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170 which must stand on at least an equal rank with the other two, as having to all appearance an independent ancestry.

234. If then a Pre-Syrian text exists which is neutral, that is, neither Western nor Alexandrian, the phenomena of attestation provide two resources for learning in what documents we may expect to find such a text preserved, comparison of the two fundamental types of binary variations, and direct inspection of the ternary or yet more complex variations last mentioned. In order to avoid needless repetition, the information thus obtained has been to a certain extent employed already in the account of the constituent elements of different documents (§§ 199—223): but, strictly speaking, it is only at the present stage of the investigation that the large body of evidence supplied by the binary variations becomes available. By comparison of binary variations we find what documents recur oftenest in the attestations of Non-Western and the attestations of Non-Alexandrian readings, taken together; in other words, what documents are oftenest found joining others in opposition to either of the aberrant texts singly. By inspection of ternary variations we find what documents oftenest stand out in clear detachment from all others by patent opposition to a Western and an Alexandrian text simultaneously.

235. As might be expected, the results of both processes are accordant as to the documents which they designate as most free at once from Western and from Alexandrian peculiarities. We learn first that, notwithstanding the lateness of our earliest Greek MSS as compared with some of the versions, and the high absolute antiquity of the fundamental texts which the older ver-