1. It will be perceived that I suppose the omission of “the last Twelve Verses” of S. Mark's Gospel to have originated in a sheer error and misconception on the part of some very ancient Copyist. He saw ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ written after ver. 8: he assumed that it was the Subscription, or at least that it denoted “the End,” of the Gospel.
2. Whether certain ancient Critics, because it was acceptable to them, were not found to promote this mistake,—it is useless to inquire. That there may have arisen some old harmonizer of the Gospels, who, (in the words of Eusebius,) was disposed to “regard what followed as superfluous from its seeming inconsistency with the testimony of the other Evangelists;”[456]—and that in this way the error became propagated;—is likely enough. But an error it most certainly was: and to that error, the accident described in the last preceding paragraph would have very materially conduced, and it may have very easily done so.
3. I request however that it may be observed that the “accident” is not needed in order to account for the “error.” The mere presence of ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ at ver. 8, so near the end of the Gospel, would be quite enough to occasion it. And we have seen that in very ancient times the word ΤΕΛΟΣ frequently did occur in an altogether exceptional manner in that very place. Moreover, we have ascertained that its meaning was not understood by the transcribers of ancient MSS.
4. And will any one venture to maintain that it is to him a thing incredible that an intelligent copyist of the iiird century, because he read the words ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ at S. Mark xvi. 8, can have been beguiled thereby into the supposition that those words indicated “the End” of S. Mark's Gospel?—Shall I be told that, even if one can have so entirely overlooked the meaning of the liturgical sign as to suffer it to insinuate itself into his text,[457] it is nevertheless so improbable [pg 242] as to pass all credence that another can have supposed that it designated the termination of the Gospel of the second Evangelist?—For all reply, I take leave to point out that Scholz, and Tischendorf, and Tregelles, and Mai and the rest of the Critics have, one and all, without exception, misunderstood the same word occurring in the same place, and in precisely the same way.
Yes. The forgotten inadvertence of a solitary Scribe in the second or third century has been, in the nineteenth, deliberately reproduced, adopted, and stereotyped by every Critic and every Editor of the New Testament in turn.
What wonder,—(I propose the question deliberately,)—What wonder that an ancient Copyist should have been misled by a phenomenon which in our own days is observed to have imposed upon two generations of professed Biblical Critics discussing this very textual problem, and therefore fully on their guard against delusion?[458] To this hour, the illustrious Editors of the text of the Gospels are clearly, one and all, labouring under the grave error of supposing that “ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ + τέλος,”—(for which they are so careful to refer us to “Cod. 22,”)—is an indication that there, by rights, comes the “End” of the Gospel according to S. Mark. They have failed to perceive that ΤΕΛΟΣ in that place is only a liturgical sign,—the same with which (in its contracted form) they are sufficiently familiar; and that it serves no other purpose whatever, but to mark that there a famous Ecclesiastical Lection comes to an end.
With a few pages of summary, we may now bring this long disquisition to an end.