of the δ readings made use likewise of documents belonging to some additional class, conceivably purer than the documents which furnished them with α and with β readings respectively, and that these additional documents may have been followed by them in a greater or less part of the rest of their text. But the proved actual use of documents of the α and β classes in the conflate readings renders their use elsewhere a vera causa in the Newtonian sense. With every allowance for the provisional possibility of some use of other hypothetical documents, it may be safely taken for granted that those documents which we know to have been either literally or virtually in the hands of the δ scribes were freely employed by them in other parts of their text.
C. 152—162. Posteriority of 'Syrian' to 'Western' and other (neutral and 'Alexandrian') readings shown (2) by Ante-Nicene Patristic evidence
152. The next step accordingly is to discover whether traces of such employment can be found. The variations in the Gospels afford innumerable opportunities for recognising singly the three principal groups of documents, detached from the rest. Oppositions of each of the three groups in turn to all or nearly all the other extant documents abound everywhere, presenting a succession of Distinctive readings of each group, that is, readings having no other attestation: ternary variations in which each of the three groups approximately attests a different variant occur also, but much more rarely. The large field of documentary evidence over which we are now able to range enlarges at the same time our knowledge of the groups themselves. Other Greek MSS and other MSS of versions become available: but above
