(a) One, “Marinus,” is introduced quoting this part of S. Mark's Gospel without suspicion, and enquiring, How its opening statement is to be reconciled with S. Matth. xxviii. 1? Eusebius, in reply, points out that a man whose only object was to get rid of the difficulty, might adopt the expedient of saying that this last section of S. Mark's Gospel “is not found in all the copies:” (μὴ ἐν ἁπᾶσι φέρεσθαι.) Declining, however, to act thus presumptuously in respect of anything claiming to be a part of Evangelical Scripture, (οὐδ᾽ ὁτιοῦν τολμῶν ἀθετεῖν τῶν ὁπωσοῦν ἐν τῇ τῶν εὐαγγελίων γραφῇ φερομένων,)—he adopts the hypothesis that the text is genuine. Καὶ δὴ τοῦδε τοῦ μέρους συγχωρουμένου εἶναι ἀληθοῦς, he begins: and he enters at once without hesitation on an elaborate [pg 250] discussion to shew how the two places may be reconciled.[486] What there is in this to countenance the notion that in the opinion of Eusebius “the Gospel according to S. Mark originally terminated at the 8th verse of the last chapter,”—I profess myself unable to discover. I draw from his words the precisely opposite inference. It is not even clear to me that the Verses in dispute were absent from the copy which Eusebius habitually employed. He certainly quotes one of those verses once and again.[487] On the other hand, the express statement of Victor of Antioch [A.D. 450?] that he knew of the mutilation, but had ascertained by Critical research the genuineness of this Section of Scripture, and had adopted the Text of the authentic “Palestinian” Copy,[488]—is more than enough to outweigh the faint presumption created (as some might think) by the words of Eusebius, that his own copy was without it. And yet, as already stated, there is nothing whatever to shew that Eusebius himself deliberately rejected the last Twelve Verses of S. Mark's Gospel. Still less does that Father anywhere say, or even hint, that in his judgment the original Text of S. Mark was without them. If he may be judged by his words, he accepted them as genuine: for (what is at least certain) he argues upon their contents at great length, and apparently without misgiving.
(b) It is high time however to point out that, after all, the question to be decided is, not what Eusebius thought on this subject, but what is historically probable. As a plain matter of fact, the sum of the Patristic Evidence against these Verses is the hypothetical suggestion of Eusebius already quoted; which, (after a fashion well understood by those who have given any attention to these studies), is observed to have rapidly propagated itself in the congenial soil of the vth century. And even if it could be shewn that Eusebius deliberately rejected this portion of Scripture, (which has never been done,)—yet, inasmuch as it may be regarded as certain that those famous codices in the library of his friend [pg 251] Pamphilus at Cæsarea, to which the ancients habitually referred, recognised it as genuine,[489]—the only sufferer from such a conflict of evidence would surely be Eusebius himself: (not S. Mark, I say, but Eusebius:) who is observed to employ an incorrect text of Scripture on many other occasions; and must (in such case) be held to have been unduly partial to copies of S. Mark in the mutilated condition of Cod. B or Cod. א. His words were translated by Jerome;[490] adopted by Hesychius;[491] referred to by Victor;[492] reproduced “with a difference” in more than one ancient scholion.[493] But they are found to have died away into a very faint echo when Euthymius Zigabenus[494] rehearsed them for the last time in his Commentary on the Gospels, A.D. 1116. Exaggerated and misunderstood, behold them resuscitated after an interval of seven centuries by Griesbach, and Tischendorf, and Tregelles and the rest: again destined to fall into a congenial, though very differently prepared soil; and again destined (I venture to predict) to die out and soon to be forgotten for ever.
(iv.) After all that has gone before, our two oldest Codices (Cod. B and Cod. א) which alone witness to the truth of Eusebius' testimony as to the state of certain copies of the Gospels in his own day, need not detain us long. They are thought to be as old as the ivth century: they are certainly without the concluding section of S. Mark's Gospel. But it may not be forgotten that both Codices alike are disfigured throughout by errors, interpolations and omissions without number; that their testimony is continually divergent; and that it often happens that where they both agree they are both demonstrably in error.[495] Moreover, it is a highly significant circumstance that the Vatican Codex (B), which is the more ancient of the two, exhibits a vacant column at the end of S. Mark's Gospel,—the only vacant column in the whole codex: whereby it is shewn that the Copyist was aware of the existence of the Twelve concluding Verses of S. Mark's Gospel, even though he left them out:[496] while the [pg 252] original Scribe of the Codex Sinaiticus (א) is declared by Tischendorf to have actually omitted the concluding verse of S. John's Gospel,—in which unenviable peculiarity it stands alone among MSS.[497]
(I.) And thus we are brought back to the point from which we started. We are reminded that the one thing to be accounted for is the mutilated condition of certain copies of S. Mark's Gospel in the beginning of the fourth century; of which, Cod. B and Cod. א are the two solitary surviving specimens,—Eusebius, the one historical witness. We have to decide, I mean, between the evidence for this fact,—(namely, that within the first two centuries and a-half of our æra, the Gospel according to S. Mark suffered mutilation;)—and the reasonableness of the other opinion, namely, that S. Mark's original autograph extended no farther than ch. xvi. 8. All is reduced to this one issue; and unless any are prepared to prove that the Twelve familiar Verses (ver. 9 to ver. 20) with which S. Mark ends his Gospel cannot be his,—(I have proved on the contrary that he must needs be thought to have written them,[498])—I submit that it is simply irrational to persist in asseverating that the reason why those verses are not found in our two Codexes of the ivth century must be because they did not exist in the original autograph of the Evangelist. What else is this but to set unsupported opinion, or rather unreasoning prejudice, before the historical evidence of a fact? The assumption is not only gratuitous, arbitrary, groundless; but it is discountenanced by the evidence of MSS., of Versions, of Fathers, (Versions and Fathers much older than the ivth century:) is rendered in the highest degree improbable by every internal, every [pg 253] external consideration: is condemned by the deliberate judgment of the universal Church,—which, in its corporate capacity, for eighteen hundred years, in all places, has not only solemnly accepted the last Twelve Verses of S. Mark's Gospel as genuine, but has even singled them out for special honour.[499]
(II.) Let it be asked in conclusion,—(for this prolonged discussion is now happily at an end,)—Are any inconveniences likely to result from a frank and loyal admission, (in the absence of any Evidence whatever to the contrary,) that doubtless the last Twelve Verses of S. Mark's Gospel are just as worthy of acceptation as the rest? It might reasonably be supposed, from the strenuous earnestness with which the rejection of these Verses is generally advocated, that some considerations must surely be assignable why the opinion of their genuineness ought on no account to be entertained. Do any such reasons exist? Are any inconveniences whatever likely to supervene?
No reasons whatever are assignable, I reply; neither are there any inconvenient consequences of any sort to be anticipated,—except indeed to the Critics: to whom, it must be confessed, the result proves damaging enough.
It will only follow,
(1st) That Cod. B and Cod. א must be henceforth allowed to be in one more serious particular untrustworthy and erring witnesses. They have been convicted, in fact, of bearing false witness in respect of S. Mark xvi. 9-20, where their evidence had been hitherto reckoned upon with the most undoubting confidence.
(2ndly) That the critical statements of recent Editors, and indeed the remarks of Critics generally, in respect of S. Mark xvi. 9-20, will have to undergo serious revision: in every important particular, will have to be unconditionally withdrawn.
(3rdly) That, in all future critical editions of the New Testament, these “Twelve Verses” will have to be restored to their rightful honours: never more appearing disfigured with brackets, encumbered with doubts, banished from their [pg 254] context, or molested with notes of suspicion. On the contrary. A few words of caution against the resuscitation of what has been proved to be a “vulgar error,” will have henceforth to be introduced in memoriam rei.