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authorities in the later chapters ol Lk. are no authentic part of the Evangelist's original work, but are additions made at a very early date; but this is the only case in which they accepted testimony of this class as superior to that of B and its allies, and few other scholars would at that time have gone even so far as they did. For some time after the promulgation of WH's theory, the conflict raged over the comparative merits of the a and /3 types of text; and it was only as the superiority of the latter was more and more established that scholars began to investigate more fully the characteristics and claims of the remaining family (ignoring y, as merely a sub-species of p), for which a very high antiquity could be demonstrated. The claims of the 8 text received a considerable stimulus from the publication of more of the OL MSS (especially k), and above all from the discovery of Syr.-Sin., which is perhaps the most important single member of the group. Further attention was attracted to it by Blass' attempt to show that the 5 text in Lk. and that in Acts represent different editions of those books, issued by Luke himself at different dates. At the present day, not a few scholars are inclined to attach considerable weight to the evi-dence of this family, and to hold that the /3 text, no less than the a, is due to editorial revision, and that the original form of the NT text is to be looked for in the OL and OS to a much greater extent than was previously supposed possible.

48. The main argument in favour of the S text is its great age and wide circulation, as demonstrated by the Patristic evidence of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. It has to be borne in mind, however, that purity of text is due not so much to great age as to care in trans-mission, and that where such care has been wanting, corruption is both rapid and far-reaching. The papyrus MSS of the Greek classics, written in the first two centuries of the Christian era, which have recently come to light in large numbers, are almost always less accurate than the vellum MSS of the lOth'and 11th cents. ; the reason no doubt being that the papyri are generally cheap copies, circulating among private individuals in the upper provinces of Egypt, while the vellum MSS represent the tradition of the great libraries, in which transcripts would be made more accurately and revised more carefully. So with regard to the early Christian literature: we can well imagine that during the century and a half following the composition of the books, when Christianity was an unauthorized religion, liable to persecution and the destruction of its books, and when Christians themselves looked for a speedy Second Coming of the Lord, there would be little care and little opportunity for the precise collation of manuscripts, and a great possibility of verbal and even material variation in transcription. It is quite intelligible, therefore, that through the greater part of the Christian world inaccurate copies would circulate, and that' the more careful preservation of the true text would run in a comparatively narrow channel. And if there was one part of the world in which such care might more than elsewhere be expected, it was Egypt, and especially Alexandria, the home of Greek textual criti-cism, and the home also of the Greek version of the OT. Hence, if the internal evidence points to the ;3 text as the most accurate and authentic in character, the inference to be drawn therefrom is not materially shaken when we find signs that its birthplace was in Egypt, and that its early circulation was in that country, while texts of various shades of the 8 type were prevalent elsewhere. That such was the character of the /3 text was the deliberate opinion of WH, who were perfectly aware of the early and wide attestation of the 8 text; and their conclusion is supported by the quite inde-pendent investigations of B. Weiss, whose elaborate study (on very different lines) of the texts of the principal uncials led him to the conclusion that, whereas all the rest show marked indications of editorial revision in

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varying degrees, the text of B, though by no means tree from scribal blunders, has the strongest signs of authenticity and originality. It is also to be remem-bered that it is impossible to form a coherent text of the 6 type. The witnesses differ so much among themselves that it is easier to find a majority of them against any reading of that type than in favour of it. This appears even in Blass' attempt to form a 8 text of Lk. and Acts, and in the other books the task is still more hopeless. Readings of the 8 type, in short, have much more the character of results of a common tend-ency, working more or less independently in different places under similar circumstances, than of the descend-ants from a common original.

49. The natural conclusion, therefore, would seem to be that the /3 text still holds the position of superiority which was secured for it by the searching criticism of WH ; and this, on the whole, is probably the prevalent view to-day. At the same time it must be admitted that individual readings of the 8 class deserve more respectful consideration than heretofore. Reverting once more to the results obtained in the analogous field of classical literature, the evidence of early papyri, while it generally confirms the superiority of the MS or MSS which modern criticism has selected as the best of any given author, nevettheless tends to show that the truth is not always to be found in any one witness or group of witnesses. The best MSS sometimes make mistakes, and in such cases the true reading may be preserved in MSS which as a rule are inferior. To this possibility the critic must always be alive, and all the more so when the alternative reading is certainly a very early one, as those of the 6 family often must be. Consequently an editor of the NT, though he would do well to pin his faith generally to the |8 family, is bound also to consider readings of the 8 type on their merits; and that especially when support is found for them from more than one branch of the 8 family. The Latin and Syriac branches of the family often differ; but when they agree, the reading which they support must certainly go back to a very early date. The Codex Bezae, the principal Greek member of the family, represents its characteristics in a somewhat extreme form, and readings supported by it alone must be regarded with much suspicion; but in com-bination with OL and OS it becomes a very important witness. If, in the future, earlier copies of the Gospels than are at present known to us should come to light, they may very probably represent the characteristics of this group to some extent; but it will still remain to be considered whether they seriously affect the pre-eminence of the small but select body of authorities to which WH gave, and gave justifiably, as it would seem, the name of 'Neutral.'

50. For literature bearing on the earlier sections of this article see notes at the end of 55 9, 16, 24, 30, 32. 'The history and bibliography of textual criticism are best set out in Tregelles' Account of the Printed Text of the NT (1854); Scrivener's Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the NT (4th ed . 1894) ; and G regory 's Prolegomena to Tisohendort's edition (1894), and Textkritikdes NT (,1900). Shortersummariesof the historical matter, with fuller discussions of the textual problem as it stands since Westcott and Hort, will be found in Kenyon's Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the NT (1901), and Nestle's Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Greek NT (Eng. tr. from the 2nd German ed. 1901); the latter is particularly good for bibUographioal informa-tion. Hort's Introduction (forming vol. li. of The NT in the Original Greek, by B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, 1881) is, of course, invaluable for its statement of the principles of textual criticism, and for its exposition of the epoch-making theory of these two scholars. Murray's article in the Ext. Vol. of Hastings' DB is an elaborate vindication of WH's position, based largely upon the materials left behind by Hort. For an introduction to the subject on the smallest possible scale, Prof. K. Lake's Text of the NT (1900) can be strongly recommended.

The fullest apparatus criticus at present available is that in Tischendorf's NT Grace', 1869-72. A very service-