Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/348

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SUBSTANTIVE ITACISTIC ERRORS

the same itacistic error, both reading ζηλοῦσθε where ζηλοῦσθαι alone has any real probability. Examples of another type are the Western καινοφωνίας for κενοφωνίας in 1 Tim. vi 20; 2 Tim. ii 16; and the more perverse confusion by which in Matt. xi 16 the idiomatic τοῖς ἑτέροις, the other 'side' or party in the game played by the children sitting in the marketplace, appears in the Syrian text as τοῖς ἑταίροις with αὐτῶν added. The interchange of e and η may be illustrated by ἦμεν and ἤμην in Acts xi 11, where the best uncials are opposed to the versions; and of ει with η by εἰ and in 2 Cor. ii 9: less frequent forms of itacism may be passed over. Lastly, itacism plays at least some part in the common confusion of ἡμεῖς and ὑμεῖς. The prevailing tendency is to introduce ἡμεῖς wrongly, doubtless owing to the natural substitution of a practical for a historical point of view, as is seen to a remarkable extent in 1 Peter: but there are many permutations which cannot be traced to this cause. The peculiarly subtle complexity of the personal relations between St Paul and his converts as set forth in 2 Corinthians has proved a special snare to scribes, the scribes of the best MSS not excepted. Occasionally the variation between ἡμεῖς and ὑμεῖς is of much interest. Thus, though the limited range of attestation has withheld us from placing τινὲς τῶν καθ' ἡμᾶς ποιητῶν in the text proper of Acts xvii 28, there would be a striking fitness in a claim thus made by St Paul to take his stand as a Greek among Greeks; as he elsewhere vindicates his position as a Roman (xvi 37; xxii 25, 28), and as a Pharisee (xxiii 6).


D. 405—416. Breathings, Accents, and other accessories of printing

405. Orthography deals with elements of text transmitted uninterruptedly, with more or less of purity, from the autographs to the extant MSS. In passing next from the letters to the various marks which custom and convenience require to be affixed to them, we leave, with one partial exception, the domain of the written tradition. Whether the autographs contained Breathings, Accents, and the like, it is impossible to know. None exist in the earlier uncials of the New Testament, and it is morally certain that they were not included in transcription during a succession of centuries; so that, if any existed in the first instance, the record of them must have speedily