The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark. John William Burgon
Of course, if we possessed copies of the Gospels coeval with their authors, nothing could compete with such evidence. But then unhappily nothing of the kind is the case. The facts admit of being stated within the compass of a few lines. We have one Codex (the Vatican, B) which is thought to belong to the first half of the ivth century; and another, the newly discovered Codex Sinaiticus, (at St. Petersburg, א) which is certainly not quite so old—perhaps by 50 years. Next come two famous codices; the Alexandrine (in the British Museum, A) and the Codex Ephraemi (in the Paris Library, C), which are probably from 50 to 100 years more recent still. The Codex Bezae (at Cambridge, D) is considered by competent judges to be the depository of a recension of the text as ancient as any of the others. Notwithstanding its strangely depraved condition therefore—the many “monstra potius quam variae lectiones” which it contains—it may be reckoned with the preceding four, though it must be 50 or 100 years later than the latest of them. After this, we drop down, (as far as S. Mark is concerned,) to 2 uncial MSS. of the viiith century—7 of the ixth—4 of the ixth or xth,29 while cursives of the xith and xiith [pg 021] centuries are very numerous indeed—the copies increasing in number in a rapid ratio as we descend the stream of Time. Our primitive manuscript witnesses, therefore, are but five in number at the utmost. And of these it has never been pretended that the oldest is to be referred to an earlier date than the beginning of the ivth century, while it is thought by competent judges that the last named may very possibly have been written quite late in the vith.
5. Are we then reduced to this fourfold, (or at most fivefold,) evidence concerning the text of the Gospels—on evidence of not quite certain date, and yet (as we all believe) not reaching further back than to the ivth century of our æra? Certainly not. Here, Fathers come to our aid. There are perhaps as many as an hundred Ecclesiastical Writers older than the oldest extant Codex of the N. T.: while between A.D. 300 and A.D. 600, (within which limits our five oldest MSS. may be considered certainly to fall,) there exist about two hundred Fathers more. True, that many of these have left wondrous little behind them; and that the quotations from Holy Scripture of the greater part may justly be described as rare and unsatisfactory. But what then? From the three hundred, make a liberal reduction; and an hundred writers will remain who frequently quote the New Testament, and who, when they do quote it, are probably as trustworthy witnesses to the Truth of Scripture as either Cod. א or Cod. B. We have indeed heard a great deal too much of the precariousness of this class of evidence: not nearly enough of the gross inaccuracies which disfigure the text of those two Codices. Quite surprising is it to discover to what an extent Patristic quotations from the New Testament have evidently retained their exact original form. What we chiefly desiderate at this time is a more careful revision of the text of the Fathers, and more skilfully elaborated indices of the works of each: not one of them having been hitherto satisfactorily indexed. It would be easy to demonstrate the importance of bestowing far more attention on this subject than it seems to have hitherto enjoyed: but I shall content myself with citing a single instance; and for this, (in order not to distract the reader's [pg 022] attention), I shall refer him to the Appendix.30 What is at least beyond the limits of controversy, whenever the genuineness of a considerable passage of Scripture is the point in dispute, the testimony of Fathers who undoubtedly recognise that passage, is beyond comparison the most valuable testimony we can enjoy.
6. For let it be only considered what is implied by a Patristic appeal to the Gospel. It amounts to this:—that a conspicuous personage, probably a Bishop of the Church—one, therefore, whose history, date, place, are all more or less matter of notoriety—gives us his written assurance that the passage in question was found in that copy of the Gospels which he was accustomed himself to employ; the uncial codex, (it has long since perished) which belonged to himself or to the Church which he served. It is evident, in short, that any objection to quotations from Scripture in the writings of the ancient Fathers can only apply to the form of those quotations; not to their substance. It is just as certain that a verse of Scripture was actually read by the Father who unmistakedly refers to it, as if we had read it with him; even though the gravest doubts may be entertained as to the “ipsissima verba” which were found in his own particular copy. He may have trusted to his memory: or copyists may have taken liberties with his writings: or editors may have misrepresented what they found in the written copies. The form of the quoted verse, I repeat, may have suffered almost to any extent. The substance, on the contrary, inasmuch as it lay wholly beyond their province, may be looked upon as an indisputable fact.
7. Some such preliminary remarks, (never out of place when quotations from the Fathers are to be considered,) cannot well be withheld when the most venerable Ecclesiastical writings are appealed to. The earliest of the Fathers are observed to quote with singular licence—to allude rather than to quote. Strange to relate, those ancient men seem scarcely to have been aware of the grave responsibility they incurred when they substituted expressions of their own for the utterances of the Spirit. It is evidently not so much [pg 023] that their memory is in fault, as their judgment—in that they evidently hold themselves at liberty to paraphrase, to recast, to reconstruct.31
I. Thus, it is impossible to resist the inference that Papias refers to S. Mark xvi. 18 when he records a marvellous tradition concerning “Justus surnamed Barsabas,” “how that after drinking noxious poison, through the Lord's grace he experienced no evil consequence.”32 He does not give the words of the Evangelist. It is even surprising how completely he passes them by; and yet the allusion to the place just cited is manifest. Now, Papias is a writer who lived so near the time of the Apostles that he made it his delight to collect their traditional sayings. His date (according to Clinton) is A.D. 100.
II. Justin Martyr, the date of whose first Apology is A.D. 151, is observed to say concerning the Apostles that, after our Lord's Ascension—ἐξελθόντες πανταχοῦ ἐκήρυξαν:33 which is nothing else but a quotation from the last verse of S. Mark's Gospel—ἐκεῖνοι δὲ ἐξελθόντες ἐκήρυξαν πανταχοῦ. And thus it is found that the conclusion of S. Mark's Gospel was familiarly known within fifty years of the death of the last of the Evangelists.
III. When Irenæus, in his third Book against Heresies, deliberately quotes and remarks upon the 19th verse of the last chapter of S. Mark's Gospel,34 we are put in possession of [pg 024] the certain fact that the entire passage now under consideration was extant in a copy of the Gospels which was used by the Bishop of the Church of Lyons sometime about the year A.D. 180, and which therefore cannot possibly have been written much more than a hundred years after the date of the Evangelist himself: while it may have been written by a contemporary of S. Mark, and probably was written by one who lived immediately after his time.—Who sees not that this single piece of evidence is in itself sufficient to outweigh the testimony of any codex extant? It is in fact a mere trifling with words to distinguish between “Manuscript” and “Patristic” testimony in a case like this: for (as I have already explained) the passage quoted from S. Mark's Gospel by Irenæus is to all intents and purposes a fragment from a dated manuscript; and that MS., demonstrably older by at least one hundred and fifty years than the oldest copy of the Gospels which has come down to our times.
IV. Take another proof that these concluding verses of S. Mark were in the second century accounted an integral part of his Gospel. Hippolytus, Bishop of Portus near Borne (190–227), a contemporary of Irenæus, quotes the 17th and 18th verses in his fragment Περὶ Χαρισμάτων.35 [pg 025] Also in his Homily on the heresy of Noetus,36 Hippolytus has a plain reference to this section of S. Mark's Gospel. To an inattentive reader, the passage alluded to might seem to be only the fragment of a Creed; but this is not the case. In the Creeds, Christ is invariably spoken of as ανελθόντα: in the Scriptures, invariably as ἀναληθέντα.37 So that when Hippolytus says of Him, ἀναλαμβάνεται εἰς οὐρανοὺς καὶ ἐκ δεξιῶν Πατρὸς καθίζεται, the reference must needs be to S. Mark xvi. 19.
V. At the Seventh Council of Carthage held under Cyprian, A.D. 256, (on the baptizing of Heretics,) Vincentius, Bishop of Thibari, (a place not far from Carthage,) in the presence of the eighty-seven