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212 out, is not created, as might be incautiously surmised, by a twofold presentation of inferences essentially the same, but amounts to a real verification. On the other hand the ascertainment of the quality of any single document by bringing together the ascertained qualities of the texts of the different groups of which it is a member is not essentially different from the direct ascertainment of its quality on internal grounds without intermediate reference to groups, except in its omission to take into account those variations in which the document stands absolutely alone.

C.&emsp;287—304.&emsp;Relation of B to and characteristics of Groups containing both Β and

287. It now becomes necessary to scrutinise more closely the trustworthiness of the propositions laid down above respecting the preeminent excellence of the Vatican and Sinaitic MSS, which happen likewise to be the oldest extant Greek MSS of the New Testament. It is at the outset essential to distinguish carefully the readings and the groups of documents in which they stand side by side from those in which one of them stands alone. Following the gradual narrowing of groups, we come first to the combination B, which is, as we have intimated, wherever it occurs, the constant element of those variable groups that are found to have habitually the best readings. The statement remains true, we believe, not less when the groups dwindle so as to leave B comparatively or absolutely alone than when they are of larger compass. The cases in which Β have no support of Greek MSS, or no support at all, are connected by every gradation with the cases in which they stand at the head