Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/198

context; and it is solely from these materials that we have described his text as definitely Western. In the use of the Greek extracts the age and other circumstances of the several sources from which they are derived have to be considered. The Greek transmission is independent of the Latin transmission, but not always purer. Greek corruptions absent from the Latin version, due either to the use of degenerate MSS of Irenæus by late writers or to degenerate transmission of the works of these writers themselves, can often be detected in the language of Irenæus himself, and might therefore be anticipated in his quotations. But these individual ambiguities do not disturb the general results. The passages subject to no reasonable doubt render it certain that the translator largely modified biblical quotations in conformity with an Old Latin text familiar to him, but perhaps unconsciously, certainly irregularly and very imperfectly. We thus learn what antecedents to the Latin readings we have to take into account as possible where the Greek has perished, aided by the fact that passages quoted several times exhibit a text sometimes identical, sometimes modified in various degrees. Occasionally, with the help afforded by the other Old Latin evidence, we can arrive at moral certainty that the translator has faithfully reproduced his author's reading: but more commonly the two alternatives have to be regarded as equally possible. Both texts are Western; and the evidence is valuable, whether it be that of Irenæus or virtually of a fresh Old Latin MS, though in the former case it is much more valuable. Were indeed Massuet's commonly accepted theory true, that the Latin version of Irenæus was used by Tertullian, the biblical text followed by the translator would take precedence of all other Old Latin texts in age. We are convinced however, not only by the internal character of this biblical text but by comparison of all the passages of Irenæus borrowed in substance by Tertullian, that the Greek text alone of Irenæus was known to him, and that the true date of the translation is the fourth century. The inferior limit is fixed by the quotations made from it by Augustine about 421.

221. Several important works of Origen are likewise, wholly or in part, extant only in Latin, and need similar allowance for two alternatives in the employment of their evidence as to biblical texts. Caution is especially needed where Rufinus is the translator, as in the early treatise