reaching even the East. Hence traces of its influence are to be found not merely in the old Latin versions, but also in the Syriac versions, ¢.g., in what is called the Curetonian Syriac, and in the recently discovered Syriac version of the Four Gospels, which may be distinguished as the Sinaitic Syriac. Of the neutral text, the great, conspicuous, honourable monument is Codex Vaticanus ( B), containing the Gospels, Acts, and Catholic epistles, and the epistles of St. Paul, as far as Heb. ix. 14; and being, especially in the Gospels, a nearly pure reproduction of a text uninfluenced by the tendencies of the Western and Alexandrian texts respectively. To this MS., belonging like Codex Sinaiticus to the fourth century, Westcott and Hort, after applying to it all available tests, assign the honour of being on the whole the nearest approach to the original verity in existence, always worthy of respect and often deserving to be followed when it stands alone against all comers. A very important conclusion if it can be sustained.
4. In recent years a certain reaction against the critical rcsults of Westcott and Hort has been manifesting itself to the effect of imputing to them an overweening estimate of Codex B, analogous to that of Tischendorf for Codex 8. Some scholars, such as Resch in Germany and Ramsay in this country, are disposed to insist that more value should be set on Codex D; the former finding in it the principal witness for the text of the Gospels in their precanonical stage, the assumption being that when the four-Gospel canon was constructed the text underwent a certain amount of revision. The real worth of «Πΐ5 Codex is one of the unsettled questions of New Testament textual criticism. Irteresting contributions have been made to the discussion of the question, such as those of J. Rendel Harris, and more may be expected.