The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark

by John William Burgon

(2.) But times are changed. We have recently been assured on high authority that the Church has reversed her ancient convictions in this respect: that now, “most sound theologians have no dread whatever of acknowledging minute points of disagreement” (i.e. minute errors) “in the fourfold narrative even of the life of the Redeemer.”[1] There has arisen in these last days a singular impatience of Dogmatic Truth, (especially Dogma of an unpalatable kind,) which has even rendered popular the pretext afforded by these same mutilated copies for the grave resuscitation of doubts, never as it would seem seriously entertained by any [pg 003] of the ancients; and which, at all events for 1300 years and upwards, have deservedly sunk into oblivion.

Whilst I write, that “most divine explication of the chiefest articles of our Christian belief,” the Athanasian Creed,[2] is made the object of incessant assaults.[3] But then it is remembered that statements quite as “uncharitable” as any which this Creed contains are found in the 16th verse of S. Mark's concluding chapter; are in fact the words of Him whose very Name is Love. The precious warning clause, I say, (miscalled “damnatory,”[4]) which an impertinent officiousness is for glossing with a rubric and weakening with an apology, proceeded from Divine lips,—at least if these concluding verses be genuine. How shall this inconvenient circumstance be more effectually dealt with than by accepting the suggestion of the most recent editors, that S. Mark's concluding verses are an unauthorised addition to his Gospel? “If it be acknowledged that the passage has a harsh sound,” (remarks Dean Stanley,) “unlike the usual utterances of Him who came not to condemn but to save, the discoveries of later times have shewn, almost beyond doubt, that it is not a part of S. Mark's Gospel, but an addition by another hand; of which the weakness in the external evidence coincides with the internal evidence in proving its later origin.”[5]

Modern prejudice, then,—added to a singularly exaggerated estimate of the critical importance of the testimony [pg 004] of our two oldest Codices, (another of the “discoveries of later times,” concerning which I shall have more to say by-and-by,)—must explain why the opinion is even popular that the last twelve verses of S. Mark are a spurious appendix to his Gospel.

Not that Biblical Critics would have us believe that the Evangelist left off at verse 8, intending that the words,—“neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid,” should be the conclusion of his Gospel. “No one can imagine,” (writes Griesbach,) “that Mark cut short the thread of his narrative at that place.”[6] It is on all hands eagerly admitted, that so abrupt a termination must be held to mark an incomplete or else an uncompleted work. How, then, in the original autograph of the Evangelist, is it supposed that the narrative proceeded? This is what no one has even ventured so much as to conjecture. It is assumed, however, that the original termination of the Gospel, whatever it may have been, has perished. We appeal, of course, to its actual termination: and,—Of what nature then, (we ask,) is the supposed necessity for regarding the last twelve verses of S. Mark's Gospel as a spurious substitute for what the Evangelist originally wrote? What, in other words, has been the history of these modern doubts; and by what steps have they established themselves in books, and won the public ear?

To explain this, shall be the object of the next ensuing chapters.

CHAPTER II.

THE HOSTILE VERDICT OF BIBLICAL CRITICS SHEWN TO BE QUITE OF RECENT DATE.

Griesbach the first to deny the genuineness of these Verses (p. [6]).—Lachmann's fatal principle (p. [8]) the clue to the unfavourable verdict of Tischendorf (p. [9]), of Tregelles (p. [10]), of Alford (p. [12]); which has been generally adopted by subsequent Scholars and Divines (p. [13]).—The nature of the present inquiry explained (p. [15].)

It is only since the appearance of Griesbach's second edition [1796-1806] that Critics of the New Testament have permitted themselves to handle the last twelve verses of S. Mark's Gospel with disrespect. Previous critical editions of the New Testament are free from this reproach. “There is no reason for doubting the genuineness of this portion of Scripture,” wrote Mill in 1707, after a review of the evidence (as far as he was acquainted with it) for and against. Twenty-seven years later, appeared Bengel's edition of the New Testament (1734); and Wetstein, at the end of another seventeen years (1751-2), followed in the same field. Both editors, after rehearsing the adverse testimony in extenso, left the passage in undisputed possession of its place. Alter in 1786-7, and Birch in 1788,[7] (suspicious as the latter evidently was of its genuineness,) followed their predecessors' example. But Matthaei, (who also brought his labours to a close in the year 1788,) was not content to give a silent suffrage. He had been for upwards of fourteen years a laborious collator of Greek MSS. of the New Testament, and was so convinced of the insufficiency of the arguments which had been brought against these twelve verses of S. Mark, [pg 006] that with no ordinary warmth, no common acuteness, he insisted on their genuineness.