The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark. John William Burgon
on a point of this magnitude and importance? But he obtains no intelligible answer to this question. How, then, is an unprejudiced student to draw any inference but one from the premisses? That single peculiarity (he tells himself) of bringing the second Gospel abruptly to a close at the 8th verse of the xvith chapter, is absolutely fatal to the two Codices in question. It is useless to din into his ears that those Codices are probably both of the ivth century—unless men are prepared to add the assurance that a Codex of the ivth century is of necessity a more trustworthy witness to the text of the Gospels than a Codex of the vth. The omission of these twelve verses, I repeat, in itself, destroys his confidence in [pg 072] Cod. B and Cod. א: for it is obvious that a copy of the Gospels which has been so seriously mutilated in one place may have been slightly tampered with in another. He is willing to suspend his judgment, of course. The two oldest copies of the Gospels in existence are entitled to great reverence because of their high antiquity. They must be allowed a most patient, most unprejudiced, most respectful, nay, a most indulgent hearing. But when all this has been freely accorded, on no intelligible principle can more be claimed for any two MSS. in the world.
The rejoinder to all this is sufficiently obvious. Mistrust will no doubt have been thrown over the evidence borne to the text of Scripture in a thousand other places by Cod. B and Cod. א, after demonstration that those two Codices exhibit a mutilated text in the present place. But what else is this but the very point requiring demonstration? Why may not these two be right, and all the other MSS. wrong?
I propose, therefore, that we reverse the process. Proceed we to examine the evidence borne by these two witnesses on certain other occasions which admit of no difference of opinion; or next to none. Let us endeavour, I say, to ascertain the character of the Witnesses by a patient and unprejudiced examination of their Evidence—not in one place, or in two, or in three; but on several important occasions, and throughout. If we find it invariably consentient and invariably truthful, then of course a mighty presumption will have been established, the very strongest possible, that their adverse testimony in respect of the conclusion of S. Mark's Gospel must needs be worthy of all acceptation. But if, on the contrary, our inquiries shall conduct us to the very opposite result—what else can happen but that our confidence in these two MSS. will be hopelessly shaken? We must in such case be prepared to admit that it is just as likely as not that this is only one more occasion on which these “two false witnesses” have conspired to witness falsely. If, at this juncture, extraneous evidence of an entirely trustworthy kind can be procured to confront them: above all, if some one ancient witness of unimpeachable veracity can be found who shall bear contradictory evidence: what other [pg 073] alternative will be left us but to reject their testimony in respect of S. Mark xvi. 9–20 with something like indignation; and to acquiesce in the belief of universal Christendom for eighteen hundred years that these twelve verses are just as much entitled to our unhesitating acceptance as any other twelve verses in the Gospel which can be named?
I. It is undeniable, in the meantime, that for the last quarter of a century, it has become the fashion to demand for the readings of Codex B something very like absolute deference. The grounds for this superstitious sentiment, (for really I can describe it in no apter way,) I profess myself unable to discover. Codex B comes to us without a history: without recommendation of any kind, except that of its antiquity. It bears traces of careless transcription in every page. The mistakes which the original transcriber made are of perpetual recurrence. “They are chiefly omissions, of one, two, or three words; but sometimes of half a verse, a whole verse, or even of several verses. … I hesitate not to assert that it would be easier to find a folio containing three or four such omissions than to light on one which should be without any.”123 In the Gospels alone, Codex B leaves out words or whole clauses no less than 1,491 times:124 of which by far the largest proportion is found in S. Mark's Gospel. Many of these, no doubt, are to be accounted for by the proximity of a “like ending.”125 The Vatican MS. (like the Sinaitic126) was originally derived [pg 074] from an older Codex which contained about twelve or thirteen letters in a line.127 And it will be found that some of its omissions which have given rise to prolonged [pg 075] discussion are probably to be referred to nothing else but the oscitancy of a transcriber with such a codex before him:128 without having recourse to any more abstruse hypothesis; without any imputation of bad faith;—certainly without supposing that the words omitted did not exist in the inspired autograph of the Evangelist. But then it is undeniable that some of the omissions in Cod. B are not to be so explained. On the other hand, I can testify to the fact that the codex is disfigured throughout with repetitions. The original scribe is often found to have not only written the same words twice over, but to have failed whenever he did so to take any notice with his pen of what he had done.
What then, (I must again inquire,) are the grounds for the superstitious reverence which is entertained in certain quarters for the readings of Codex B? If it be a secret known to the recent Editors of the New Testament, they have certainly contrived to keep it wondrous close.
II. More recently, a claim to co-ordinate primacy has been set up on behalf of the Codex Sinaiticus. Tischendorf is actually engaged in remodelling his seventh Leipsic edition, chiefly in conformity with the readings of his lately discovered MS.129 And yet the Codex in question abounds with “errors of the the eye and pen, to an extent not unparalleled, but happily rather unusual in documents of first-rate importance.” On many occasions, 10, 20, 30, 40 words are dropped through very carelessness.130 “Letters and words, even whole sentences, are frequently written twice [pg 076] over, or begun and immediately cancelled: while that gross blunder … whereby a clause is omitted because it happens to end in the same words as the clause preceding, occurs no less than 115 times in the New Testament. Tregelles has freely pronounced that ‘the state of the text, as proceeding from the first scribe, may be regarded as very rough.’ ”131 But when “the first scribe” and his “very rough” performance have been thus unceremoniously disposed of, one would like to be informed what remains to command respect in Codex א? Is, then, manuscript authority to be confounded with editorial caprice—exercising itself upon the corrections of “at least ten different revisers,” who, from the vith to the xiith century, have been endeavouring to lick into shape a text which its original author left “very rough?”
The co-ordinate primacy, (as I must needs call it,) which, within the last few years, has been claimed for Codex B and Codex א, threatens to grow into a species of tyranny—from which I venture to predict there will come in the end an unreasonable and unsalutary recoil. It behoves us, therefore, to look closely into this matter, and to require a reason for what is being done. The text of the sacred deposit is far too precious a thing to be sacrificed to an irrational, or at least a superstitious devotion to two MSS.—simply because they may possibly be older by a hundred years than any other which we possess. “Id verius quod prius,” is an axiom which holds every bit as true in Textual Criticism as in Dogmatic Truth. But on that principle, (as I have already shewn,) the last twelve verses of S. Mark's Gospel are fully established;132 and by consequence, the credit of Codd. B and א sustains a severe shock. Again, “Id verius quod prius;” but it does not of course follow that a Codex of the ivth century shall exhibit a more correct text of Scripture than one written in the vth, or even than one written in the xth. For the proof of this statement, (if it can be supposed to require proof,) it is enough to appeal to Codex D. That venerable copy of the Gospels is of the vith century. [pg 077] It is, in fact, one of our five great uncials. No older MS. of the Greek Text is known to exist—excepting always A, B, C and א. And yet no text is more thoroughly disfigured by corruptions and interpolations than that of Codex D. In the Acts, (to use the language of its learned and accurate Editor,) “it is hardly an exaggeration to assert that it reproduces the textus receptus much in the same way that one of the best Chaldee Targums does the Hebrew of the Old Testament: so wide are the variations in the diction, so constant and inveterate the practice of expanding the narrative by means of interpolations which seldom recommend themselves as genuine by even a semblance of internal probability.”133 Where, then, is the à priori probability that two MSS. of the ivth century shall have not only a superior claim to be heard, but almost an exclusive right to dictate which readings are to be rejected, which retained?
How ready the most recent editors of the New Testament have shewn themselves to hammer the