“I have therefore questioned the elder of those two MSS.; and it has volunteered the avowal that an older MS. than [pg 090] itself—the Codex from which it was copied—was furnished with those very Verses which you wish me to believe that some older MS. still must needs have been without. What else can be said, then, of your method but that it is frivolous? and of your charge, but that it is contradicted by the evidence to which you yourselves appeal?
“But it is illogical; that is, it is unreasonable, besides.
“For it is high time to point out that even if it so happened that the oldest known MS. was observed to be without these twelve concluding verses, it would still remain a thing unproved (not to say highly improbable) that from the autograph of the Evangelist himself they were also away. Supposing, further, that no Ecclesiastical writer of the iind or iiird century could be found who quoted them: even so, it would not follow that there existed no such verses for a primitive Father to quote. The earliest of the Versions might in addition yield faltering testimony; but even so, who would be so rash as to raise on such a slender basis the monstrous hypothesis, that S. Mark's Gospel when it left the hands of its inspired Author was without the verses which at present conclude it? How, then, would you have proposed to account for the consistent testimony of an opposite kind yielded by every other known document in the world?
“But, on the other hand, what are the facts of the case? (1) The earliest of the Fathers,—(2) the most venerable of the Versions,—(3) the oldest MS. of which we can obtain any tidings,—all are observed to recognize these Verses. ‘Cadit quaestio’ therefore. The last shadow of pretext has vanished for maintaining with Tischendorf that ‘Mark the Evangelist knew nothing of’ these verses:—with Tregelles that ‘The book of Mark himself extends no further than ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ:’—with Griesbach that ‘the last leaf of the original Gospel was probably torn away.’... It is high time, I say, that this case were dismissed. But there are also costs to be paid. Cod. B and Cod. א are convicted of being ‘two false witnesses,’ and must be held to go forth from this inquiry with an injured reputation.”
This entire subject is of so much importance that I must needs yet awhile crave the reader's patience and attention.
CHAPTER VII.
MANUSCRIPT TESTIMONY SHEWN TO BE OVERWHELMINGLY IN FAVOUR OF THESE VERSES.—PART II.
The other chief peculiarity of Codices B and א (viz. the omission of the words ἐν Ἐφέσῳ from Ephes. i. 1) considered.—Antiquity unfavourable to the omission of those words (p. [93]).—The Moderns infelicitous in their attempts to account for their omission (p. [100]).—Marcion probably the author of this corruption of the Text of Scripture (p. [106]).—Other peculiarities of Codex א disposed of (p. [109]).
The subject which exclusively occupied our attention throughout the foregoing chapter admits of apt and powerful illustration. Its vast importance will be a sufficient apology for the particular disquisition which follows, and might have been spared, but for the plain challenge of the famous Critic to be named immediately.