Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1960, Page 207
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1) That there are several misreadings common to the three MSS.
2) That there are a number of misreadings or variants peculiar
to Br and H.
3) That there are a few misreadings and variants peculiar to Br
and 440.
4) That in one instance Br retains a sentence which is differently
abbreviated in H and 440.
5) That there are a number of instances of H and 440 agreeing
with II where Br does not.
It is difficult to see how the fifth point is relevant, as it merely
shows that occasionally Br has miscopied Sk where H and 440 or
their common original (here designated as X) copied it correctly.
Similarly with point 4, there seems no reason why H and 440
could not have made their individual abbreviated versions of a
full sentence standing in X, just as well as from Sk. Point 1, mis-
readings common to all three MSS, would seem, if anything, to
tell against Miss Brown’s thesis. It is surely more likely that two
MSS (Br and X) should have miscopied a badly written word or
phrase and that H and 440 should then have taken over the mis-
take from X, than that three separate MSS should make the same
mistake. At any rate it is certainly no less likely. Also it must be
remembered that some of these misreadings may have originated in
Sk itself18, in which case they are of no value as evidence.
Therefore the most significant groups of readings that Miss
Brown puts forward are: misreadings and variants peculiar to Br
and 440, and misreadings and variants peculiar to Br and H. Of
the first Miss Brown admits there are only “a few”19, and none of
them are very striking. A form like pottust at 38/2 for pottumst only
indicates that the scribes of Br and 440 knew the ending -ust for
-umst from the spoken language (cf. Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana
XVII pp. 151 and 395).
We are thus left with the readings peculiar to Br and H, and it
must be admitted that Miss Brown gives a formidable number of
these. Their value, however, is considerably reduced by the faet that,
18 Cf. Miss Brown’s example from 42/8, where 439 has a mistake similar to that
in the IIp MSS. Acta 1952, p. 37.
19 Acta 1952, p. 38.