(6.) The epitomizer however, missing the point of his Author,—besides enumerating all the appearances of our Saviour which S. Luke anywhere records,—is further convicted of having injudiciously invented the negative statement about S. Mark's Gospel which is occasioning us all this trouble.
(7.) And yet, by that unlucky sentence of his, he certainly did not mean what is commonly imagined. I am not concerned to defend him: but it is only fair to point out that, to suppose he intended to disallow the end of S. Mark's Gospel, is altogether to misapprehend the gist of his remarks, and to impute to him a purpose of which he clearly knew nothing. Note, how he throws his first two statements into a separate paragraph; contrasts, and evidently balances one against the other: thus,—
κατὰ Μάρκον, μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν οὐ λέγεται ὤφθαι,—κατὰ Ματθαῖον μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν ὤφθη,—τοῖς μαθηταῖς ἐν τῇ Γαλιλαίᾳ.
Perfectly evident is it that the “plena locutio” so to speak, of the Writer would have been somewhat as follows:—
“[The first two Evangelists are engaged with our Saviour's appearance to His Disciples in Galilee: but] by [pg 323] S. Mark, He is not—by S. Matthew, He is—related to have been actually seen by them there.
“[The other two Evangelists relate the appearances in Jerusalem: and] according to S. John, &c. &c.
“According to S. Luke,” &c. &c.
(8.) And on passing the “Quaestiones ad Marinum” of Eusebius under review, I am constrained to admit that the Scholion before us is just such a clumsy bit of writing as an unskilful person might easily be betrayed into, who should attempt to exhibit in a few short sentences the substance of more than one tedious disquisition of this ancient Father.[585] Its remote parentage would fully account for its being designated “σχόλιον εὐσεβίου” all the same.
(9.) Least of all am I concerned to say anything more about the longer Scholion; seeing that S. Mark is not so much as mentioned in it. But I may as well point out that, as it stands, Eusebius cannot have been its Author: the proof being, that whereas the Scholion in question is a note on S. John xxi. 12, (as Matthaei is careful to inform us,)—its opening sentence is derived from Chrysostom's Commentary on that same verse in his 87th Homily on S. John.[586]
(10.) And thus, one by one, every imposing statement of the Critics is observed hopelessly to collapse as soon as it is questioned, and to vanish into thin air.