Now, in the face of facts like these, and in the absence of any Evidence whatever to prove that S. Mark's Gospel was imperfect from the first,—I submit that an hypothesis so violent and improbable, as well as so wholly uncalled for, is simply undeserving of serious attention. For,
(1st.) It is plain from internal considerations that the improbability of the hypothesis is excessive; “the contents of these Verses being such as to preclude the supposition that they were the work of a post-Apostolic period. The very difficulties which they present afford the strongest presumption of their genuineness.” No fabricator of a supplement to S. Mark's Gospel would have ventured on introducing so many minute seeming discrepancies: and certainly [pg 247] “his contemporaries would not have accepted and transmitted such an addition,” if he had. It has also been shewn at great length that the Internal Evidence for the genuineness of these Verses is overwhelmingly strong.[477] But,
(2nd.) Even external Evidence is not wanting. It has been acutely pointed out long since, that the absence of a vast assemblage of various Readings in this place, is, in itself, a convincing argument that we have here to do with no spurious appendage to the Gospel.[478] Were this a deservedly suspected passage, it must have shared the fate of all other deservedly (or undeservedly) suspected passages. It never could have come to pass that the various Readings which these Twelve Verses exhibit would be considerably fewer than those which attach to the last twelve verses of any of the other three Gospels.
(3rd.) And then surely, if the original Gospel of S. Mark had been such an incomplete work as is feigned, the fact would have been notorious from the first, and must needs have become the subject of general comment.[479] It may be regarded as certain that so extraordinary a circumstance would have been largely remarked upon by the Ancients, and that evidence of the fact would have survived in a hundred quarters. It is, I repeat, simply incredible that Tradition would have proved so utterly neglectful of her office as to remain quite silent on such a subject, if the facts had been such as are imagined. Either Papias, or else John the Presbyter,—Justin Martyr, or Hegesippus, or one of the “Seniores apud Irenæum,”—Clemens Alexandrinus, or Tertullian, or Hippolytus,—if not Origen, yet at least Eusebius,—if not [pg 248] Eusebius, yet certainly Jerome,—some early Writer, I say, must certainly have recorded the tradition that S. Mark's Gospel, as it came from the hands of its inspired author, was an incomplete or unfinished work. The silence of the Ancients, joined to the inherent improbability of the conjecture,—(that silence so profound, this improbability so gross!)—is enough, I submit, in the entire absence of Evidence on the other side, to establish the very contradictory of the alternative which recent Critics are so strenuous in recommending to our acceptance.
(4th.) But on the contrary. We have indirect yet convincing testimony that the oldest copies of all did contain the Verses in question:[480] while so far are any of the Writers just now enumerated from recording that these verses were absent from the early copies, that five out of those ten Fathers actually quote, or else refer to the verses in question in a way which shews that in their day they were the recognised termination of S. Mark's Gospel.[481]
We consider ourselves at liberty, therefore, to turn our attention to the rival alternative. Our astonishment is even excessive that it should have been seriously expected of us that we could accept without Proof of any sort,—without a particle of Evidence, external, internal, or even traditional,—the extravagant hypothesis that S. Mark put forth an unfinished Gospel; when the obvious and easy alternative solicits us, of supposing,
II. That, at some period subsequent to the time of the Evangelist, certain copies of S. Mark's Gospel suffered that mutilation in respect of their last Twelve Verses of which we meet with no trace whatever, no record of any sort, until the beginning of the fourth century.
(i.) And the facts which now meet us on the very threshold, are in a manner conclusive: for if Papias and Justin Martyr [A.D. 150] do not refer to, yet certainly Irenæus [A.D. 185] and Hippolytus [A.D. 190-227] distinctly quote Six out of the Twelve suspected Verses,—which are also met with in the two oldest Syriac Versions, as well as in the old Latin Translation. Now the latest of these authorities is [pg 249] earlier by full a hundred years than the earliest record that the verses in question were ever absent from ancient MSS. At the eighth Council of Carthage, (as Cyprian relates,) [A.D. 256] Vincentius a Thiberi, one of the eighty-seven African Bishops there assembled, quoted the 17th verse in the presence of the Council.
(ii.) Nor is this all.[482] Besides the Gothic and Egyptian versions in the ivth century; besides Ambrose, Cyril of Alexandria, Jerome, and Augustine in the vth, to say nothing of Codices A and C;—the Lectionary of the Church universal, probably from the second century of our æra, is found to bestow its solemn and emphatic sanction on every one of these Twelve Verses. They are met with in every MS. of the Gospels in existence, uncial and cursive,—except two;[483] they are found in every Version; and are contained besides in every known Lectionary, where they are appointed to be read at Easter and on Ascension Day.[484]
(iii.) Early in the ivth century, however, we are encountered by a famous place in the writings of Eusebius [A.D. 300-340], who, (as I have elsewhere explained,[485]) is the only Father who delivers any independent testimony on this subject at all. What he says has been strangely misrepresented. It is simply as follows:—