Tense-Form Reduction and the Use of ἐποιήσατε in Codex Bezae 65 of Bezae wished to harmonize the more elaborate Matthean and Markan accounts with their negligible parallel in Luke. b. Latinization of the Greek Another possibility is that Bezae’s shift in tense-form reflects some sort of constraint put on the scribe by the Greek’s Latin counterpart13. Since Latin lacks a semantic equivalent to the Greek Perfect, the use of ἐποιήσατε in Matt 21,13//Mark 11,17 could derive from a simple desire to accommodate the limitations of the Latin verbal system. But this explanation does not quite fit the available evidence. First, if the scribe was restricted to the use of the Aorist to render the Latin Perfect (fecistis in Matthew; fecis in Mark), we would expect to see this sort of technique employed consistently. But this is not the case. Whatever his level of facility with Greek, the Bezan scribe certainly knew the Greek Perfect as a representative option for the Latin Perfect. For example, the Perfect participles ligatam//ligatum are represented in Greek as the Perfect participles δεδεμένην//δεδεμένον in Matt 21,2//Mark 11,2, and the Perfect scriptum in Matt 21,13//Mark 11,17 is represented by the Perfect γέγραπται. Second, Aorists are able to represent not only Latin Perfects but Latin Presents as well14. The opposite is also true; that is, Latin Perfects can be represented by Greek Presents (e.g., solverunt = λύουσιν, Mark 11,4). Thus, there is nothing in the Latin here that seems to have restricted the scribe absolutely to the use of the Aorist ἐποιήσατε15. c. Tense-Form Reduction and Textual Emphasis Here I suggest a third, more likely, reason for the tense-form change in Bezae based on the concept of tense-form reduction. At its most fundamental level, tense-form reduction refers to occasions when an author uses a less marked tense-from in the place of one that had previously 13 This position would, of course, presuppose that Codex Bezae had Latin origins, and thus that its Latin columns influenced the Greek columns. In his extensive study of Bezae, Parker suggests a Latin origin for the bilingual codex, but contends that “rather than wholesale Latinization of the Greek, a far more subtle reciprocal process was at work, in which each [Latin and Greek] column moulded the other” (D.C. Parker Codex Bezae: An Early Christian Manuscript and Its Text [Cambridge 1992] 193). See also Parker, Codex Bezae, 183-193 for a fuller discussion and historical survey of the complexities regarding the relation between the Latin and Greek columns. 14 In at least one place (Mark 11,21) the Greek Aorist (ἐξήρανθη) translates a Latin Present (aruit). Formally, however, aruit could be Present or Perfect. However, based on statistical data Perseus suggest reading aruit here as a Present. 15 This coincides with Parker’s statement that “assimilation to the Latin was not the most important factor in the history of the Greek column” (D.C. Parker, “The Translation of OYN in the Old Latin Gospels”, NTS 31.2 [1985] 272).