Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/239

Rh unambiguous. For the reasons given above, the supposition that readings thus unattested by any version may yet be original is consistent with the known facts of transmission; and continuous examination of the readings attested by the primary Greek MSS without a version fails to detect any difference of internal character between them and readings in which the primary Greek MSS are sustained by versions. While therefore so narrow a range of attestation renders special caution imperative with respect to these readings, and some of them cannot be held certain enough to render all recognition of their rivals superfluous, we have found no sufficient reasons either for distrusting them generally or for rejecting any of them absolutely.

F.&ensp;274—279.&emsp;Absence of Fathers from Groups containing Primary Greek MSS

274. The presence or absence of Fathers as allies of the primary Greek MSS is evidently to a great extent fortuitous, depending as it does so much on the nature of the passage, as causing it to be quoted often, seldom, or not at all. Except therefore in the comparatively few cases in which it is morally certain that a passage must have been quoted by one or more given Fathers in given contexts, had it stood with a particular reading in the text used by him or them, negative patristic evidence is of no force at all.

275. This universal rule is completely applicable to the variations which we are now considering, where neither variant is attested by any Father who does not habitually follow a Syrian text: it is applicable in principle, but subject to more or less qualification, where