Again, with what show of reason can it possibly be asserted that these “two striking facts” “come out with especial clearness”? so long as their very existence remains in nubibus,—has never been established, and is in fact emphatically denied? Expressions like the foregoing then only begin to be tolerable when it has been made plain that the Teacher has some solid foundation on which to build. Else, he occasions nothing but impatience and displeasure. Readers at first are simply annoyed at being trifled with: presently they grow restive: at last they become clamorous for demonstration, and will accept of nothing less. Let us go on however. We are still at p. 210:—
“We found א and b to stand alone in their almost complete immunity from distinctive Syriac readings ... and b to stand far above א in its apparent freedom from either Western or Alexandrian readings.”—(p. 210.)
But pray, gentlemen,—Where and when did “we find” either of these two things? We have “found” nothing of the sort hitherto. The Reviewer is disposed to reproduce the Duke of Wellington's courteous reply to the Prince Regent, when the latter claimed the arrangements which resulted in the victory of Waterloo:—“I have heard your Royal Highness say so.”... At the end of a few pages,
“Having found א b the constant element in groups of every size, distinguished by internal excellence of readings, we found no less excellence in the readings in which they concur without other attestations of Greek MSS., or even of Versions or Fathers.”—(p. 219.)
What! again? Why, we “have found” nothing as yet but Reiteration. Up to this point we have not been favoured with one particle of Evidence!... In the meantime, the convictions of these accomplished Critics,—(but not, unfortunately, those of their Readers,)—are observed to strengthen as they proceed. On reaching p. 224, we are assured that,
“The independence [of b and א] can be carried back so far,”—(not a hint is given how,)—“that their concordant testimony may be treated as equivalent to that of a MS. older than א and b themselves by at least two centuries,—probably by a generation or two more.”
How that “independence” was established, and how this “probability” has been arrived at, we cannot even imagine. The point to be attended to however, is, that by the process indicated, some such early epoch as a.d. 100 has been reached. So that now we are not surprised to hear that,
“The respective ancestries of א and b must have diverged from a common parent extremely near the Apostolic autographs.”—(p. 220. See top of p. 221.)
Or that,—“The close approach to the time of the autographs raises the presumption of purity to an unusual strength.”—(p. 224.)
And lo, before we turn the leaf, this “presumption” is found to have ripened into certainty:—