doubtful genuineness. But the influence of these three lines upon almost all extant documents has been so enormous that the highest interest must already be seen to belong to a document of which thus far we know only that its text is not only Pre-Syrian but substantially free from Western and Alexandrian adulteration.
205. The relations to ancient texts which disclose themselves on analysis of the text of א are peculiarly interesting. As in its contemporary B, the text seems to be entirely, or all but entirely, Pre-Syrian: and further a very large part of the text is in like manner free from Western or Alexandrian elements. On the other hand this fundamental text has undergone extensive mixture either with another text itself already mixed or, more probably, with two separate texts, one Western, one Alexandrian. Thus, widely different as is א from the Syrian text, as well as independent of it, it is analogous in composition, except that it shews no trace of deliberate adjustment and critical modification. The mixture is unequally distributed, being most abundant in the Gospels and apparently in the Apocalypse, and least abundant in the Pauline Epistles; but it is never absent for many verses together. The Western readings are specially numerous in St John's Gospel, and in parts of St Luke's: they belong to an early and important type, though apparently not quite so early as the fundamental text of D, and some of them are the only Greek authority for Western readings which, previous to the discovery of א, had been known only from versions.
206. Every other known Greek MS has either a mixed or a Syrian text, mixture becoming rarer as we approach the time when the Syrian text no longer reigned supreme, but virtually reigned alone. Moreover every known Greek MS except those already mentioned contains a Syrian element, which is in almost all cases large, but is very variable. The differences in respect of mixture fall under three chief heads;—difference in the proportion of Syrian to Pre-Syrian readings; difference in the proportion of Pre-Syrian readings neither Western nor Alexandrian to those of both these classes; and difference in the proportion of Western to Alexandrian readings. It is to be observed that the Non-Syrian element of these mixed Greek MSS is hardly ever, if ever, exclusively Western or exclusively Alexandrian. Sometimes the one type predominates, sometimes the other, but neither appears quite alone. This state of things would naturally arise if, as