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132 unavoidably lends them at first sight a deceptive appearance of originality. Some of the modes of change described above as belonging to incipient paraphrase occur as distinctly here as in the Western texts, though as a rule much more sparingly; and the various forms of assimilation, especially harmonistic alteration and interpolation in the Gospels, recur likewise, and at times are carried out in a very skilful manner.

184. Alexandrian changes sometimes occur in places where Western changes exist likewise, sometimes where they do not; and again the Syrian text sometimes follows one, sometimes another, of the three antecedent texts in the former case, of the two in the latter. Considerable variety of distribution, irrespective of Non-Syrian mixture, accordingly arises in the documentary attestation. We often find the Alexandrian group opposed to all other documents, often the Alexandrian and Syrian groups combined in opposition to the others, implying an adoption of an Alexandrian reading by the Syrian text. But the most instructive distributions, as exhibiting distinctly the residual Pre-Syrian text which is neither Western nor Alexandrian, are those produced by the simultaneous aberration of the Western and Alexandrian texts, especially when they severally exhibit independent modes of easing an apparent difficulty in the text antecedent to both.

D.&ensp;185—187.&emsp;Syrian characteristics

185. The Syrian text, to which the order of time now brings us back, is the chief monument of a new period of textual history. Whatever petty and local mixture may have previously taken place within limited