Page:Gospel of Saint John in West-Saxon.djvu/31

Rh different countries of Western Europe, the current Vulgate text was subjected to a diversity of tradition in the retention of Old Latin readings, and to numerous independent recensions, so that there grew up both national and more local types of the Vulgate text; and such is the diversity in the readings of the mediaeval MSS. of the Vulgate that even within the limits of any type, perhaps no MS. agrees exactly with another.

Further complexity is introduced into the problem by the contact of the national types of the text In this contact may be read chapters of the ecclesiastical history of the times. Thus, the "Irish" type of text came into England through the agency of the mission from the North, and the Canterbury mission in the South brought in the Roman type. The resultant Anglo-Saxon (or British) type is therefore "mixed" (mêlé), being fundamentally Roman, but pervaded by Irish readings. The original of John, according to Professor Harris, was least affected by the influence of the Irish type and "was almost Hieronymian." In the case of Mark and Luke he finds "nothing so marked. There are many peculiar readings," he adds, "but there is no preponderance of the readings of any one type." The Latin original of the Version was thus probably tripartite in its representation