Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/93

is equally irrelevant, since we know that each larger set has but a single ancestor, and we have no reason for preferring X singly to Υ singly. These variations therefore we reserve for the present. Where however the descendants of either X or Υ are divided, so that the representatives of (say) γ join those of δ and ε against those of α and β, and the question arises whether the reading of X is truly represented by αβ or by γ, the decision must be given for that of γ, because, mixture and accidental coincidence apart, in no other way can γ have become at once separated from αβ and joined to δε; in other words, the change must have been not on the part of γ but of αβ, or rather an intermediate common ancestor of theirs. The reading thus ascertained to have been that of both X and Υ must also, as in the first case, have been the reading of O. Accordingly, so far as the whole evidence now before us is concerned, that is, assuming absence of mixture with documents independent of O, all readings of αβ against γδε may be at once discarded, first as departures from the text of O, and next as departures from the text of the autograph, since the direct transmission of all the documents passes through O, and thus it is not possible, on the present conditions, for αβ to agree with the autograph against Ο except by conjecture or accidental coincidence. The same results follow in all the analogous cases, namely for readings of y against αβδε, α against βγδε, δ against αβγε, and ε against αβγδ. The combinations αγ against βδε and βγ against αδε are possible only by mutual mixture among descendants of X antecedent to αβγ, since they form cross distributions with the assumed combination aβ against γδε: but this particular mixture would not interfere with the present operation of fixing the reading of X by coincidence with the reading of Y, because there would be no more mixture with Υ than in the other cases, and the force of the consent of Υ with part of the descendants of X remains the same whatever that part may be.

70. It will be seen at once what a wide and helpful suppression of readings that cannot be right is thus brought about by the mere application of Genealogical method, without need of appeal to the Internal Evidence of either Texts or Readings except so far as they contribute in the first instance to the establishment of the genealogical facts. Precisely analogous processes are required where any of the five lesser sets are divided, say by opposition