Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/278

240 in each binary variation, while most of the other documents, representing ancient as well as later texts, divide themselves into those which are right in one place and those which are right in another.

319. If it is suggested that these phenomena might be due to a skilful selection and combination of readings from two sources by the scribe of B, the hypothesis is decisively negatived by several considerations. If it were true for composite variations, it should fit also the ternary variations of the more obvious type, in which Β similarly supports the neutral reading; whereas in most of them it would be peculiarly difficult to derive the neutral reading from any kind of coalescence of the aberrant readings. Secondly, the process hypothetically attributed to the scribe of Β is incongruous with all that is known of his manner of transcription and capacity of criticism. Thirdly, the ternary variations in which Β stands absolutely alone are not separable in character from those in which its readings are 'subsingular', having the support of, for instance, one or two early versions; and thus the operation would have to be attributed to one or more scribes of the first or early second century, while it would demand a degree of skill of which we have no example in extant records. Fourthly, the hypothesis is distinctly condemned by transcriptional evidence, which has an exceptional force in ternary variations (see § 29).

320. It should be noticed that some few variations in the Pauline Epistles, in which the local Western element of Β has affected the text, present a deceptive appearance of exceptions to what has been stated. Thus the accessory Western text, which makes itself felt in simple conflations (Col. i 12 Β