The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark. John William Burgon
there is no discrepancy whatever between Matthew's—‘in the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week,’ and John's—‘The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalen early, when it was yet dark.’ The Evangelists indicate by different expressions one and the same moment of time, but in a broad and general way.” And yet, if Eusebius knew all this so well, why did he not say so at once, and close the discussion? I really cannot tell; except on one hypothesis—which, although at first it may sound somewhat extraordinary, the more I think of the matter, recommends itself to my acceptance the more. I suspect, then, that the discussion we have just been listening to, is, essentially, not an original production: but that Eusebius, having met with the suggestion in some older writer, (in Origen probably,) reproduced it in language of his own—doubtless because he thought it ingenious and interesting, but not by any means because he regarded it as true. Except on some such theory, I am utterly unable to understand how Eusebius can have written so inconsistently. His admirable remarks just quoted, are obviously a full and sufficient answer—the proper answer in fact—to the proposed difficulty: and it is a memorable circumstance that the ancients generally were so sensible of this, that they are found to have invariably89 substituted [pg 048] what Eusebius wrote in reply to the second question of Marinus for what he wrote in reply to the first; in other words, for the dissertation which is occasioning us all this difficulty.
2. But next, even had the discrepancy been real, the remedy for it which is here proposed, and which is advocated with such tedious emphasis, would probably prove satisfactory to no one. In fact, the entire method advocated in the foregoing passage is hopelessly vicious. The writer begins by advancing statements which, if he believed them to be true, he must have known are absolutely fatal to the verses in question. This done, he sets about discussing the possibility of reconciling an isolated expression in S. Mark's Gospel with another in S. Matthew's: just as if on that depended the genuineness or spuriousness of the entire context: as if, in short, the major premiss in the discussion were some such postulate as the following:—“Whatever in one Gospel cannot be proved to be entirely consistent with something in another Gospel, is not to be regarded as genuine.” Did then the learned Archbishop of Cæsarea really suppose that a comma judiciously thrown into the empty scale might at any time suffice to restore the equilibrium, and even counterbalance the adverse testimony of almost every MS. of the Gospels extant? Why does he not at least deny the truth of the alleged facts to which he began by giving currency, if not approval; and which, so long as they are allowed to stand uncontradicted, render all further argumentation on the subject simply nugatory? As before, I really cannot tell—except on the hypothesis which has been already hazarded.
3. Note also, (for this is not the least extraordinary feature of the case,) what vague and random statements those are which we have been listening to. The entire section [pg 049] (S. Mark xvi. 9–20,) “is not met with in all the copies:” at all events not “in the accurate” ones. Nay, it is “met with seldom.” In fact, it is absent from “almost all” copies. But—Which of these four statements is to stand? The first is comparatively unimportant. Not so the second. The last two, on the contrary, would be absolutely fatal—if trustworthy? But are they trustworthy?
To this question only one answer can be returned. The exaggeration is so gross that it refutes itself. Had it been merely asserted that the verses in question were wanting in many of the copies—even had it been insisted that the best copies were without them—well and good: but to assert that, in the beginning of the fourth century, from “almost all” copies of the Gospels they were away—is palpably untrue. What had become then of the MSS. from which the Syriac, the Latin, all the ancient Versions were made? How is the contradictory evidence of every copy of the Gospels in existence but two to be accounted for? With Irenæus and Hippolytus, with the old Latin and the Vulgate, with the Syriac, and the Gothic, and the Egyptian versions to refer to, we are able to assert that the author of such a statement was guilty of monstrous exaggeration. We are reminded of the loose and random way in which the Fathers—(giants in Interpretation, but very children in the Science of Textual Criticism,)—are sometimes observed to speak about the state of the Text in their days. We are reminded, for instance, of the confident assertion of an ancient Critic that the true reading in S. Luke xxiv. 13 is not “three-score” but “an hundred and three-score;” for that so “the accurate copies” used to read the place, besides Origen and Eusebius. And yet (as I have elsewhere explained) the reading ἑκατὸν καὶ ἑξήκοντα is altogether impossible. “Apud nos mixta sunt omnia,” is Jerome's way of adverting to an evil which, serious as it was, was yet not nearly so great as he represents; viz. the unauthorized introduction into one Gospel of what belongs of right to another. And so in a multitude of other instances. The Fathers are, in fact, constantly observed to make critical remarks about the ancient copies which simply cannot be correct.
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And yet the author of the exaggeration under review, be it observed, is clearly not Eusebius. It is evident that he has nothing to say against the genuineness of the conclusion of S. Mark's Gospel. Those random statements about the copies with which he began, do not even purport to express his own sentiments. Nay, Eusebius in a manner repudiates them; for he introduces them with a phrase which separates them from himself: and, “This then is what a person will say,”—is the remark with which he finally dismisses them. It would, in fact, be to make this learned Father stultify himself to suppose that he proceeds gravely to discuss a portion of Scripture which he had already deliberately rejected as spurious. But, indeed, the evidence before us effectually precludes any such supposition. “Here are two readings,” he says, “(as is so often the case elsewhere:) both of which are to be received—inasmuch as by the faithful and pious, this reading is not held to be genuine rather than that; nor that than this.” And thus we seem to be presented with the actual opinion of Eusebius, as far as it can be ascertained from the present passage—if indeed he is to be thought here to offer any personal opinion on the subject at all; which, for my own part, I entirely doubt. But whether we are at liberty to infer the actual sentiments of this Father from anything here delivered or not, quite certain at least is it that to print only the first half of the passage, (as Tischendorf and Tregelles have done,) and then to give the reader to understand that he is reading the adverse testimony of Eusebius as to the genuineness of the end of S. Mark's Gospel, is nothing else but to misrepresent the facts of the case; and, however unintentionally, to deceive those who are unable to verify the quotation for themselves.
It has been urged indeed that Eusebius cannot have recognised the verses in question as genuine, because a scholium purporting to be his has been cited by Matthaei from a Catena at Moscow, in which he appears to assert that “according to Mark,” our Saviour “is not recorded to have appeared to His Disciples after His Resurrection:” whereas in S. Mark xvi. 14 it is plainly recorded that “Afterwards [pg 051] He appeared unto the Eleven as they sat at meat.” May I be permitted to declare that I am distrustful of the proposed inference, and shall continue to feel so, until I know something more about the scholium in question? Up to the time when this page is printed I have not succeeded in obtaining from Moscow the details I wish for: but they must be already on the way, and I propose to embody the result in a “Postscript” which shall form the last page of the Appendix to the present volume.
Are we then to suppose that there was no substratum of truth in the allegations to which Eusebius gives such prominence in the passage under discussion? By no means. The mutilated state of S. Mark's Gospel in the Vatican Codex (B) and especially in the Sinaitic Codex (א) sufficiently establishes the contrary. Let it be freely conceded, (but in fact it has been freely conceded already,) that there must have existed in the time of Eusebius many copies of S. Mark's Gospel which were without the twelve concluding verses. I do but insist that there is nothing whatever in that circumstance to lead us to entertain one serious doubt as to the genuineness of these verses. I am but concerned to maintain that there is nothing whatever in the evidence which has hitherto come before us—certainly not in the evidence of Eusebius—to induce us to believe that they are a spurious addition to S. Mark's Gospel.
III. We have next to consider what
Jerome