Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/280

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Β (? 31) lat.vg the (? aeth) arm. One text supplies the concluding adjectives with (from the first clause) as a substantive ( 9 f me syr.hl.mg pp, with slight variations), another, the Syrian, with  (AK2L2P2 cupl syr. vg-hl.txt ppser). Here the elliptic expression has manifestly given rise to two different corrections; and Β is the only certain Greek authority for the true text. This is an example of the simplest and most fundamental form of ternary readings, with the neutral text clearly exhibited.

322. Mark vi 43 Β. The easier of viii 20 (, where the necessary order enforces the genitive) is adopted by  13-69-124-346 209 (1 omits). The Western (and Syrian) text, starting from this last reading, borrows, to replace the last two words, from viii 19; Matt. xiv 20 (AD unc11 cupl latt syrr me); most Latins, with 33 and some secondary Greek MSS, introducing further assimilations to Matt. There are also two remarkable conflations: L vary from Β only by adopting from the Western reading (or the antecedent parallel passages); 28, which has many relics of a very ancient text hereabouts, retains the  of Β, but for the rest follows the Western and Syrian text. Here the choice clearly lies between three readings, those of B, of and the lost early originals of two texts now partially preserved in cursives, and of L; and the difficulty of accounting for the well attested  is unfavourable to the second. The reading of L,, which has no intrinsic probability, may be due to accidental mixture (in v. 31 they, and they alone, have the impossible ): the reading of B, which has much intrinsic probability, was likely to be changed on account of the double accusative, even apart from the influence of parallel passages, and might easily give rise to all the other variants with the help of harmonistic assimilation. If we take the three parts of the composite variation separately, a good group is found supporting each of the three readings of Β; being attested by ΒL 28,  by B 1-209 13-69-124-346, and  by BL 1-209 13-69-124-346. This last specially certain attestation marks the virtual authority for the entire fundamental text from which the Western correction departed, the peculiar word being the turning-point of change; and evidently the common ancestor of  &c. altered one of the three preceding words,