Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/234

196 for the present concerned with the preliminary enquiry whether any class of secondary documents has such a textual character that their total or almost total absence from the attestation of a reading otherwise sufficiently attested by primary MSS should throw doubt on its genuineness.

267. To conduct the enquiry with due circumspection, it is necessary to pay special attention to those variations in which the extant evidence includes important secondary documents preserved only in fragments, and especially documents which would merit a place on the primary list but for their imperfect preservation. If in such cases the result were often unfavourable to the primary MSS, it would evidently in variations where they are absent be requisite to take into account the twofold contingency of their hypothetical presence on this or on that side. If however, on careful consideration of every kind of evidence, their actual presence is not found to justify doubts as to the antecedent authority of the primary MSS, we can with the more confidence trust the primary MSS in those more numerous variations where, with perhaps no accession to the number of their allies, they are confronted by a less imposing array.

D.&ensp;268.&emsp;Absence of Secondary Greek MSS from Groups containing Primary Greek MSS

268. The first class of secondary documents, according to the usual order, is formed by the secondary Greek MSS; in which we do not include those whose texts are wholly or almost wholly of Syrian origin. Nothing can be clearer than the mixed character of all these MSS; so that, in supposing them to have derived