with comparatively few exceptions, readings much current in the fourth century, and possibly owe their place to comparatively late mixture. The Thebaic on the other hand has a large proportion of distinctively Western readings of an older type. Whatever may be the real origin of the Æthiopic, it is on the one hand strongly Syrian, on the other in strong affinity with its Egyptian neighbours, and especially its nearer neighbour the Thebaic: both ancient Western and ancient Non-Western readings, Alexandrian and other, are conspicuous in its unsettled but certainly composite text.
218. The two solitary outlying versions bear marks of their late date, but not less of the valuable texts which were still current when they were made. The Armenian includes at least three large elements, Syrian, early Western, and early Non-Western, including some Alexandrian modifications. The coincidence of many of the Western readings in the Armenian with the Latin Vulgate, in conjunction with the real adulteration of the first printed edition from the Latin Vulgate, as mentioned above (§ 121), has brought this version under a vague suspicion of having been at some period subjected to Latinising corruption. The coincidences however with the Old Latin in peculiar readings against the Vulgate Latin are likewise numerous, and can only be explained by descent from a Greek Western original. The Gothic has very much the same combination as the Italian revision of the Old Latin, being largely Syrian and largely Western, with a small admixture of ancient Non-Western readings. Whether the copies which furnished the Western element were obtained by Ulfilas in Europe or brought by his parents from Cappadocia, cannot be determined: in either case they were Greek, not Latin.
219. It will be seen that, extensive and intricate as have been the results of mixture upon Versions, the broad historical relations of their texts correspond to the relations found among other documentary authorities. The only readings, belonging to distinctive types, that can with any certainty claim the authority of either of the three great independent families of versions originating in the earliest period are either Western or Alexandrian. Apparent exceptions to this statement may be found in occasional Syrian readings, or what appear to be such, attested by the Old Syriac or the Memphitic: but the evident presence of a late or extraneous element in the solitary