In proposing Continuous Existence as another note of a genuine reading, I wish to provide against those cases where the Evidence is not only ancient, but being derived from two different sources may seem to have a claim to variety also. I am glad to have the opportunity thus early of pointing out that the note of variety may not fairly be claimed for readings which are not advocated by more than two distinct specimens of ancient evidence. But just now my actual business is to insist that some sort of Continuousness is requisite as well as Antiquity, Number, Variety, and Weight.

We can of course only know the words of Holy Scripture [pg 059] according as they have been handed down to us; and in ascertaining what those words actually were, we are driven perforce to the Tradition of them as it has descended to us through the ages of the Church. But if that Tradition is broken in the process of its descent, it cannot but be deprived of much of the credit with which it would otherwise appeal for acceptance. A clear groundwork of reasonableness lay underneath, and a distinct province was assigned, when quod semper was added to quod ubique et quod ab omnibus. So there is a Catholicity of time, as well as of space and of people: and all must be claimed in the ascertainment and support of Holy Writ.

When therefore a reading is observed to leave traces of its existence and of its use all down the ages, it comes with an authority of a peculiarly commanding nature. And on the contrary, when a chasm of greater or less breadth of years yawns in the vast mass of evidence which is ready for employment, or when a tradition is found to have died out, upon such a fact alone suspicion or grave doubt, or rejection must inevitably ensue.

Still more, when upon the admission of the Advocates of the opinions which we are opposing the chasm is no longer restricted but engulfs not less than fifteen centuries in its hungry abyss, or else when the transmission ceased after four centuries, it is evident that according to an essential Note of Truth, those opinions cannot fail to be self-destroyed as well as to labour under condemnation during more than three quarters of the accomplished life of Christendom.

How Churchmen of eminence and ability, who in other respects hold the truths involved in Churchmanship, are able to maintain and propagate such opinions without surrendering their Churchmanship, we are unable to explain. We would only hope and pray that they may be led to see the inconsistencies of their position. And [pg 060] to others who do not accept Church doctrine we would urge that, inasmuch as internal evidence is so uncertain as often to face both ways, they really cannot rest upon anything else than continuous teaching if they would mount above personal likings and dislikings to the possession of definite and unmistakable support. In fact all traditional teaching which is not continuous must be like the detached pieces of a disunited chain.

To put the question in the most moderate form, my meaning is, that although it is possible that no trace may be discoverable in any later document of what is already attested by documents of the fourth century to be the true reading of any given place of Scripture, yet it is a highly improbable circumstance that the evidence should entirely disappear at such a very early period. It is reasonable to expect that if a reading advocated by Codexes ? and B, for instance, and the Old Latin Versions, besides one or two of the Fathers, were trustworthy, there ought to be found at least a fair proportion of the later Uncial and the Cursive Copies to reproduce it. If, on the contrary, many of the Fathers knew nothing at all about the matter; if Jerome reverses the evidence borne by the Old Latin; if the later Uncials, and if the main body of the Cursives are silent also:—what can be said but that it is altogether unreasonable to demand acceptance for a reading which comes to us upon such a very slender claim to our confidence?

That is the most important inference: and it is difficult to see how in the nature of the case it can be got over. But in other respects also:—when a smaller break occurs in the transmission, the evidence is proportionally injured. And the remark must be added, that in cases where there is a transmission by several lines of descent which, having in other respects traces of independence, coincide upon a certain point, it is but reasonable to conclude that those [pg 061] lines enjoy, perhaps, a silent, yet a parallel and unbroken tradition all down the ages till they emerge. This principle is often illustrated in the independent yet consentient testimony of the whole body of the Cursives and later Uncials61.