ana translation

xxvi
INTRODUCTION
(2) In deciding between the alternatives (a) and (b),
one consideration
forces itself into notice which goes far towards determining our judgment.
The two alternatives do not stand before us on an equal footing
of probability. Of these two Versions of the Four Epistles, one (the
Harklensian) is professedly a revision of a previous one (the Philoxenian) ;
and this fact raises a strong presumption against the theory (of alternative
a), that it
may also be the primary version from which ours was
derived. For that theory would require us to suppose three successive
versions, the original Philoxenian, the Harklensian (admittedly
derived by revision from it), and our Version (again by re-revision
derived from the Harklensian).
To postulate thus two revisions where
only one is necessary and sufficient to account for the facts of the case,
and three versions where the evidence points to the existence of but
two, would be idle ;
and in point of fact no one has ever advanced
alternative (a) as an hypothesis worthy of notice. I have stated it
here only as logically possible, not as entitled to practical regard.
and accept the
Dismissing it therefore, we fall back on alternative (&),
theory that our version is the primary whence the Harklensian is the
derivate.
But, inasmuch as the author of the Harklensian presents it
as a revision of the Philoxenian, the identification of our Version with
the Philoxenian follows by necessary inference. Thus the surmise
above indicated (p. xxiv) takes shape in the definite conclusion that the
Version of the Four Epistles, into whose age and origin we are inquiring,
is a part of that previous Version, the Philoxenian, on which the Harklensian
was based,
surviving while the rest of it has disappeared.
(3) In confirmation of this conclusion, we shall find in the details given
in the Sections (x, xi) above referred to, proof that our Version is exactly
such as the Philoxenian basis of the Harklensian must have been ;
that
it is a version which, if modified in its diction after the graecizing method
which Thomas affected, and altered in substance here and there after a
Greek text (or texts) such as he tells us he employed, would yield
as result a version answering exactly to the description of the Harklensian.
We are justified, accordingly, in closing the inquiry here, and
accepting the solution of the question proposed which thus offers itself.
original. But (seeing that the parent of the Harklensian was admittedly the
Philoxenian) this supposition would merely mean that our Version, though not
the Philoxenian, is directly derived from the Philoxenian, a theory not only
baseless, but so needless that it may safely be dismissed.