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276 and Acts are deprived of the support of D is simply the comparative purity of its early Western text. While then it cannot be confidently affirmed that no relics of lines of transmission independent of the ancestries of Β and now exist in one or more secondary documents of one kind or another (compare § 357), the utmost number of such relics is too petty, even with the inclusion of doubtful instances, to affect appreciably the conclusions already obtained. It is of course only with such evidence as actually exists that the primary uncials can be brought into comparison: but the fullest comparison does but increase the conviction that their preeminent relative purity is likewise approximately absolute, a true approximate reproduction of the text of the autographs, not an accidental and deceptive result of the loss of better Greek MSS.

361—370.&emsp;Approximate sufficiency of existing documents for the recovery of the genuine text, notwithstanding the existence of some primitive corruptions

361. The way has now been cleared for the final question,—Is it or is it not reasonable to expect that in any considerable number of cases the true reading has now perished? Have we a right to assume that the true reading always exists somewhere among existing documents? The question is often foreclosed on one or both of two grounds which in our judgement are quite irrelevant. First, some think it incredible that any true words of Scripture should have perished. In reply it is a sufficient argumentum ad hominem to point to the existence of various readings, forming part of various texts accepted for long ages, and the frequent difficulty of