The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

by John William Burgon

iii. A further observation is to be noted, which not only confirms the above, but serves to determine the place where the excision was made to have been at the very end of the Gospel. The last of the four lines of the sixth and last column of St. Mark (the second column of leaf 29 ro) contains only the five letters το γαρ ([ἐφοβοῦν]το γαρ), and has the rest of the space (more than half the width of the column) filled up with a minute and elaborate ornament executed with the pen in ink and vermilion, the like of which is nowhere else found in the MS., or in the New Testament part of B, such spaces being invariably left unfilled[629]. And not only so, but underneath, the usual “arabesque” above the subscription, marking the conclusion of the text, has its horizontal arm extended all the way across the width of the column,—and not, as always elsewhere, but halfway or less[630]. It seems hardly possible to regard these carefully executed works of the pen of the diorthota otherwise than as precautions to guard against the possible restoration, by a subsequent reviser, of a portion of text deliberately omitted by him (the [pg 301] diorthota) from the end of the Gospel. They are evidence therefore that he knew of a conclusion to the Gospel which he designedly expunged, and endeavoured to make it difficult for any one else to reinsert.

We have, therefore, good reason to believe that the disputed Twelve Verses were not only in an exemplar known to the scribe of B, but also in the exemplar used by the scribe of א; and that their omission (or, more properly, disappearance) from these two MSS. is due to one and the same person—the scribe, namely, who wrote B and who revised א,—or rather, perhaps, to an editor by whose directions he acted.

2. Some early Patristic evidence has been added to the stores which the Dean collected by Dr. Taylor, Master of St. John's College, Cambridge. This evidence may be found in a book entitled “The Witness of Hermas” to the Four Gospels, published in 1892, of which § 12 in the Second Part is devoted to “The ending of St. Mark's Gospel,” and includes also quotations from Justin Martyr, and the Apology of Aristides. A fuller account is given in the Expositor of July 1893, and contains references to the following passages:—Irenaeus iii. 11. 6 (quoting xvi. 19); Justin Martyr, Trypho, § 138; Apol. i. 67; Trypho, § 85; Apol. i. 45; Barnabas, xv. 9; xvi. 7; Quarto-deciman Controversy (Polycarp)? and Clement of Rome, i. 42. The passages from Hermas are, 1. (xvi. 12-13) Sim. ii. 1, Vis. i. 1, iii. 1, iv. 1, and v. 4; 2. (xvi. 14) Sim. ix. 141 and 20. 4, Vis. iii. 8. 3, iii. 7. 6; 3. (xvi. 15-16) Vis. iii, Sim. ix. 16, 25; 4. (xvi. 17-18) Vis. iv, Mand. i, xii. 2. 2-3, Sim. ix. 1. 9, iii. 7, ix. 26, Mand. xii. 6. 2; 5. (xvi. 19-20) Vis. iii. 1. Some of the references are not apparent at first sight, but Dr. Taylor's discussions in both places should be read carefully.

3. In my own list given above, p. [109], of the writers who died before a.d. 400, I have added from my two [pg 302] examinations of the Ante-Chrysostom Fathers to the list in The Revision Revised, p. 421, the Clementines, four references from the Apostolic Canons and Constitutions, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, and two references to the four of St. Ambrose mentioned in “The Last Twelve Verses,” p. 27. To these Dr. Waller adds, Gospel of Peter, § 7 (πενθοῦντες καὶ κλαίοντες), and § 12 (ἐκλαίομεν καὶ ἐλυπούμεθα), referring to the ἅπαξ λεγόμενον, as regards the attitude of the Twelve at the time, in xvi. 10.

4. On the other hand, the recently discovered Lewis Codex, as is well known, omits the verses. The character of that Codex, which has been explained above in the sixth chapter of this work, makes any alliance with it suspicious, and consequently it is of no real importance that its testimony, unlike that of B and א, is claimed to be unswerving.

For that manuscript is disfigured by heretical blemishes of the grossest nature, and the obliteration of it for the purpose of covering the vellum with other writing was attended with circumstances of considerable significance.

In the first chapter of St. Matthew, Joseph is treated as the father of our Lord (vers. 16, 21, 24) as far as His body was concerned, for as to His soul even according to teaching of Gnostic origin He was treated as owing His nature to the Holy Ghost (ver. 20). Accordingly, the blessed Virgin is called in the second chapter of St. Luke Joseph's “wife,” μεμνηστευμένη being left with no equivalent[631]: and at His baptism, He is described as “being as He was called the son of Joseph” (St. Luke iii. 23). According to the heretical tenet that our Lord was chosen out of other men to be made the Son of God at the baptism, we read afterwards, “This is My Son, My chosen” [pg 303] (St. Luke ix. 35), “the chosen of God” (St. John i. 34), “Thou art My Son and My beloved” (St. Matt. iii. 17), “This is My Son Who is beloved” (St. Mark ix. 7); and we are told of the Holy Ghost descending like a dove (St. Matt. iii. 16), that It “abode upon Him.” Various smaller expressions are also found, but perhaps the most remarkable of those which have been left upon the manuscript occurs in St. Matt. xxvii. 50, “And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and His Spirit went up.” After this, can we be surprised because the scribe took the opportunity of leaving out the Last Twelve Verses of St. Mark which contain the most detailed account of the Ascension in the Gospels, as well as the καὶ ἀνεφέρετο εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν of St. Luke?

Again, at the time when the manuscript was put out of use, and as is probable in the monastery of St. Catherine so early as the year 778 a.d. (Introduction by Mrs. Lewis, p. xv), the old volume was pulled to pieces, twenty-two leaves were cast away, the rest used in no regular order, and on one at least, as we are told, a knife was employed to eradicate the writing. Five of the missing leaves must have been blank, according to Mrs. Lewis: but the seventeen remaining leaves contained passages of supreme importance as being expressive of doctrine, like St. John i. 1-24, St. Luke i. 16-39, St. Mark i. 1-11, St. Matt. xxviii. 8-end, and others. Reading the results of this paragraph in connexion with those of the last, must we not conclude that this manuscript was used for a palimpsest, and submitted to unusual indignity in order to obliterate its bad record?

It will be seen therefore that a cause, which for unchallenged evidence rests solely upon such a witness, cannot be one that will commend itself to those who form their conclusions judicially. The genuineness of the verses, as part of the second Gospel, must, I hold, remain unshaken by such opposition.

5. An ingenious suggestion has been contributed by [pg 304] Mr. F. C. Conybeare, the eminent Armenian scholar, founded upon an entry which he discovered in an Armenian MS. of the Gospels, dated a.d. 986, where “Ariston Eritzou” is written in minioned uncials at the head of the twelve verses. Mr. Conybeare argues, in the Expositor for October, 1893, that “Ariston Eritzou” is not the copyist himself, who signs himself Johannes, or an Armenian translator, Ariston or Aristion being no Armenian name. He then attempts to identify it with Aristion who is mentioned by Papias in a passage quoted by Eusebius (H. E. iii. 39) as a disciple of the Lord. Both the words “Ariston Eritzou” are taken to be in the genitive, as “Eritzou” certainly is, and to signify “Of or by Aristion the presbyter,” this being the meaning of the latter word. The suggestion is criticized by Dr. Ad. Harnack in the Theologische Literaturzeitung, 795, where Dr. Harnack pronounces no opinion upon the soundness of it: but the impression left upon the mind after reading his article is that he is unable to accept it.