005_Tam_co_570-588 13/02/15 12:48 Pagina 582 582 JOSAPHAT C. TAM From these findings on the placement of 2,23-25 in its manu- script context, two further points can be deduced on the origin of such phenomena: 1. It is either the copyists’ own individual decisions on the de- limitation, or 2. It is the influence of their exemplars as they faithfully repre- sent the phenomena by their own means. These imply that either these copyists, as early readers of the Gospel, considered 2,23-25 as belonging to the previous context, or the exemplars they used reflect an earlier textual tradition that treated 2,23-25 as belonging to the previous context. Of course, these two implications need not be mutually exclusive. Assuming that the phenomenon is purely an interpretive act made by these early copyists, even so, our survey has sufficiently shown the pres- ence of a living tradition of interpretation, namely, five out of six witnesses testify that 2,23-25 belongs to the preceding context, and not to the following. Such appears to be the majority view of the earliest interpreters according to the textual evidence. They intend to guide readers to read the text in this particular way, contrary to what is found in the Nestle-Aland 27th and 28th editions of the Greek New Testament. III. Reflection and Proposal: 2,23-25 as an Anticlimactic Concluding Remark In reaction to the near consensus of modern commentaries on the role of John 2,23-25, I turned to the ancient manuscripts dated from ca. 200 to the 5th c. to search for early interpretations embed- ded in the sense-unit delimitations. Based on the findings, I argued Vaticanus”, JBL 81 (1962) 363-76; J.K. ELLIOTT, “T.C. Skeat on the Dat- ing and Origin of Codex Vaticanus”, New Testament Textual Criticism. The Application of Thoroughgoing Principles: Essays on Manuscripts and Textual Variation (NovTSup 137; Leiden 2010) 67; CHAPA, “The Early Text of John”, 140. The representativeness of the wide-spread phenome- non we observed here is further supported by another fact that, according to Houghton’s article, twenty Old Latin manuscripts have a division in 3,1 but not 2,23; only one has divisions in both 2,23 and 3,1; only one has division in 2,23 but not 3,1. H.A.G. HOUGHTON, “Chapter Divisions, Capitula Lists, and the Old Latin Versions of John”, RBén 121 (2011) 351.