Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/152

114 when writing different treatises; and moreover he now and then refers in express words to variations between MSS, as indeed Irenæus had at least once done. Many of his readings in variations in which Western documents stand opposed to all other documents are distinctly Western, many more are distinctly Non-Western. On the other hand his quotations to the best of our belief exhibit no clear and tangible traces of the Syrian text.

161. That these characteristics, positive and negative, of the quotations found in Origen's writings are due to accident is in the highest degree improbable. A long and laborious life devoted chiefly to original biblical studies, combined with a special interest in texts, and the twofold opportunities supplied by the widely different circumstances of Alexandria and Palestine, to say nothing of varied intercourse with other lands, could hardly fail to acquaint him with all leading types of Greek text current in the Churches, and especially in the Eastern Churches: and as a matter of fact we find all other known great types of text represented in his writings except the one; that one moreover, had it then existed, being more likely to have come to the notice of a dweller in Palestine than any other.

162. Nor is the testimony that of a single Father, however well placed and well fitted for reflecting the lost testimony of all contemporary Churches on such a matter. The whole body of patristic evidence down to his death, or later, tells the same tale. Before the middle of the third century, at the very earliest, we have no historical signs of the existence of readings, conflate or other, that are marked as distinctively Syrian by the want of attestation from groups of documents which have