Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/147

Rh reasons which have partly been noticed already, and which will appear more clearly further on. To these must here be added another group, which would be fitly marked γ, for, as we shall see, its originals must have preceded those of the Syrian group. The local relations of those of its habitual representatives which can be geographically fixed prescribe for it the name 'Alexandrian'.

154. We have hitherto spoken of the primary groups and the ancient texts attested by them with reference to the Gospels alone, where the evidence is at once most copious and most confused. For a full knowledge of their characteristics however it is necessary to pursue them through other books of the New Testament. St Paul's Epistles stand next to the Gospels in the instructiveness of their variations, and fortunately tolerably unmixed Western texts of them are preserved in two independent Greek uncials and in a large body of quotations from Latin Fathers. The Western attestation of the Acts is much less full, and suffers grievously in parts by the loss of leaves in the Codex Bezae (D); but still it can be fairly made out; while the Alexandrian text stands out in much prominence, far more so than in the Pauline Epistles. In the Catholic Epistles the Western text is much obscured by the want of the requisite documents, either Greek or Latin, and probably also by the limited distribution of some of the books in early times; so that it can rarely be relied on for the interpretation of evidence: on the other hand the Alexandrian text is as conspicuous as in the Acts. In the Apocalypse the difficulty of recognising the ancient texts is still greater, owing to the great relative paucity of documents, and especially the absence or loss of this book from the Vatican MS (B) which is available for nearly all the rest