Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/144

106 the cursives. The like rough distribution of the three great families of versions which date from early times will be as follows: to α the Egyptian, and to β the Old Latin and Old Syriac; while the later versions, dating from the fourth and following centuries (one perhaps a little earlier), with one limited exception include δ readings, and two here exhibit δ readings alone.

150. To the best of our belief the relations thus provisionally traced are never inverted. We do not know of any places where the α group of documents supports readings apparently conflate from the readings of the β and δ groups respectively, or where the β group of documents supports readings apparently conflate from the readings of the α and δ groups respectively. Hence it is certain not only that the δ readings were always posterior in date to the α and the β readings in variations illustrating the relation between these three groups by means of conflation, but also that the scribes or editors who originated these δ readings made use in one way or another of one or more documents containing these α readings, and one or more documents containing these β readings; that is, they either wrote with documents of both classes before them, or wrote from documents of one class which had readings from the other class written in the margin, or wrote from documents of one class while carrying in their own minds reminiscences from documents of the other class of which they had had knowledge at some previous time.

151. Now it is morally impossible that their use of documents of either or both classes should have been confined to those places in which conflation enables us to detect it in actual operation. The facts observed thus far do not forbid the hypothesis that the originators