The earliest deviations from the autographs appear in the so-called Western, or “uncontrolled popular text,” of the second century. That text is characterized by free expansion, paraphrase, and alteration of previously existing words. Western witnesses are few and generally diverse, with a textual individuality that hampers the reconstruction of a common archetype. Even so, the bulk of its readings shares a commonalty with the text of the presumed autograph.