Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) is known far and wide for his work in theology, and for his book Confessions
and City of
But unlike the commentators who
are chronologically further away from Saint Mark, Saint Augustine, who was chronologically
much closer, expressed no doubt about recognizing Mark 16:9-20 as authoritative
Scripture. Some people might wonder, “We
have heard Papias’ report that Justus (Joseph Barsabas) was compelled by
unbelievers to drink snake-poison, and we have read Luke’s report that Paul was
not harmed when a viper struck him on the
To find out, we need only take
in hand Augustine’s book and turn to the second chapter (or, book), and read. Augustine cited Mark 16:15 in the second
chapter of his Fourth Homily on First
John, To the Parthians, but for now, let’s focus on his interpretation of
Mark 16:18. Each chapter of On the Soul and Its Origin is a letter. In the first letter, written to Augustine’s
colleague Renatus, Augustine identified and diagnosed some doctrinal errors he
had found in two books written by an author named Victor, which Augustine had
received from Renatus. In the second
letter, written to a presbyter named Peter, Augustine informed Peter of the
false teachings he found in Victor’s two books, and he counsels Peter to work
with Renatus to guide Victor away from his erroneous beliefs.
That is the context of Book 2, chapter
23. As
Augustine advised Peter to vocally and openly guide Victor away from the false
beliefs he has expressed – and after he pointed out that Peter might find
additional falsehoods that Augustine has not covered – Augustine compared
Victor’s teachings to a goblet of poisoned wine: mostly good, but deadly if consumed.
Just as poisoned wine might be served
in a beautiful goblet, Augustine wrote, harmful doctrines can be delivered in
well-crafted words. And if Peter were to
keep silent about what he has read, some people, after observing that Peter has
read Victor’s books, might read them for themselves, and not know which parts
Peter digests, and which parts he leaves in the cup.
Here I turn directly to the text of
Augustine’s On the Soul and Its Origin, which
I have slightly paraphrased (Book 2 of On
the Soul and Its Origin can be read in English at the New Advent
website):
“They do not know what you have drunk,
and what you have left untasted, and so, in light of your wholesome character,
they assume that whatever is drunk out of this fountain will make them
healthy. For what are hearing, and
reading, and memorizing what has been read, than different processes of
drinking. However, the Lord foretold,
concerning his faithful followers, that even if they might drink any deadly
thing, it would not harm them.
“And thus, those who filter what
they read with discernment may give their approval to what is consistent with
the standards of our faith, and they may disapprove of things that should be
rejected. And thus, although they commit
to memory statements which are declared to be worthy of disapproval, they
receive no harm from the sentences that are by nature poisonous and depraved.”
This is a correct way to apply the
passage. Such an interpretation never
occurs to many commentators today, I suspect, because either (a) English-speakers mainly think of drinking
as something done to a physical liquid (although people still might
occasionally say things like, “Soak up this lesson,” or “Savor your victory”),
or (b) the commentators fail to
interpret all of Mark 16:9-20 because they have not taken a close look at the
voluminous evidence in its favor.
Some
people might object, “But brother Snapp, Christ
the living Word does not speak in
riddles. And the Holy Spirit does not
speak in riddles.” But I commend to them
to perceive the meaning of the parables that Jesus told, to listen again to
statements such as Luke 12:49-50 (where Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as a
fire, and to his sufferings as a baptism), and to consider that the
words of Psalm 78:2 are repeated in Matthew 13:35.
While we are on the subject of Augustine’s use of
the final portion of the Gospel according to Mark (which was received in the
early church as Mark’s presentation of the memoirs of Saint Peter the apostle),
let us take a look at another composition by Augustine: his Harmony
of the Gospels, which he composed before the year 400.
“But
brother Snapp,” someone might say, “Those
who study the manuscripts scientifically know that the Western Old Latin text
is notorious due to its expansions.” That is true.
It is also true that the most of the changes found in the Western Old
Latin text are benign (usually attempting to clarify or specify the authors’
meaning, although occasionally the attempt is very poorly made, like in Mark 1:41) and where the changes are substantial, they
tend not to amount to more than a few agrapha. Also . . . .” Keep reading.
Before focusing on the Gospel of Mark,
though, Augustine comments on Luke 24 (showing the “Western” arrangement of the
Gospels, Matthew-John-Luke-Mark), only briefly mentioning that “Mark
likewise mentions that He appeared first to Mary Magdalene; as also does John,”
thus referring to Mark 16:9) and Augustine quotes the Gospel of Luke
24:13-24. After offering his explanation
of how Luke’s account interlocks with the accounts from Matthew and John,
Augustine turns to what Paul wrote in his first letter to the church at
Augustine proceeds to explain why Paul would say “the twelve” rather than “the eleven.” He noticed a textual variant, saying that some
copies of First Corinthians 15:5 read “eleven” rather than “twelve.” [There are a few Greek-Latin copies, D* F G, which
display this reading, which shows how the Old Latin text invaded the “Western”
Greek manuscripts.] Granting that there
were just eleven apostles after the death of Judas, Augustine explains that
there are three options: (a) either the reading “eleven” is
correct, or (b) Paul was referring to
twelve other disciples, or (c) Paul used the term ”the twelve” as a symbolically
significant number, the twelve apostles being the counterpart to the twelve
tribes of Israel (i.e., the ten sons of Jacob + Jacob’s two grandsons
Ephraim and Manasseh). By time time Luke wrote, Judas’ place had been taken by
Matthias (as Luke reports in Acts 1:15-26).
When Augustine reached
the passage known today as Mark 16:12, he stated that Mark reports, “And after that He appeared
in another form unto two of them, as they walked and went to a country-seat.’” (It
should not be overlooked that Augustine does not attribute this to Peter, but
to Mark.) Augustine proceeds to
write: “In the Greek codices, indeed,
the reading which we discover is ‘estate’ rather than ‘country-seat.’” To make sure everyone grasps and understands
the significance of the statement from Augustine, I repeat: Greek copies of the Gospels in North Africa
that were used by Augustine in
Also, Augustine’s use of Old Latin
copies shows that Mark 16:9-20 was included in Old Latin copies of the Gospels
– contrary to what has been claimed by commentators such as Ron Rhodes (see his
error on page 31 of The Complete Book of Bible Answers by Ron Rhodes, © 1997 by Ron Rhodes,
published by Harvest House Publishers, republished in 2007 as What Does the
Bible Say About…?) and James
Edwards (see his error on pages 497-498 of his commentary on the Gospel
According to Mark in the Pillar Commentary Series, © 2002 Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co.).
(I do not wish to depart from the subject of Augustine here,
but it should be noted that two Old Latin copies lack Mark 16:9-20: the copy known as Codex Bobbiensis (VL 1, k), which has
a very strange text at the end of Mark – it features an interpolation between
Mark 16:3 and 16:4, and its text concludes with a truncated text of verse 8
followed by the “Shorter Ending” – and Codex Vercellensis (VL 3, a), which, due to
damage, does not have the pages with text after Mark 15:15 that the codex had before it was
damaged.)
Augustine’s name appeared in the textual apparatus
of the fourth edition of the UBS GNT, but an acknowledgment of the testimony of
Augustine’s Greek manuscripts did not.
This oversight should be amended.
Greek copies possessed by Augustine in the year 400 provide substantial
early testimony about what Greek text of the Gospels was transmitted in
And a counter-part to that is seen in
the twelve apostles: they were initially
twelve in number, but Judas betrayed Jesus (a thematic counterpart to the
opposition to Jesus by the high priest Caiaphas, of the priestly tribe of
Levi), reducing the number of apostles to eleven. Then James, the brother of John, was killed
by Herod according to Luke’s report in Acts 12:2. That reduced the number of apostles to ten.
Matthias took Judas’ place (as Luke
reports in Acts 1). And later on, after
Jesus called Paul of Tarsus to be his witness, the number of apostles was
restored to twelve. Thus there is a
parallel between Ephraim-and-Manasseh and Matthias-and-Paul: Manasseh was firstborn and had the right to
receive the firstborn son’s blessing (and Joseph, in Genesis 48, said that this
was his right). Yet Jacob insisted that
while Manasseh would also be great (see Genesis 48:19), he knew that Ephraim would be greater and that his descendants would become “a multitude of nations.”
Likewise, although James the son of
Zebedee was a great apostle, and was chosen first (cf. Mark 1:19), Saint Paul (the
last apostle to be chosen) was greater,
for after he heard Jesus’ call, he shared the good news about Jesus Christ to
many nations, and wrote epistles which are included among the books of the New
Testament, and his spiritual offspring have grown into a multitude of nations
all over the world where the good news of Jesus Christ is proclaimed.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThanks James for this insightful and informative blog.
ReplyDeleteWhat is significant about Augustine’s testimony is that even though he works off a Latin translation of the Bible in his works, in several places you find him going back to the meaning of the word or the phrase in the Greek text and in doing so he reveals that he is aware of textual variants in the Greek text. He used the long ending of Mark countless times in his works and not even once he mentions that the text is missing in some Greek copies available to him. He is aware that the woman caught in adultery is missing in some copies but not a peep about the long ending of Mark that he used extensively in his works.
ReplyDeleteJames thanks for this blog. One minor point: in your second to last paragraph, "he knew that Manasseh would be greater" should be Ephraim.
ReplyDeleteThis passage is seen as important for a number of reasons. The fact that Paul survived the serpent poison was a fulfillment of the prophecy in Mark 16:20 that God would "confirm the word" as it was given by the apostles with those signs. And here, we have the statement (commandment) that the Gospel should be preached to "every creature" in the world (verse 15). One could go on but these already serve to demonstrate the importance of the ending of Mark's Gospel.
Andrew,
ReplyDeleteThanks; I have edited that sentence accordingly.