Page:Old English Gospel of Nicodemus - Hulme 1904.djvu/5

Rh versions A and B, and to a possible older original. The lacuna occurs, to be sure, at the same place in the narrative as given by both A and B, but it has been shown that the language and stylistic differences between these two versions are too extensive for the one to be a simple copy of the other. That is, B, which is evidently later than A, is apparently not a copy of A, but both are probably copies of an older original. Moreover, since C does not begin the story before the lacuna, the presumption in favor of the older original is made stronger. And it therefore seems to me not at all improbable that C is also a copy of the same original, from which a few leaves (corresponding to the lacuna) had been lost.

The copyist of C, as Förster has already shown, dealt very freely with his original, omitting words, clauses, and sentences at will, making frequent additions, often inverting the word-order, and showing especial fondness for indirect discourse, where A and B employ direct. It is, however, to be observed that there are not a few passages and a multitude of separate sentences in C which, excepting the different word-forms due to the later date of the MS, find exact correspondence in A. There are likewise a few instances in which agrees C with B rather than with A. The changes which the copyist of C evidently made were, as compared with A and B, undoubtedly intended to make the meaning clearer and the thought more forcible. In other words, there is perceptible throughout C a strong tendency toward modernization; and it is worthy of remark that the copyist of C treats his original with greater freedom, especially through compression and abbreviation, as he approaches the end of the narrative.

As to the date of the MSS A and B, we are, I think, safe in saying that they both belong to the eleventh century; and I also think that B is later than A. The Cambridge MS was, we know,