ferrar grouj), mentioned above, i:j-C9-124-34(i-543-(788>-826. This group pre- serves the readings of a lost MS containing a peculiar Western text, different from that of I), but in a manner parallel to it. Another important minuscule, of the 9th or 10th cent., is pre- served at .St. Petersburg, and is named bv Miller-Scrivener 473 (505 of Gregory, 81 of Hort, 2i« of Tischendorf).
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TEXT OF THE GOSPELS
TEXT OF THE GOSPELS
The evidence of the Versions is of great importance in regard to the Western text, for it shows how widespread this text was in the earhest times, and teaches us that the name ' Western ' cannot properly be applied to it in a geographical sense. From East and West and from the south of Egypt we get evidence of the prevalence of distinctively Western types of readings.
The Old Latin (i.e. the pre- Vulgate Latin) is found in different forms, which have been distinguished as African, European, and Italic ; the last of these, however, approaches so nearly to the Vulgate text, that we shall now leave it on one side. The most important MS of the African Latin is k (Codex Bobbiensis), of the 5th or 6th cent., preserved at Turin. Unfortunately, it contains only portions of Mt. and Mark. The close agreement of its readings with the quotations of Cyprian proves that it contains a text used in Africa in early times ; e (Codex Palatinus), of the 4th or 5th cent., preserved at Vienna, contains a version of a similar type, though by no means so homogeneous as that of k. Of the European Latin there are several MSS : a, b, jf (Mt. only), h (part of Mt.), i (part of Mk. and Lk.), to (not a MS, but a collection of passages [testimonia] from the OT and NT, known as the ' Speculum ') ; this type is also found to some extent in c, /, and q, and in many fragments of MSS.
The text of the Latin Vulgate is preserved in very numerous MSS. It is fundamentally Western in character, as being a descendant of the Old Latin, but has been much modified, especially in the Gospels, by the influence of Greek MSS of the Antiochian type.
. In Syriac, the Peshitta Version holds a place analogous to St. Jerome's Vulgate in Latin, and supports the Antiochian text. Another Version, called by the followers of Hort the ' Old Syriac,' is preserved in two MSS ; one in the British Museum, the text of which was published by Cureton, is called after him the 'Curetonian Syriac' (Syr <="'") ; the other was discovered by Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson in the Library of the Convent on Mount Sinai, and is known as the 'Sinaitic Syriac' (Syrs'"). These Versions, allied, but by no means identical, have an essentially Western text. Another factor in the Syriac problem is the Dia- tessaron of Tatian (flourished a.d. 160), the text of which has to a great extent been recovered from an Arabic translation, from an Armenian translation of the Syriac commentary of Ephraem Syrus, and from the quotations of the Syrian writer Aphraates. The Diatessaron was a harmony of the four Gospels, which was widely used in Syriac-speaking countries in preference to the separate Gospels ; and in compiling it Tatian used a Western text, similar in character to the Old Syriac. The mutual rela- tions of these documents are still in dispute, but the most probable view is that the Old Syriac stands to the Peshitta as the Old Latin does to Jerome s Vulgate. Two later versions must be mentioned ; one is the Harkleian revision of the Philoxenian Syriac, made by Thomas of Harkel about the year 616, the text of which is based on the Peshitta, but important readings from Greek MSS of a Western type are given in the margin ; the other is an Evangelistarium, or Church-lesson book, of the 11th cent., known as the ' Jerusalem Syriac,' which sometimes offers very interesting readings of the Alexandrian type. It has already been stated that the Sahidic version of Upper Egypt is funda- mentally Western.