The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark. John William Burgon
but Chrysostom is responsible: for the other half, no one but Eusebius.
But it is Victor's familiar use of the writings of Eusebius—especially of those Resolutions of hard Questions “concerning the seeming Inconsistencies in the Evangelical accounts of the Resurrection,” which Eusebius addressed to Marinus—on which the reader's attention is now to be concentrated. Victor cites that work of Eusebius by name in the very first page of his Commentary. That his last page also contains a quotation from it, (also by name), has been already pointed out.109 Attention is now invited to what is found concerning S. Mark xvi. 9–20 in the last page but one (p. 444) of [pg 062] Victor's work. It shall be given in English; because I will convince unlearned as well as learned readers. Victor, (after quoting four lines from the 89th Homily of Chrysostom110), reconciles (exactly as Eusebius is observed to do111) the notes of time contained severally in S. Matth. xxviii. 1, S. Mark xvi. 2, S. Luke xxiv. 1, and S. John xx. 1. After which, he proceeds as follows:—
“In certain copies of Mark's Gospel, next comes—‘Now when [Jesus] was risen early the first day of the week, He appeared to Mary Magdalene;’—a statement which seems inconsistent with Matthew's narrative. This might be met by asserting, that the conclusion of Mark's Gospel, though found in certain copies, is spurious, However, that we may not seem to betake ourselves to an off-hand answer, we propose to read the place thus:—‘Now when [Jesus] was risen:’ then, after a comma, to go on—‘early the first day of the week He appeared to Mary Magdalene.’ In this way we refer [Mark's] ‘Now when [Jesus] was risen’ to Matthew's ‘in the end of the sabbath,’ (for then we believe Him to have risen;) and all that comes after, expressive as it is of a different notion, we connect with what follows. Mark relates that He who ‘arose (according to Matthew) in the end of the Sabbath,’ was seen by Mary Magdalene ‘early.’ This is in fact what John also declares; for he too has recorded that ‘early,’ ‘the first day of the week,’ [Jesus] appeared to the Magdalene. In a word, two distinct seasons are set before us by these words: first, the season of the Resurrection—which was ‘in the end of the Sabbath;’ secondly, the season of our Saviour's Appearing—which was ‘early.’ ”112
No one, I presume, can read this passage and yet hesitate to admit that he is here listening to Eusebius “ad Marinum” over again. But if any one really retains a particle of doubt on the subject, he is requested to cast his eye to the foot of the present page; and even an unlearned reader, [pg 063] surveying the originals with attention, may easily convince himself that Victor is here nothing else but a copyist.113 That the work in which Eusebius reconciles “seeming discrepancies in the Evangelical narratives,” was actually lying open before Victor while he wrote, is ascertained beyond dispute. He is observed in his next ensuing Comment to quote from it, and to mention Eusebius as its author. At the end of the present note he has a significant allusion to Eusebius:—“I [pg 064] know very well,” he says, “what has been suggested by those who are at the pains to remove the apparent inconsistencies in this place.”114 But when writing on S. Mark xvi. 9–20, he does more. After abridging, (as his manner is,) what Eusebius explains with such tedious emphasis, (giving the substance of five columns in about three times as many lines,) he adopts the exact expressions of Eusebius—follows him in his very mistakes—and finally transcribes his words. The reader is therefore requested to bear in mind that what he has been listening to is not the testimony of Victor at all: but the testimony of Eusebius. This is but one more echo therefore of a passage of which we are all beginning by this time to be weary; so exceedingly rash are the statements with which it is introduced, so utterly preposterous the proposed method of remedying a difficulty which proves after all to be purely imaginary.
What then is the testimony of Victor? Does he offer any independent statement on the question in dispute, from which his own private opinion (though nowhere stated) may be lawfully inferred? Yes indeed. Victor, though frequently a Transcriber only, is observed every now and then to come forward in his own person, and deliver his individual sentiment.115 But nowhere throughout his work does he deliver such remarkable testimony as in this place. Hear him!
“Notwithstanding that in very many copies of the present Gospel, the passage beginning, ‘Now when [Jesus] was risen early the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene,’ be not found—(certain individuals having supposed it to be spurious,)—yet we, at all events, inasmuch as in very many we have discovered it to exist, have, out of accurate copies, subjoined also the account of our Lord's Ascension, (following the words ‘for they were afraid,’) in conformity with the Palestinian exemplar of Mark [pg 065] which exhibits the Gospel verity: that is to say, from the words, ‘Now when [Jesus] was risen early the first day of the week,’ &c., down to ‘with signs following. Amen.’116—And with these words Victor of Antioch brings his Commentary on S. Mark to an end.”
Here then we find it roundly stated by a highly intelligent Father, writing in the first half of the vth century—
(1.) That the reason why the last Twelve Verses of S. Mark are absent from some ancient copies of his Gospel is because they have been deliberately omitted by Copyists:
(2.) That the ground for such omission was the subjective judgment of individuals—not the result of any appeal to documentary evidence. Victor, therefore, clearly held that the Verses in question had been expunged in consequence of their (seeming) inconsistency with what is met with in the other Gospels:
(3.) That he, on the other hand, had convinced himself by reference to “very many” and “accurate” copies, that the verses in question are genuine:
(4.) That in particular the Palestinian Copy, which enjoyed the reputation of “exhibiting the genuine text of S. Mark,” contained the Verses in dispute.—To Opinion, therefore, Victor opposes Authority. He makes his appeal to the most trustworthy documentary evidence with which he is acquainted; and the deliberate testimony which he delivers is a complete counterpoise and antidote to the loose phrases of Eusebius on the same subject:
(5.) That in consequence of all this, following the Palestinian Exemplar, he had from accurate copies furnished his own work with the Twelve Verses in dispute;—which is a categorical refutation of the statement frequently met with that the work of Victor of Antioch is without them.
We are now at liberty to sum up; and to review the progress which has been hitherto made in this Inquiry.
Six Fathers of the Church have been examined who are commonly represented as bearing hostile testimony to the last Twelve Verses of S. Mark's Gospel; and they have been [pg 066] easily reduced to one. Three of them, (Hesychius, Jerome, Victor,) prove to be echoes, not voices. The remaining two, (Gregory of Nyssa and Severus,) are neither voices nor echoes, but merely names: Gregory of Nyssa having really no more to do with this discussion than Philip of Macedon; and “Severus” and “Hesychius” representing one and the same individual. Only by a Critic seeking to mislead his reader will any one of these five Fathers be in future cited as witnessing against the genuineness of S. Mark xvi. 9–20. Eusebius is the solitary witness who survives the ordeal of exact inquiry.117 But,
I. Eusebius, (as we have seen), instead of proclaiming his distrust of this portion of the Gospel, enters upon an elaborate proof that its contents are not inconsistent with what is found in the Gospels of S. Matthew and S. John. His testimony is reducible to two innocuous and wholly unconnected propositions: the first—That there existed in his day a vast number of copies in which the last chapter of S. Mark's Gospel ended abruptly at ver. 8; (the correlative of which of course would be that there also existed a vast number which were furnished with the present ending.) The second—That by putting a comma after the word Ἀναστάς, S. Mark xvi. 9, is capable of being reconciled with S. Matth. xxviii. 1118. … I profess myself unable to understand how it can be pretended that Eusebius would have subscribed to the opinion of Tischendorf, Tregelles, and the rest, that the Gospel of S. Mark was never finished by its inspired Author, or was mutilated before it came abroad; at all events, that the last Twelve Verses are spurious.
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II. The observations of Eusebius