THE LATIN TEXTS OF no past. In investigating the text of a number of fragmentary MSS. such as those before us, it is important to have a clear idea of the object that we propose to ourselves. Our duty is not to make them the text for general disquisitions on the character of the family or families to which they belong. To determine that character is a subject by itself, and the attempt to do so should be based upon a survey of the whole of the material. At present the task that falls to us is not to generalise, but to individualise. We are concerned less with those phenomena in the MSS. before us which they share with other MSS. than with those which are peculiar to them. A very slight inspection will show that all the MSS. no pa, s t belong to the European family, at the head of which stand a and b. The question is, What place does each of these occupy in that family? What is the smaller group with which it is connected, and how is it related to other members of that group? § 16. The text of n in St. Matthew. In the case of n, the first of the six MSS., we have no difficulty in ascertaining that its closest affinities are with a. We proceed then to inquire into the nature and extent of those affinities. For this purpose we may put aside all the common matter which n has together with the majority of European MSS., and we may concentrate our attention on those readings in which n differs from a, or which it shares with a against all or most other MSS. It has seemed best to give all the readings that come under these heads, at the cost of including a few that are of only trifling importance. We take first the portions extant in St. Matthew :— |