is worse than infelicitous. He intends thereby to designate the younger brother of Gregory of Nazianzus; an eminent physician of Constantinople, who died A.D. 368; and who, (as far as is known,) never wrote anything. A work called Πεύσεις, (which in the xth century was attributed to Cæsarius, but concerning which nothing is certainly known except that Cæsarius was certainly not its author,) is the composition to which Tischendorf refers. Even the approximate date of this performance, however, has never been ascertained. And yet, if Tischendorf had condescended to refer to it, (instead of taking his reference at second-hand,) he would have seen at a glance that the entire context in which the supposed testimony is found, is nothing else but a condensed paraphrase of that part of Epiphanius, in which the original statement occurs.[233]
Thus much, then, for the supposed evidence of Ammonius, of Epiphanius, and of Cæsarius on the subject of the last Twelve Verses of S. Mark's Gospel. It is exactly nil. In fact Pseudo-Cæsarius, so far from “bearing witness to the fact” that the concluding verses of S. Mark's Gospel are spurious, actually quotes the 16th verse as genuine.[234]
(4.) As for Eusebius, nothing whatever has been added to what we knew before concerning his probable estimate of these verses.
IV. We are now at liberty to proceed to the only head of external testimony which remains undiscussed. I allude to the evidence of
The Catenæ.
“In the Catenæ on Mark,” (crisply declares Dr. Davidson,) “there is no explanation of this section.”[235] [pg 134] “The Catenæ on Mark:” as if they were quite common things,—“plenty, as blackberries!” But,—Which of “the Catenæ” may the learned Critic be supposed to have examined?
1. Not the Catena which Possinus found in the library of Charles de Montchal, Abp. of Toulouse, and which forms the basis of his Catena published at Rome in 1673; because that Codex is expressly declared by the learned Editor to be defective from ver. 8 to the end.[236]
2. Not the Catena which Corderius transcribed from the Vatican Library and communicated to Possinus; because in that Catena the 9th and 12th verses are distinctly commented on.[237]
3. Still less can Dr. Davidson be thought to have inspected the Catena commonly ascribed to Victor of Antioch,—which Peltanus published in Latin in 1580, but which Possinus was the first to publish in Greek (1673). Dr. Davidson, I say, cannot certainly have examined that Catena; inasmuch as it contains, (as I have already largely shewn, and, in fact, as every one may see,) a long and elaborate dissertation on the best way of reconciling the language of S. Mark in ver. 9 with the language of the other Evangelists.[238]
4. Least of all is it to be supposed that the learned Critic has inspected either of the last two editions of the same [pg 135] Catena: viz. that of Matthaei, (Moscow 1775,) or that of Cramer, (Oxford 1844,) from MSS. in the Royal Library at Paris and in the Bodleian. This is simply impossible, because (as we have seen), in these is contained the famous passage which categorically asserts the genuineness of the last Twelve Verses of S. Mark's Gospel.[239]