naturally be taken to follow a Non-Western source where they stand in opposition to MSS of purer Old Latin pedigree; and in many similar instances a complete survey of the documentary evidence suffices to bring to light the essential features of the grouping in spite of partial confusion. But among these cases likewise there remain ambiguities which can be cleared up only by other kinds of evidence, or which cannot be cleared up at all.
D. 233—235. Identification of neutral readings
233. Besides all the various classes of binary variations examined in the preceding paragraphs, and besides those ternary variations in which the third variant is distinctively Syrian, there are, as we have already seen (§ 184), many other ternary variations in which one reading has a characteristic Western attestation, another has a characteristic Alexandrian attestation, the Syrian evidence being in support of either the first or the second, while the third is attested by documents ascertained to be of wholly or chiefly Pre-Syrian origin: in other words, both the principal aberrant texts stand clearly side by side, each clearly distinguished from a third text. Such third reading may doubtless be, and often manifestly is, nothing but a secondary modification of one of the other readings; for, as has been already intimated, it is not unusual to find together less and more developed Western readings, or less and more developed Alexandrian readings, or both together: nor are mixtures of the two lines unknown. But there are many other third readings which cannot without great difficulty be assigned on either external or internal grounds to such an origin, and
