Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/257

Rh 295. Thus far we have obtained only negative results. We have found readings that are explicable by the supposition of a common proximate original: we have found none that it is difficult to explain without it. We must now turn to such positive indications of the relative antiquity of the common original as can be obtained by taking genealogical relations into account. These are of two kinds, arising from comparisons in which the two MSS are taken together, and from those in which they are taken separately.

296. Under the former head we have to compare the readings in which and Β together stand unsupported with those in which they have the concurrence of one or two important MSS or of ancient versions and quotations without extant MSS. Here we are merely reconsidering from a special point of view the evidence from which the enquiry started (§ 287), the Internal Evidence of Groups. Having found B the constant element in various groups of every size, distinguished by internal excellence of readings, we found no less excellence in the readings in which they concur without other attestations of Greek MSS, or even of Versions or Fathers. The two sets of groupings, containing no reading in common, illustrate and confirm each other. The general character of the readings of both is the same, so that there is no internal evidence against the natural presumption that they come from the same source. But the readings of B in which they are associated with other and various witnesses for very early texts cannot by the nature of the case have originated with the scribe of a proximate common source; so that, if the common source was proximate, they must have been received and transmitted from an earlier source: and accordingly there is no reason, in the absence