Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/266

228 they do or do not receive the support of Versions or Fathers.

306. One binary group containing Β requires separate mention, namely BD2 of the Pauline Epistles. From what has been already said (§§ 204, 228) on the Western element of Β in these Epistles it will be evident that the combinations BD2G3 and BG3, when they are unsustained by clear Non-Western Pre-Syrian attestation, may be taken to imply a Western reading. The question thus arises whether the same is to be said of BD2. On the one hand D represents on the whole an earlier and purer form of the Western text than G3, so that, were not Β known to contain a Western element in these epistles; the combination BD2 would, like the BD of the Gospels and Acts, have a strong presumption in its favour; and the presumption, though weakened, is by no means destroyed by the contingency which has thus to be taken into account. On the other hand D2 has some clearly Western corruptions from which G3 is free; and the analogy of BD2G3 and BG3 preclude any assumption that BD2 could not have this character. The decision must accordingly rest with Internal Evidence, which is on the whole definitely favourable to the BD2 readings, while some of them are not free from doubt. They cannot as a class be condemned with the readings of BD2G3 and BG3; but neither is it certain that none of them are of the same origin and quality. Since the inferior quality of BG3 and the ambiguity as to BD2 are explained by the exceptional intrusion of an alien element into the Pauline text of B, the existence of which alien element is ascertained independently of the quality of its readings, the character of the fundamental text of B, as shown