Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/225

Rh CHAPTER III.&emsp;RESULTS OF INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF GROUPS AND DOCUMENTS 256—355

SECTION I.&emsp;DOCUMENTARY GROUPS AS LIMITED BY REFERENCE TO PRIMARY GREEK MSS GENERALLY 256—280 A.&ensp;256—260.&emsp;General considerations on Documentary Groups

256. In attempting to give an account of the manner in which the historical relations of the great ancient texts of the New Testament can be safely used for decision between rival readings, we have of necessity (see § 72) transgressed the limits of purely genealogical evidence, in so far as we have dwelt on the general internal character of the Western and Alexandrian texts as a ground for distrusting readings apparently Western only, or Western and Syrian only, or Alexandrian only, or Alexandrian and Syrian only. The evidence which has been thus appealed to is in effect Internal Evidence of Groups (§§ 77, 78), in principle identical with Internal Evidence of Documents in virtue of the genealogical axiom that, accidental coincidences apart, identity of reading implies ultimate identity of origin. Thus, to take the simplest case, finding a frequent recurrence of D, the Old Latin, and the Old Syriac in isolated combination, we knew that in each such reading they must be all lineally descended from a single common ancestor. Having found reason to think that readings attested by