The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark. John William Burgon
corrupt) reading—which, however, is found both in the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus. Let this suffice. I forbear to press the matter further. It is an additional proof that Jerome accepted the [pg 057] conclusion of S. Mark's Gospel that he actually quotes it, and on more than one occasion: but to prove this, is to prove more than is here required.96 I am concerned only to demolish the assertion of Tischendorf, and Tregelles, and Alford, and Davidson, and so many more, concerning the testimony of Jerome; and I have demolished it. I pass on, claiming to have shewn that the name of Jerome as an adverse witness must never again appear in this discussion.
IV. and V. But now, while the remarks of Eusebius are yet fresh in the memory, the reader is invited to recall for a moment what the author of the “Homily on the Resurrection,” contained in the works of Gregory of Nyssa (above, p. 39), has delivered on the same subject. It will be remembered that we saw reason for suspecting that not
Severus of Antioch, but
Hesychius of Jerusalem,
(both of them writers of the vith century,) has the better claim to the authorship of the Homily in question,97—which, however, cannot at all events be assigned to the illustrious Bishop of Nyssa, the brother of Basil the Great. “In the more accurate copies,” (says this writer,) “the Gospel according to Mark has its end at ‘for they were afraid.’ In some copies, however, this also is added—‘Now when He was risen early the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven devils.’ This, however, seems to contradict to some extent what we before delivered; for since it happens that the hour of the night when our Saviour rose is not known, how does it come to be here written that He rose ‘early?’ But the saying will prove to be no ways contradictory, if we read with skill. We must be careful intelligently to introduce a comma after, ‘Now when He was risen:’ and then to proceed—‘Early in the Sabbath He appeared first to Mary Magdalene:’ in order that ‘when He was risen’ may refer (in conformity with what Matthew says) to the foregoing season; while ‘early’ is connected with the appearance to Mary.”98—I presume it would be to abuse a reader's patience to offer any remarks on all this. If a careful perusal of the foregoing passage [pg 058] does not convince him that Hesychius is here only reproducing what he had read in Eusebius, nothing that I can say will persuade him of the fact. The words indeed are by no means the same; but the sense is altogether identical. He seems to have also known the work of Victor of Antioch. However, to remove all doubt from the reader's mind that the work of Eusebius was in the hands of Hesychius while he wrote, I have printed in two parallel columns and transferred to the Appendix what must needs be conclusive;99 for it will be seen that the terms are only not identical in which Eusebius and Hesychius discuss that favourite problem with the ancients—the consistency of S. Matthew's ὀψὲ τῶν σαββάτων with the πρωί of S. Mark.
It is, however, only needful to read through the Homily in question to see that it is an attempt to weave into one piece a quantity of foreign and incongruous materials. It is in fact not a Homily at all, (though it has been thrown into that form;) but a Dissertation—into which, Hesychius, (who is known to have been very curious in questions of that kind100,) is observed to introduce solutions of most of those famous difficulties which cluster round the sepulchre of the world's Redeemer on the morning of the first Easter Day;101 and which the ancients seem to have delighted in discussing—as, the number of the Marys who visited the sepulchre; the angelic appearances on the morning of the Resurrection; and above all the seeming discrepancy, already adverted to, in the Evangelical notices of the time at which our Lord rose from the dead. I need not enter more particularly into an examination of this (so-called) “Homily”: but I must not dismiss it without pointing out that its author [pg 059] at all events cannot be thought to have repudiated the concluding verses of S. Mark: for at the end of his discourse, he quotes the 19th verse entire, without hesitation, in confirmation of one of his statements, and declares that the words are written by S. Mark.102
I shall not be thought unreasonable, therefore, if I contend that Hesychius is no longer to be cited as a witness in this behalf: if I point out that it is entirely to misunderstand and misrepresent the case to quote a passing allusion of his to what Eusebius had long before delivered on the same subject, as if it exhibited his own individual teaching. It is demonstrable103 that he is not bearing testimony to the condition of the MSS. of S. Mark's Gospel in his own age: neither, indeed, is he bearing testimony at all. He is simply amusing himself, (in what is found to have been his favourite way,) with reconciling an apparent discrepancy in the Gospels; and he does it by adopting certain remarks of Eusebius. Living so late as the vith century; conspicuous neither for his judgment nor his learning; a copyist only, so far as his remarks on the last verses of S. Mark's Gospel are concerned;—this writer does not really deserve the space and attention we have been compelled to bestow upon him.
VI. We may conclude, by inquiring for the evidence borne by
Victor of Antioch.
And from the familiar style in which this Father's name is always introduced into the present discussion, no less than from the invariable practice of assigning to him the date “A.D. 401,” it might be supposed that “Victor of Antioch” is a well-known personage. Yet is there scarcely a Commentator of antiquity about whom less is certainly known. Clinton (who enumerates cccxxii “Ecclesiastical Authors” from A.D. 70 to A.D. 685104) does not even record his name. The recent “Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography” is just as silent concerning him. Cramer (his latest editor) [pg 060] calls his very existence in question; proposing to attribute his Commentary on S. Mark to Cyril of Alexandria.105 Not to delay the reader needlessly—Victor of Antioch is an interesting and unjustly neglected Father of the Church; whose date—(inasmuch as he apparently quotes sometimes from Cyril of Alexandria who died A.D. 444, and yet seems to have written soon after the death of Chrysostom, which took place A.D. 407), may be assigned to the first half of the vth century—suppose A.D. 425–450. And in citing him I shall always refer to the best (and most easily accessible) edition of his work—that of Cramer (1840) in the first volume of his “Catenae.”
But a far graver charge is behind. From the confident air in which Victor's authority is appealed to by those who deem the last twelve verses of S. Mark's Gospel spurious, it would of course be inferred that his evidence is hostile to the verses in question; whereas his evidence to their genuineness is the most emphatic and extraordinary on record. Dr. Tregelles asserts that “his testimony to the absence of these twelve verses from some or many copies, stands in contrast to his own opinion on the subject.” But Victor delivers no “opinion:” and his “testimony” is the direct reverse of what Dr. Tregelles asserts it to be. This learned and respected critic has strangely misapprehended the evidence.106
I must needs be brief in this place. I shall therefore confine myself to those facts concerning “Victor of Antioch,” or rather concerning his work, which are necessary for the purpose in hand.107
Now, his Commentary on S. Mark's Gospel—as all must see who will be at the pains to examine it—is to a great extent a compilation. The same thing may be said, no doubt, to some extent, of almost every ancient Commentary in existence. But I mean, concerning this particular work, [pg 061] that it proves to have been the author's plan not so much to give the general results of his acquaintance with the writings of Origen, Apollinarius, Theodorus of Mopsuestia, Eusebius, and Chrysostom; as, with or without acknowledgment, to transcribe largely (but with great license) from one or other of these writers. Thus, the whole of his note on S. Mark xv. 38, 39, is taken, without any hint that it is not original, (much of it, word for word,) from Chrysostom's 88th Homily on S. Matthew's Gospel.108 The same is to be said of the first twelve lines of his note on S. Mark xvi. 9. On the other hand, the latter half of the note last mentioned professes to give the substance of what Eusebius had written on the same subject. It is in fact an extract from those very “Quaestiones ad Marinum” concerning which so much has been offered already. All this, though it does not sensibly detract from the interest or the value of Victor's work, must be admitted entirely to change the character of his supposed evidence. He comes before us rather in the light of a Compiler than of an Author: his work is rather a “Catena” than a Commentary: and as such in fact it is generally