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Rh SECTION II.&emsp;DOCUMENTARY GROUPS AS LIMITED BY REFERENCE TO THE BEST PRIMARY GREEK MSS

281—355

A.&emsp;281—283.&emsp;Relation of variations between Primary Greek MSS to the chief ancient texts

281. After this examination of the relation of the evidence of Versions and Fathers to that of the primary Greek MSS in respect of the final process of determining the text, we must now resume the consideration of the numerous variations in which the primary Greek MSS differ widely among themselves. Here, in investigating Internal Evidence of Groups for each individual group or class of groups, we lose clear and obvious parallelism with the great ancient texts. But the distribution of attestation for most of the groups must as a matter of fact have in most cases been determined by the great ancient texts, with or without subsequent mixture, whether it be in our power to assign each document to a definite text or not (see § 243 V); and therefore that cannot well be the right reading which would render the documentary distribution incompatible with known genealogies. It is not indeed requisite that we should be able to decide between two or more possible histories of a variation; but an important confirmation is wanting when we are unable to suggest at least one such history consistent alike with the composition of documents as known through the simpler and more normal distributions of attestation, and with the genuineness of the reading commended by Internal Evidence of Groups and other considerations. Before therefore we