The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark. John William Burgon
if Severus, then not Hesychius. This writer, however, (whoever he may have been,) is careful to convince us that individually he entertained no doubt whatever about the genuineness of this part of Scripture, for he says that he writes in order to remove the (hypothetical) objections of others, and to silence their (imaginary) doubts. Nay, he freely quotes the verses as genuine, and declares that they were read in his day on a certain Sunday night in the public Service of the Church. … To represent such an one—(it matters nothing, I repeat, whether we call him “Hesychius of Jerusalem” or “Severus of Antioch,”)—as a hostile witness, is simply to misrepresent the facts of the case. He is, on the contrary, the strenuous champion of the verses which he is commonly represented as impugning.
III. As for Jerome, since that illustrious Father comes before us in this place as a translator of Eusebius only, he is no more responsible for what Eusebius says concerning S. Mark xvi. 9–20, than Hobbes of Malmesbury is responsible for anything that Thucydides has related concerning the Peloponnesian war. Individually, however, it is certain that Jerome was convinced of the genuineness of S. Mark xvi. 9–20: for in two different places of his writings he not only quotes the 9th and 14th verses, but he exhibits all the twelve in the Vulgate.
IV. Lastly, Victor of Antioch, who wrote in an age when Eusebius was held to be an infallible oracle on points of Biblical Criticism—having dutifully rehearsed, (like the rest,) the feeble expedient of that illustrious Father for harmonizing S. Mark xvi. 9 with the narrative of S. Matthew—is observed to cite the statements of Eusebius concerning the last Twelve Verses of S. Mark, only in order to refute them. Not that he opposes opinion to opinion—(for the opinions of Eusebius and of Victor of Antioch on this behalf were probably identical;) but statement he meets with counter-statement—fact he confronts with fact. Scarcely [pg 068] can anything be imagined more emphatic than his testimony, or more conclusive.
For the reader is requested to observe that here is an Ecclesiastic, writing in the first half of the vth century, who expressly witnesses to the genuineness of the Verses in dispute. He had made reference, he says, and ascertained their existence in very many MSS. (ὡς ἐν πλείστοις). He had derived his text from “accurate” ones: (ἐξ ἀκριβῶν ἀντιγράφων.) More than that: he leads his reader to infer that he had personally resorted to the famous Palestinian Copy, the text of which was held to exhibit the inspired verity, and had satisfied himself that the concluding section of S. Mark's Gospel was there. He had, therefore, been either to Jerusalem, or else to Cæsarea; had inquired for those venerable records which had once belonged to Origen and Pamphilus;119 and had inspected them. Testimony more express, more weighty—I was going to say, more decisive—can scarcely be imagined. It may with truth be said to close the present discussion.
With this, in fact, Victor lays down his pen. So also may I. I submit that nothing whatever which has hitherto come before us lends the slightest countenance to the modern dream that S. Mark's Gospel, as it left the hands of its inspired Author, ended abruptly at ver. 8. Neither Eusebius nor Jerome; neither Severus of Antioch nor Hesychius of Jerusalem; certainly not Victor of Antioch; least of all Gregory of Nyssa—yield a particle of support to that monstrous fancy. The notion is an invention, a pure imagination of the Critics ever since the days of Griesbach.
It remains to be seen whether the MSS. will prove somewhat less unaccommodating.
VII. For it can be of no possible avail, at this stage of the discussion, to appeal to
Euthymius Zigabenus,
the Author of an interesting Commentary, or rather Compilation on the Gospels, assigned to A.D. 1116. Euthymius lived, in fact, full five hundred years too late for his testimony to be of the slightest importance. Such as it is, however, it is [pg 069] not unfavourable. He says—“Some of the Commentators state that here,” (viz. at ver. 8,) “the Gospel according to Mark finishes; and that what follows is a spurious addition.” (Which clearly is his version of the statements of one or more of the four Fathers whose testimony has already occupied so large a share of our attention.) “This portion we must also interpret, however,” (Euthymius proceeds,) “since there is nothing in it prejudicial to the truth.”120—But it is idle to linger over such a writer. One might almost as well quote “Poli Synopsis” and then proceed to discuss it. The cause must indeed be desperate which seeks support from a quarter like this. What possible sanction can an Ecclesiastic of the xiith century be supposed to yield to the hypothesis that S. Mark's Gospel, as it left the hands of its inspired Author, was an unfinished work?
It remains to ascertain what is the evidence of the MSS. on this subject. And the MSS. require to be the more attentively studied, because it is to them that our opponents are accustomed most confidently to appeal. On them in fact they rely. The nature and the value of the most ancient Manuscript testimony available, shall be scrupulously investigated in the next two Chapters.
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CHAPTER VI.
MANUSCRIPT TESTIMONY SHEWN TO BE OVERWHELMINGLY IN FAVOUR OF THESE VERSES.—PART I.
S. Mark xvi. 9–20, contained in every MS. in the world except two.—Irrational Claim to Infallibility set up on behalf of Cod. B (p. 73) and Cod. א (p. 75).—These two Codices shewn to be full of gross Omissions (p. 78)—Interpolations (p. 80)—Corruptions of the Text (p. 81)—and Perversions of the Truth (p. 83).—The testimony of Cod. B to S. Mark xvi. 9–20, shewn to be favorable, notwithstanding (p. 86).
The two oldest Copies of the Gospels in existence are the famous Codex in the Vatican Library at Rome, known as “Codex B;” and the Codex which Tischendorf brought from Mount Sinai in 1859, and which he designates by the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet (א). These two manuscripts are probably not of equal antiquity.121 An interval of fifty years at least seems to be required to account for the marked difference between them. If the first belongs to the beginning, the second may be referred to the middle or latter part of the ivth century. But the two Manuscripts agree in this—that they are without the last twelve verses of S. Mark's Gospel. In both, after ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ (ver. 8), comes the subscription: in Cod. B—ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΡΚΟΝ; in Cod. א—ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΡΚΟΝ.
Let it not be supposed that we have any more facts of this class to produce. All has been stated. It is not that the evidence of Manuscripts is one—the evidence of Fathers and Versions another. The very reverse is the case. Manuscripts, Fathers, and Versions alike, are only not unanimous in bearing consistent testimony. But the consentient witness [pg 071] of the MSS. is even extraordinary. With the exception of the two uncial MSS. which have just been named, there is not one Codex in existence, uncial or cursive—(and we are acquainted with, at least, eighteen other uncials,122 and about six hundred cursive Copies of this Gospel,)—which leaves out the last twelve verses of S. Mark.
The inference which an unscientific observer would draw from this fact, is no doubt in this instance the correct one. He demands to be shewn the Alexandrine (A) and the Parisian Codex (C)—neither of them probably removed by much more than fifty years from the date of the Codex Sinaiticus, and both unquestionably derived from different originals;—and he ascertains that no countenance is lent by either of those venerable monuments to the proposed omission of this part of the sacred text. He discovers that the Codex Bezae (D), the only remaining very ancient MS. authority—notwithstanding that it is observed on most occasions to exhibit an extraordinary sympathy with the Vatican (B)—here sides with A and C against B and א. He inquires after all the other uncials and all the cursive MSS. in existence, (some of them dating from the xth century,) and requests to have it explained to him why it is to be supposed that all these many witnesses—belonging to so many different patriarchates, provinces,