Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/261

Rh or early third century. This fact, which is independent of coincidences of Β, so that it would remain true of if Β were unknown, and of Β if  were unknown, suggests the most natural explanation of their coincidences. They are due, that is, to the extreme and as it were primordial antiquity of the common original from which the ancestries of the two MSS have diverged, the date of which cannot be later than the early part of the second century, and may well be yet earlier. So high an antiquity would of course be impossible if it were necessary to suppose that the 'common original' was a single archetypal MS comprising all the books as they now stand in either existing MS. But, as has been noticed elsewhere (§ 14: see also § 352), there is reason to suspect that the great MSS of the Christian empire were directly or indirectly transcribed from smaller exemplars which contained only portions of the New Testament; so that the general term 'common original', which we have used for the sake of simplicity, must in strictness be understood to denote the several common originals of the different books or groups of books. There is however no clear difference of character in the fundamental text common to Β and in any part of the New Testament in which Β is not defective. The textual phenomena which we find when we compare them singly and jointly with other documents are throughout precisely those which would present themselves in representatives of two separate lines diverging from a point near the autographs, and not coming into contact subsequently. Other relations of pedigree are doubtless theoretically possible, but involve improbable combinations.

302. An answer, in our opinion a true and sufficient answer, is thus found to the question how far the testimo-