To this enumeration, (which could certainly be very extensively increased,) will probably have to be added the following:—
Evan. 146 (Palatino Vat. 5.)
Evan. 233 (Escurial [Upsilon]. ii. 8.)
[pg 287] Evan. 373 (Vat. 1423.)
Evan. 379 (Vat. 1769.)
Evan. 427 (Monacensis 465, Augsburg 10.)
Middle Hill, No. 13,975,—a MS. in the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps.
In conclusion, it can scarcely require to be pointed out that Victor's Commentary,—of which the Church in her palmiest days shewed herself so careful to multiply copies, and of which there survive to this hour such a vast number of specimens,—must needs anciently have enjoyed very peculiar favour. It is evident, in fact, that an Epitome of Chrysostom's Homilies on S. Matthew, together with Victor's compilation on S. Mark,—Titus of Bostra on S. Luke,—and a work in the main derived from Chrysostom's Homilies on S. John;—that these four constituted the established Commentary of ancient Christendom on the fourfold Gospel. Individual copyists, no doubt, will have been found occasionally to abridge certain of the Annotations, and to omit others: or else, out of the multitude of Scholia by various ancient Fathers which were evidently once in circulation, and must have been held in very high esteem,—(Irenæus, Origen, Ammonius, Eusebius, Apolinarius, Cyril, Chrysostom, the Gregorys, Basil, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Theodore of Heraclea,) they will have introduced extracts according to their individual caprice. In this way, the general sameness of the several copies is probably to be accounted for, while their endless discrepancy in matters of detail is perhaps satisfactorily explained.
These last remarks are offered in the way of partial elucidation of the difficulty pointed out above, at pp. [272-4].
APPENDIX (E).
Text of the concluding Scholion of Victor of Antioch's Commentary on S. Mark's Gospel; in which Victor bears emphatic testimony to the genuineness of “the last Twelve Verses.”
(Referred to at p. [65].)
I have thought this very remarkable specimen of the method of an ancient and (as I think) unjustly neglected Commentator, deserving of extraordinary attention. Besides presenting the reader, therefore, with what seems to be a fair approximation to the original text of the passage, I have subjoined as many various readings as have come to my knowledge. It is hoped that they are given with tolerable exactness; but I have been too often obliged to depend on printed books and the testimony of others. I can at least rely on the readings furnished me from the Vatican.