It is impossible to separate the history of the text from the general history of the Church. The local history of a district, the monasteries of the country, local heresies, and certainly local pronunciations and dialects with their variations at different times, all act on the text, and are influenced by it in turn. The perfect textual critic will have to be an expert palaeographer and and the possessor of a complete knowledge of all the bypaths of Church history.

KIRSOPP LAKE, THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 4TH ED., REV., (NEW YORK: EDWIN S. GORHAM, 1908), 10.