xx. 18, xxvii. 1, etc.; (3) those in which exact information appears to characterise the references of β to places, circumstances, persons, cf., in addition to passages of this character already noticed under (1), xi. 28, xii. 1, 10, xvi. 35, xviii, 18, 27, xix. 14, xx. 15, xxi. 16, xxiv. 27, xxviii. 16, 19 (see for these passages Zéckler, Greifswalder Studien, p. 134 ff., and notes in apparatus criticus, and in opposition to the view of Zéckler Mr. Page’s detailed list of passages in D, all of which he regards as bearing traces of being subsequent cor- rections of the text by a second-rate hand, Classical Review, p. 319, July, 1897, and Blass’s reply, Philology of the Gospels, p. 123).
If an examination of these passages, which vary considerably in value and importance, and the proofs of the existence of a second- century Latin text convince us that the readings in B are not to be hastily rejected as the glosses of a careless or blundering scribe, it cannot be said that we are in a position to account for the origin of the Western readings, or that a solution of the problem is yet attained. The hypothesis of Blass, tempting as it is, and simple as it is, wants verification, and the very simplicity which commends it to its supporters is often a sore stumbling-block to its acceptance, inasmuch as it does not seem to account for all the facts of the case. But at the present stage of the controversy it is of interest to note that the honoured name of Theodor Zahn, Einleitung, ii., 340, 1899, may be added to those who accept in the main Blass’s position, amongst whom may be mentioned Nestle, Belser, Zéckler, Salmon.? Zahn makes some reservations, e.g., with regard to xv. 29 (see in
1In 1891 Professor Harris regarded the readings of Codex D (see Blass, edit. min., p. xx.) as the result of their adaptation to the Latin version of a bilingual MS. which carries us back to the middle of the second century, a view which he has somewhat modified in 1894, Four Lectures, etc., p. viii., although still maintaining a certain amount of Latinisation. Schmiedel, Enc. Bidl., i., 52, 1899, recently sup- ports Harris, and maintains that the Greek of D rests partly on retranslation from the Latin. In his later book Dr. Harris examines the theory of Dr. Chase, that the peculiarities of Codex D are due to retranslation from an old Syriac version, pp. 14, 68, and maintains that whilst Dr. Chase’s position is justified in so far that we possess evidence of an old Syriac text of Acts, yet his explanation of the Western variants as due to a Syriac glossator cannot be sustained, see also Zéckler, th. S., Ῥ. 131, and Headlam, ‘‘ Acts,” Hastings’ B.D.
3 Amongst the keenest attacks upon the theory may be noted that of B. Weiss
in Codex D in der Apostelgeschichte, 1897; Page, Classical Review, July, 1897, and ‘more recently, Harnack, see notes on xi. 28 and xv. 29; Schmiedel in Enc. Bibl.,
50-56, 1899. Wendt’s examination of the question, Apostelgeschichte (1899), pp. 43-53,
should also be carefully considered, whilst Blass has replied to the strictures of
Harnack and Zahn in Studien und Kritiken, i., 1909.
’