The defect common to it with the edition of Tregelles is failure to deal on any clear principle with the numerous instances in which the ancient texts on which they placed their reliance do not agree. All goes smoothly when Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus (B) and Codex Bezae (D) and the most ancient versions bear the same testimony; but what is to be done when the trusted guides follow divergent paths 2
2. It is by the answer which they have given to this question that Westcott and Hort have made an epoch-making contribution to the science of Biblical Criticism in the first volume of their monumental work, The New Testament in the Original Greek, published in 1881. Following up hints thrown out by earlier in- vestigators, like Bengel and Griesbach, they discriminated three types of text prevalent in ancient times, before the period of eclectic revision which fixed to a great extent the character of the text in actual use throughout the Middle Ages and on to the dawn of modern criticism. To these types they gave the names Western, Alexandrian, and Neutral. The last epithet is to be understood only when viewed in relation to the other two. The Western and Alexandrian types of text had very well-marked characteristics. The Western was paraphrastic, the Alexandrian literary. The tendency of the one was to alter the primitive tex. by explanatory additions with a view to edification, made by men who combined to a certain extent the functions of copyist and commentator. The tendency of the other was to improve the text fro a literary point of view by scholarly refinements. The neutral text is neutral in the sense of avoiding both these tendencies and aiming steadily at the faithful reproduction of the exemplar assumed to approach in its text as near as possible to the autographs. A text adhering honestly to this programme ought to be the most reliable guide to the original Greek Testament as it proceeded from the hands of the writers, making due allowance for errors in the exemplar and for mistakes in transcription. The result of investigation has been to justify this expectation.
3. The main representative of the Western text is Codex Bezae (D), containing the Gospels and the Acts. Of the Alexandrian text there is no pure example. This divergent stream broke up into rills, and lost itself as a mere element in mixed texts, like those of Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Ephraemi (C). It is important to note by the way that these names do not denote local prevalence. The Western text was not merely Western. This divergent stream overflowed its banks and spread itself widely over the Church,