The Miseducation of Jimmy Wallace re: Mark 16:9-20

Jimmy Wallace, writing for the Cold-Case Christianity apologetics ministry, is guilty of spreading several false statements.  Let's review:

"Mark 16:9-20, the last 11 verses of the Gospel" 

They are twelve verses, not just eleven.

"In a letter to a fellow Christian, ancient historian Eusebius (who lived from A.D. 265 – 339) suggested these verses were not authentic to Mark and could be disregarded" 

In real life, Eusebius encouraged Marinus to retain Mark 16:9-20, and to resolve the perceived discrepancy with Matthew 28 by understanding that there should be a pause after "Rising."  It is of course possible that Eusebius changed his mind later when creating his cross-reference system for the Gospels (the Eusebian Canons).   

"Jerome also believed verses 9 – 20 were not authentic: - 

False.  Jerome utilized part of Eusebius' material, but made it clear in Ad Hedibiam (Epistle 120) that Mark 16:9-20 ought to be retained.  He included Mark 16:9-20 in the Vulgate in 383 and later in life he mentioned that he had seen the interpolation now known as the Freer Logion "especially in Greek codices."

"Severus of Antioch agreed with the skepticism surrounding these verses."

Wrong.  If brother Wallace had read John Burgon carefully he would have avoided making this kind of mistake.

"In fact, scholars throughout history (and even to the present time) have discussed whether these verses are original to Mark."

In real life, Mark 16:9-20 is supported by over 1,650 Greek copies, ad is absent from three.

" It is more difficult to understand the reverse, wherein the verses were in the original gospel and a later Christian removed the passage."

Is it though?  A meticulous scribe in the early second century, regarding what we know as the Gospel of Mark as the record of Peter's recollections about Jesus, perceiving (rightly or wrongly) that verses 9-20 had their origin with Mark, without Petrine approval, could understandably excise the verses in his collection of the Gospels, on the grounds that Peter's recollections, not Mark's, should form the contours of the narrative.    

"The earliest and most reliable copies of Mark exclude the passage"

A needlessly vague way to refer to two fourth-century copies.

"Ireneus, an influential church leader who lived from A.D. 130 to 202, quoted Mark 16:9 in his work Against Heresies (written circa 180 A.D.)"

Irenaeus explicitly quoted Mark 16:19.

"As a result, it is clear the verses were added to Mark quickly after the Gospel’s original writing."

Rather, it is clear that in three copies of the Gospel of Mark used by men one generation removed from apostolic times, verses 9-20 were present.

 
There appear to be two competing versions of Mark in the early days of the faith, with Christians making copies of version to which they had access.

"Due to the early appearance of this passage, it cannot be quickly or easily dismissed."

How generous.  A passage utilized by over 40 patristic sources before the fall of the Roman Empire, and routinely read in Byzantine churches as the third Heothinon, included in every undamaged copy of the Vulgate and Peshitta and Ethiopic Gospels cannot be easily dismissed.  One could almost get the impression that God wants his people to treat the passage as inspired Scripture.

"The passages are noted with footnotes and warnings."

"Warnings" misrepresents the evidence.

An accurate and up-to-date presentation of the relevant evidence can be found in the fourth edition of my book Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20.

James White: Will He Fix His Errors in 2025?

In a video years ago, Dr. James White asked some questions about Mark 16:9-20.  In 2019 I posted some answers. Let's review.

(1)  How do you define overwhelming evidence?

Something like this: 
99.9% of the extant Greek manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is something like 1,650 to 3.

99.9% of the extant Latin manuscripts of Mark 16. The score is something like 8,000 to 1 (and the one, Codex Bobbiensis, is the worst-copied Latin manuscript of Mark in existence).

99% of the extant Syriac manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is at least 100 to 1. 

100% of the extant Gothic manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is 1 to 0.

At least 80% of the extant Sahidic manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is at least 5 to 1.

100% of the extant Bohairic manuscripts of Mark 16.  

100% of the Ethiopic manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is about 200 to 0.   

100% of the extant Greek lectionaries with the Heothina series. 

(The ratios regarding Syriac and Sahidic manuscripts should be increased; I used low amounts here.  The one Syriac manuscript that ends the text of Mark at 16:8 is the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript; the one Sahidic manuscript that ends the text of Mark at 16:8 is Codex P. Palau-Ribes Inv. Nr. 182.) 

(2)  How could Eusebius and Jerome have said what they said?

            For some preliminary data about the testimony of Eusebius and Jerome regarding the ending of Mark, see section #2 of the 2016 post, Mark 16:9-20:  Sorting Out Some Common Mistakes.  As David Parker has acknowledged, Jerome simply recycled material from Eusebius to save time when facing a broad question about reconciling the Gospel-accounts.  (Additional details are in Authentic:  The Case for Mark 16:9-20 (Now in its fourth edition).
            Eusebius worked at Caesarea in the early 300s, and part of the library there had been passed along from Origen in the 200s.  Origen had previously worked in Egypt, and it can be safely deduced that some copies of Mark in Egypt in the 200s ended their text at 16:8.  Eusebius’ comments reflect his awareness of such copies, or of copies at Caesarea descended from such copies. 

            In his composition Ad Marinum, however, Eusebius did not reject Mark 16:9-20.  He addressed Marinus’ question of how a person can harmonize Matthew 28:1-2 with Mark 16:9, regarding the question of the timing of Jesus’ resurrection.  Eusebius said that there are two ways to resolve the question:   one way might be to reject Mark 16:9, and everything that follows it, on the grounds that the passage is not in every manuscript, or is in some copies but not in others, or that it is seldom found.  But that is not the option that Eusebius recommends.  Instead, he advises Marinus to retain the text he has, and to resolve the question by understanding that there is a pause, or comma, in Mark 16:9, so that “early on the first day of the week” refers to the time of Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene, rather than to the time He arose.    

              The Greek text of Eusebius’ composition can be read in Roger Pearse’s free book, Eusebius of Caesarea: Gospel Problems and Solutions, with an English translation.  The things to see are that (a) Eusebius framed the claim that one could reject Mark 16:9-20 on the grounds that it is not in most manuscripts as something that could be said, not as his own favored option, even though there were manuscripts at Caesarea (descended from manuscripts from Egypt) which ended at 16:8, and (b) Eusebius recommended to Marinus that Mark 16:9-20 should be retained, and (c) he used Mark 16:9 on two other occasions in the same composition, and (d) Eusebius showed no awareness of the Shorter Ending.

            (It is extremely likely that Eusebius of Caesarea rejected Mark 16:9-20 when he developed his Canon-Tables, but that is a separate subject from his statements in Ad Marinum.)  

(3) Why do you have early fourth-century codices that do not contain this text?

            We have two fourth-century Greek codices in which Mark stops at 16:8 because those two fourth-century codices were based on manuscripts from, or descended from, Egypt, where Mark 16:9-20 had been lost or taken from the text in a previous generation. 
            Unusual features in Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus show that their copyists were aware of the absent verses; for details see this post about Codex Vaticanus and this post about Codex Sinaiticus.  I show, among other things, that Codex Vaticanus has a blank space after Mark 16:8 that is capable of containing Mark 16:9-20, and that the page on which the text of Mark ends at 16:8 in Sinaiticus is part of a cancel-sheet, that is, four pages that replaced the work of the main copyist.  

(4)  Why do other early fathers never mention material from that passage?  

            Who is Dr. White talking about?  Clement and Origen?  Clement never quoted from 12 entire chapters of Mark.  Saying that Clement never mentioned material from Mark 16:9-20 is like saying, “Clement used Mark 16:9-20 as much as he used 90% of the book.”

            Origen might allude to Mark 16:17-20 in the reworked composition Philocalia, but even if one is not persuaded that he did so, Origen didn’t use the Gospel of Mark very much; there are very large segments of Mark that Origen never quoted.  Here is one way of picturing the situation:  if you divide the text of Mark into fifty-six 12-verse segments, Origen only quotes from 22 of them.  Even if we were to arbitrary increase that amount, and say that Origen used half of the 12-verse segments in Mark, the point would stand that we should approach the data from Origen with the understanding that the chance of Origen quoting from any 12-verse segment of the Gospel of Mark is 50%. 

            Origen did not use 54 consecutive verses from Mark 1:36 to 3:16.  Origen did not use 41 consecutive verses of Mark from 5:2 to 5:43.  Origen did not use 22 consecutive verses from 8:7 to 8:29, and Origen did not use 39 consecutive verses from 10:3 to 10:42. 

            So when he does not quote from 12 verses in Mark 16:9-20, is that supposed to suggest that the passage wasn’t in his manuscripts?  Seriously?  Too many apologists have read “Clement and Origen show no knowledge of these verses” in Metzger’s Textual Commentary, and thought, “Well, that sounds important,” and rephrased Metzger’s claim without ever investigating whether it’s solid evidence, or propaganda.  Well, folks, it is empty propaganda.  Origen shows no knowledge of 450 verses of Mark.  The claim that Origen does not use Mark 16:9-20 – if he wasn’t doing so in Philocalia – has no real force as an argument against the passage, and commentators who use it as if it does deserve to be ignored.

            While we are on the subject of patristic evidence:  when someone claims that early church fathers never use the contents of Mark 16:9-20, that person shows that he is not qualified to give an informed opinion on the subject.  Lots of patristic writers mention material from Mark 16:9-20.  

            In the 100s, Justin Martyr alluded to Mark 16:20.  Tatian incorporated almost the whole passage in his Diatessaron.  And Irenaeus, in what is now France, specifically quoted Mark 16:19, in his work Against Heresies, in Book Three.  In the 200s, passages from Mark 16:9-20 are used in Syriac in the Didascalia Apostolorum, and in a Latin statement by Vincent of Thibaris at a council in Carthage, and in the Latin composition De Rebaptismate, in the 250’s.            

            In the late 200s or early 300s, the pagan writer Hierocles, in the area that is now Turkey, used Mark 16:18 in the course of mockingly challenging Christians to select their leaders by poison-drinking contests.  Also in the 300s, the Latin writer Fortunatianus mentioned that Mark told about the ascension of Christ.  In the same century, the unknown author of the Acts of Pilate used Mark 16:15-16, and so did the author of the Syriac text of The Story of John the Son of Zebedee.    Meanwhile, Aphrahat the Persian Sage utilized Mark 16:17 in his composition First Demonstration, in 337.  Elsewhere, Wulfilas included Mark 16:9-20 in the Gothic version in the mid-300s.  In Syria in the late 300s or early 400s, the translators of the Syriac Peshitta included Mark 16:9-20.  Meanwhile in Milan, Ambrose quoted from Mark 16:9-20 in the 380s. 

            In 383, Jerome made the Vulgate, stating specifically that he had consulted ancient Greek manuscripts for the purpose, and he included Mark 16:9-20.  A little later on, in the early 400s, Jerome made a reference to the interpolation known as the Freer Logion, and said that he had seen it “especially in Greek codices.”  Metzger proposes that the Freer Logion itself was composed and inserted into the text between Mark 16:14 and 16:15 sometime in the second or third century.   

            In the 400s, Patrick quoted from Mark 16:16 in Ireland; Augustine quoted from Mark 16:9-20 in North Africa – and he casually mentioned that his Greek copies affirmed a reading in verse 12 – and Macarius Magnes used it in Asia Minor, and Marcus Eremita used it in Israel, and Eznik of Golb quotes verses 17 and 18 way over in Armenia, and five forms of the Old Latin chapter-summaries, displayed for instance in Codex Corbeiensis, refer to the contents of Mark 16:9-20. 

            How many names of patristic writers who utilized Mark 16:9-20 are found in The King James Only Controversy in the section where James White focuses on external evidence about this passage?    Is Justin mentioned?  No.  Tatian?  No.  White mentioned two Georgian copies made after the time of Charlemagne, but did he mention Irenaeus?  No.  He mentioned the Slavonic version from the ninth century, because he thought it supports non-inclusion (it actually supports inclusion), but did he mention the Gothic version from the fourth century?  No.  Why not?

            James White didn’t mention the evidence from Justin, and Tatian, and Vincent of Thibaris, and Hierocles, and Fortunatianus, and Wulfilas.  But why should his readers feel as if they have been misled?

            James White didn’t mention Acts of Pilate, and the repeated quotations of Mark 16:9-20 by Ambrose in Italy, or by Augustine in North Africa. He didn’t mention that Augustine’s Greek manuscripts had Mark 16:9-20.  But why should his readers feel misled?    

            James White didn’t mention Patrick’s use of Mark 16:15-16 in Ireland, or Macarius Magnes’ extensive use of the passage in Asia Minor, or the use of Mark 16:18 by Marcus Eremita in Israel – but he did not lie to anyone.  Maybe his readers just misunderstood what they were being told.  

            White didn’t mention that Pelagius, Prosper of Aquitaine, and Peter Chrysologus used Mark 16:9-20.  But his readers have not been lied to.   

            James White did not mention a single one of these Roman-era witnesses that support Mark 16:9-20.  He did not mention that Irenaeus, c. 180, had a manuscript that contained Mark 16:9-20, over a century before Vaticanus was made. But why should anyone feel misled by White’s selectivity in choosing what evidence to share, and what to hide?      

(5)  Why the differing endings if the one is original?

            The question is, in part, a request for a hypothesis, so I shall offer one:  in the first century, after the Gospel of Mark began to be disseminated from the city of Rome (with 16:9-20 included), a copy reached Egypt.  At this point, the last twelve verses were lost; a simple accident is possible, but I think they were removed or obelized (and then later removed) deliberately by someone who recognized them as resembling a short composition which Mark had written on another occasion as a freestanding text, summarizing Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances.  This individual regarded Peter as the primary author of the Gospel of Mark; Mark being merely a recorder and organizer of Petrine material.  He therefore obelized verses 9-20 as something that was not the work of the primary author, and in the next generation, the obelized portion was not perpetuated.   

            Of course we do not have this on video – just as we do not have any of the dozens of scribal corruptions that James White proposes in his book on video.  And this hypothesis can be tweaked without essential change; for example, it is possible that verses 9-20 were removed in a single step.  But this or something like this accounts for the absence of Mark 16:9-20 in Egypt, while the Gospel of Mark spread with 16:9-20 included everywhere else, as the patristic evidence shows – that is, as the patristic evidence would show, if the patristic writers had not been tied up and gagged, and thrown in a pit where they cannot be heard.

            In a later generation, in Egypt, the Shorter Ending was created by someone who could not stand the abruptness of the text in its truncated form (ending at the end of 16:8).  There are eight Greek manuscripts that have the Shorter Ending; some of them are damaged, but all eight also have verse 9, which implies that all eight also had verses 9-20 when the manuscripts were in pristine condition. 

            Did James White tell you about the notes that appear in some of those manuscripts?  No?  Maybe that has something to do with why he is asking this question.  Let’s take a few minutes to zoom in on those notes.  Without getting bogged down in details, the thing to see is that most of these six manuscripts are related to the same narrow Egyptian transmission-stream.  Here are the basic details:

            In Codex L, a note appears before the Short Ending:  “In some, there is also this.”  And between the Shorter Ending and 16:9, a note says, “There is also this, appearing after ‘for they were afraid.”  It may be safely deduced from these notes that the person who wrote these notes knew of some copies with the Shorter Ending after verse 8, and some copies with verses 9-20 after verse 8.

            In Codex Ψ, the six lines that follow the line on which Mark 16:8 ends contain the Short Ending, and then there is a note:  “This also appears, following ‘for they were afraid.’”  The wording of the note is not quite identical to the note in L, but it is very close. 

            083 is a damaged fragment, but enough has survived to show that 083 has the closing-title “Gospel According to Mark” after 16:8, and then has the Shorter Ending in the next column, and before 16:9, the note, “There is also this, appearing after ‘for they were afraid,’” exactly as in Codex L. 

            099, which is even more fragmentary than 083, has a feature which creates a link to a locale in Egypt.  16:8 is followed by a gap, which is followed by the Shorter Ending, which is followed by another gap.  Then, instead of the beginning of 16:9, the contents of 16:8b are repeated (beginning with ειχεν γαρ αυτας τρομος ) and after 16:8 is completed, 16:9 begins.

            Why does this link these manuscripts to Egypt?  Because of the Greek-Sahidic lectionary 1602 – which James White mislabeled “l, 1602” in the second edition of his book, just as he mislabeled lectionary 153 as “l, 153” on the previous page.  In l 1602, a note appears between 16:8 and the Shorter Ending:  “In other copies this is not written.”  Then, after the Shorter Ending, there is the same note that appears in Codex L.  After the note, instead of beginning 16:9, the text resumes in 16:8b (at ειχεν γαρ, as in 099), which is followed by 16:9ff. 

            To review:  L and Ψ and 083 and  l 1602 have the note “There is also this, appearing after ‘for they were afraid,’” before 16:9.  099 and l 1602 both repeat the text of 16:8b before 16:9.  Thus, all five of these witnesses are traced to the same narrow transmission-stream, where Sahidic was read (i.e., in Egypt).     

 

            That leaves two Greek manuscripts with the Shorter Ending:  579 and 274.  579 (from the 1200s) does not share any of the notes that L, Ψ, 099 and 083 have, but it shares (approximately) the rare chapter-divisions that are displayed in Codex Vaticanus, the flagship manuscript of the Alexandrian Text.  It also shares many readings with Vaticanus, such as the non-inclusion of Luke 22:43-44 and Luke 23:34a.

            That leaves 274.  In the main text of 274 (from the 900s), 16:9 begins on the same line on which 16:8 ends (the verses are separated by an abbreviated lectionary-related note, “End of the second Heothina-reading”).  The Shorter Ending has been added in the lower margin of the page, to the right of a column of five asterisks; another asterisk appears to the left of 16:9 so as to indicate where the Shorter Ending was seen in another manuscript.    The Shorter Ending in 274 is more like an incidental margin-note, mentioning an interesting feature in some secondary exemplar, than part of the manuscript’s text copied from the main exemplar.

           

            The takeaway from this is that the Greek witnesses for the Shorter Ending echo situations in one particular locale, namely Egypt, where Mark 16:9-20 was first lost (or excised), and the Shorter Ending was then created to relieve the resultant abrupt stop of the narrative, and then copies appeared in which 16:9-20 followed 16:8.  Copyists in Egypt, facing some exemplars with no text after 16:8, and some exemplars with the Shorter Ending after 16:8, and some exemplars with verses 9-20 after 16:8, resolved the situation by including both endings.  Meanwhile, everywhere else – from Ireland to France to Rome to North Africa to the coast of Italy to Asia Minor to Palestine to Cyprus to Israel to parts of Egypt to Syria to Armenia – copies of Mark were being used in which 16:8 was followed unremarkably by 16:9-20.          

            The Sahidic, Bohairic, and Ethiopic versions, like almost all versions, echoed the Greek manuscripts accessible to their translators:  the earliest strata of the Sahidic version echoes a situation in Egypt when and where the text of Mark ended at 16:8; the versions with the double-ending (always with the Shorter Ending first, when it appears in the text – for it would be superfluous after 16:20) echo later situations.  (Notably, the Garima Gospels, the oldest Ethiopic Gospels-manuscript, does not have the Shorter Ending after 16:8; it has 16:9-20.)

                       

            It is now 2025.   I call upon James White yet again to face me in a cordial debate and defend his claims.  Anywhere, any place, any time.

Readers are invited to double-check the data in this post.

Mark 16:9-20 - Why Egyptian Scribes Removed It

             The last 12 verses of Mark are attested in over 1,650 Greek manuscripts, early and abundant patristic evidence, and in multiple transmission-streams.  It is not a Byzantine reading which fell into its neighbors, as shown by the following features in the Western, Caesarean, and Alexandrian texts:

            Western (represented by Codex Bezae, D/05):
            εφανερωσεν πρωτοις instead of εφανη πρωτον in 16:9,

            αυτοις after απηγγειλεν in 16:10,

            και ουκ επιστευσαν αυτω instead of ηπιστησαν in 16:11,

            και at the beginning of 16:12,

            προς αυτους instead of αυτοις in 16:15,

            the omission of απαντα in 16:15, and

            και before κηρυξατε in 16:15.

 

            Caesarean:

            family-13 omits δε and inserts the contracted name “Jesus” after Αναστας in 16:9.  (A lectionary-influenced reading)

            Codex Θ (038) has μαθηταις in 16:10 instead of μετ’ .

            Codex Θ (038) has εφανη instead of εφανερωθη in 16:12.

            Codex Θ (038) has πορευθεντες instead of απελθοντες in 16:13.

            Family-1, family-13, 28, and 565 (and A, Δ, and C) add εκ νεκρων after

εγηγερμενον in 16:14.  (This reading may be supported by Justin Martyr in First Apology ch. 50 as well.)

           

            Alexandrian:

            C*, L, 33, 579, and 892 (and D and W) have παρ’ instead of αφ after

Μαρια τη Μαγδαληνη in 16:9.

            C*, L, Δ, and Ψ (044) omit καιναις at the end of 16:17. 099 also

omits γλωσσαις λαλησουσιν, probably due to accidental lineskipping.

            This implies that 099’s exemplar read:

                        δαιμονια εκβαλουσιν

                        γλωσσαις λαλησουσιν

                        και εν ταις χερσιν etc.

            C, L, Δ, Ψ (044), 099, 579, and 892 have και εν ταις χερσιν at the beginning of 16:18.

           

            Why, then, are some influential scholars still insisting that Mark 16:9-20 is not original, or is somehow, despite having plenty of distinct features, a “pastiche”?  This is due, I suspect, because of dependence on outdated materials, and because of an inability to satisfactorily answer the question, “Why would scribes omit these 12 verses if they were original?”
            But this is not a difficult question.  Egyptian scribes did not excise vv. 9-20 in their capacity as scribes.  They excised vv. 9-20 in their capacity as framers of the apostolic text.

             It ought to be remembered that Eusebius of Caesarea, in Church History Book Three, chapter 39, preserves Papias’ statement that “The Elder” reported the following: “Mark, who had been Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of those who listened to him, but with no intent to give a sequential account of the Lord’s discourses. So that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing: not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely.”

            In Church History Book Five, chapter 8:1-3, Eusebius quotes from the beginning of the third book of Irenaeus’ Against Heresies (where Irenaeus seems to rely on Papias’ writings): “Matthew published his Gospel among the Hebrews in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching and founding the church in Rome. After their departure (έξοδον), Mark the disciple and interpreter of Peter also transmitted to us in writing those things which Peter had preached.”

            In addition, in Church History Book Six, 14:5-7, Eusebius presents a statement that he attributes to Clement of Alexandria:  “Clement gives the tradition of the earliest presbyters, as to the order of the Gospels, in the following manner: the Gospels containing the genealogies, he says, were written first. The Gospel according to Mark had this occasion: as Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome, and declared the gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them out. And having composed the Gospel he gave it to those who had requested it. When Peter learned of this, he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it.”

            The accounts of Irenaeus and Clement seem to conflict: Irenaeus states that Mark wrote after the departure of Peter and Paul, but Clement states that Mark was distributing the Gospel while Peter was still alive. This should be compared to what Jerome, recollecting earlier compositions, wrote in the eighth chapter of De Viris Illustribus:

            “Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, wrote a short gospel at the request of the brethren at Rome, embodying what he had heard Peter tell. When Peter heard this, he approved it and published it to the churches to be read by his authority, as Clement in Book 6 of his Hypotyposes, and Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, record. Peter also mentions this Mark in his first epistle, figuratively indicating Rome under the name of Babylon: “She who is in Babylon elect together with you salutes you, and so does Mark my son.”

            “So, taking the gospel which he himself composed, he [Mark] went to Egypt. And first preaching Christ at Alexandria, he formed a church so admirable in doctrine and continence of living that he constrained all followers of Christ to his example. Philo –  most learned of the Jews – seeing the first church at Alexandria still Jewish in a degree, wrote a book on their manner of life as something creditable to his nation, telling how, as Luke says, the believers had all things in common at Jerusalem, so he recorded what he saw was done at Alexandria under the learned Mark. He died in the eighth year of Nero and was buried at Alexandria, Annianus succeeding him.”

            Jerome was clearly relying on earlier accounts, including Eusebius’ Church History; the statement about the year of Mark’s death seems to be drawn directly from Eusebius’ Church History, Book Two, chapter 24: “When Nero was in the eighth year of his reign, Annianus succeeded Mark the evangelist in the administration of the parish of Alexandria.”   Eusebius provides a second affirmation of the year of the beginning of the bishopric of Annianus in Church History, Book Three, chapter 14: “In the fourth year of Domitian, Annianus, the first bishop of the parish of Alexandria, died after holding office twenty-two years, and was succeeded by Abilius, the second bishop.”   Figuring that Domitian’s reign began in September of 81, adding four years brings us to September of 85. By subtracting 22 from 85, we arrive at the year 63. If Annianus served as bishop for a bit more than 22 years but less than 23 full years, Eusebius’ two statements agree.

            On the question of whether Mark wrote his Gospel before Peter’s death, or afterward, the accounts are divided. Their discord may decrease a little if Jerome’s statement is understood as an incorrect deduction based on Eusebius’ statement that Annianus succeeded Mark in the eighth year of Nero’s reign. If Eusebius’ statement means that Mark, instead of dying in that year, departed from Alexandria to go to Rome, then if Nero’s eighth year is calculated to be 62 (since his reign began on October 13, in the year 54), the emerging picture is that Mark established a Christian community in Alexandria, and then went to Rome, possibly at the urging of Timothy (see Second Timothy 4:11). According to this hypothesis, Peter and Mark were both ministering in Rome in the year 62.

            In the mid-60s, severe persecution against Christians arose in the city of Rome, and Paul and Peter were martyred. What then happened to Mark? He apparently did not remain in Rome; as Peter’s assistant he would have been a natural choice to lead the congregation there; yet a man named Linus is reported by Eusebius (in Church History Book Three, 3:2) to have been the first bishop of Rome after the martyrdoms of Paul and Peter. A detailed tradition is found in the medieval composition History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria by Severus of Al-Ushmunain (in the mid-900s), who stated that he accessed source-materials from the monastery of St. Macarius and other monasteries in Egypt, and from Alexandria. Severus of Al-Ushmunain states that Mark was martyred in Alexandria.  

            When this is compared to the report from Irenaeus that Mark composed his Gospel-account after the departure – that is, the martyrdoms – of Peter and Paul, the situation becomes more clear: after assisting Barnabas and Paul on Paul’s first missionary journey (as related in Acts 12:25-13;13, and after assisting Barnabas in Cyprus (as related in Acts 15:36-39), Mark established churches in Egypt in the 50s, and traveled from there to Rome in 62, leaving behind Annianus in Egypt. Immediately after the deaths of Paul and Peter, Mark left Rome and returned to Egypt.

            The martyrdoms of Paul and Peter are generally assigned to the year 67. Eusebius of Caesarean, in Book Two, chapter 25 of Church History, states that Paul was beheaded in Rome, and that Peter was crucified in the reign of Nero. He also reports that they were both martyred at the same time, and cites as his source for this information a man named Dionysius of Corinth.  Dionysius of Corinth is a fairly early source.  Eusebius reports that he served the church in the early 170s. Jerome, in the first and fifth chapters of De Viris Illustribus, echoes Eusebius’ information, stating that Peter and Paul were both martyred “in the fourteen year of the reign of Nero, which is the 37th year after the Lord’s Sufferings.”  

            The account preserved by Severus of Al-Ushmunain specifically states that Mark was seized by unbelievers in Alexandria on Easter, when one of their religious festivals, dedicated to the deity Serapis, occurred, on the 29th day of the month called Barmudah (the eighth month of the Egyptian calendar), and that he died the next day.   Although this is a late document, its author states that he relied upon earlier sources. One such earlier text, although it does not say anything about the specific date of Mark’s martyrdom, agrees regarding the location: the author of The Martyrdom of Peter of Alexandria (a bishop who was martyred in 311) states, “They took him up and brought him to the place called Bucolia, where the holy St. Mark underwent martyrdom for Christ.” The same author states that Peter of Alexandria entreated his persecutors “to allow him to go to the tomb of St. Mark.”  

            Only in certain years would Easter coincide on the calendar with the festival of Serapis, and the year 68 is one of those years. Thus, it appears Mark was martyred in 68, in Alexandria, less than a year after Paul and Peter were martyred in 67 in Rome. If the gist of the tradition preserved by Irenaeus is followed, then Mark must have had only a small window of opportunity, if any, after the martyrdoms of Paul and Peter to finish his Gospel-account.

            This does not mean that the tradition reported by Clement of Alexandria is entirely untrue.  After Mark had been in Rome long enough to be recognized as Peter’s assistant and interpreter, he would have had opportunities to respond to requests for copies of collections of Peter’s sayings. These collections, though, may have been shorter than the final form of the Gospel of Mark. A definitive collection of all of Peter’s remembrances would not be feasible until after Peter stopped recollecting.

            The tradition preserved by Irenaeus is not likely to be a later invention; creative tradition inventors would tend to emphasize the apostolic authority of the text. Clement’s tradition, by stating that Peter neither approved nor disapproved Mark’s undertaking, certainly does not seem to have been designed to ensure that readers would regard the Gospel of Mark as apostolically approved, but Irenaeus’ tradition, by stating that Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark after Peter had departed (that is, died), is even less positive, inasmuch as the martyred apostle Peter cannot even acquiesce to the text’s contents.

            If we thus accept Irenaeus’ basic version of events, and assign a date in 67 for the martyrdom of Peter in Rome, and a date in 68 for the martyrdom of Mark in Alexandria, then the date for the composition of the Gospel of Mark must be somewhere in between.

            All this provides the background for the following hypothesis:

            In the second half of the year 67, following the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, as Mark was almost finished writing his Gospel-account, he was in imminent danger and had to suddenly stop writing his nearly-complete text, leaving it, and whatever else he had written, in the hands of his colleagues. Thus, when Mark left Rome, his definitive collection of Peter’s remembrances was unfinished and unpublished.

            Mark’s Roman colleagues were thus entrusted with an incomplete and unfinished text. They had no desire to insert material of their own invention into Mark’s text, but they also had no desire to publish a composition which they all knew was not only unfinished, but which would be recognized as unfinished by everyone who was familiar with Peter’s preaching – indeed, by everyone acquainted at all with the message about Jesus. Therefore, rather than publish the Gospel of Mark without an ending (that is, with the abrupt ending), they completed it by supplementing it with a short text which Mark, at an earlier time, had composed about Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances. Only after this supplement was added did the Roman church begin to make copies of the Gospel of Mark.

            Now let us turn to the subject of scribes in Egypt as canon-framers.

            B. H. Streeter, in his influential book The Four Gospels, made an insightful surmise about Mark 16:9-20: “The hypothesis that Mark 16:9-20 was originally a separate document has the additional advantage of making it somewhat easier to account for the supplement in the text of W known as the “Freer logion.” A catechetical summary is a document which lends itself to expansion; the fact that a copy of it had been added to Mark would not at once put out of existence all other copies or prevent them suffering expansion. No doubt as soon as the addition became thoroughly established in the Roman text of Mark, it would cease to be copied as a separate document. But supposing that a hundred years later an old copy of it in the expanded version turned up. It would then be mistaken for a fragment of a very ancient manuscript of Mark, and the fortunate discoverer would hasten to add to his copy of Mark – which, of course, he would suppose to be defective – the addition preserved in this ancient witness.”  

            That seems to me a very plausible origin for the Freer Logion. Slightly adapted, Streeter’s theory implies that the Freer Logion did not originate as an expansion in the Gospel of Mark, but as an expansion of the freestanding Marcan summary of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances which Mark’s colleagues incorporated into the text of the Gospel of Mark.

            But what was such a text doing in Egypt?  It is possible that Mark composed it earlier, during the period in the 50s-62 when he was in Egypt – the only locale in which the Freer Logion is known to have existed.  (Jerome may have seen the Freer Logion in Didymus’ church’s copies.)

            If Mark’s brief summary of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances was already used in Egypt as a freestanding composition, then when the Gospel of Mark arrived from Rome in the late 60s, it would not be difficult for them to compare it to their copies of the Marcan composition about Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances, and immediately see that the final portion of the text from Rome was not, and could not be, part of the Petrine Memoirs.

            Some of the first individuals in Alexandria to read the Gospel of Mark would thus be inclined to regard 16:9-20 as a distinct Marcan composition which, though valuable as a Marcan text, simply did not belong in the memoirs of the apostle Peter. As a result, they declined to perpetuate it in their copies of the Gospel of Mark, thinking that it lacked apostolic approval.   Everywhere else, the verses were accepted as part of Mark’s Gospel.

 

Replica based on an image in a booklet
from the British Museum.

            P.S.  The tendency to apply a sort of higher criticism to justify the excision of verses that did not seem to come from the primary author was apparently shared by one of the copyists of Codex Sinaiticus. At the end of John, Scribe A finished the text at the end of 21:24, and followed this with the decorative coronis and the subscription. Then he had second thoughts, erased the decorative design and subscription, and added 21:25, followed by a new decorative design and a new subscription. Tischendorf had detected this in the 1800s, but it was not until the page was exposed to ultraviolet light in research overseen by Milne and Skeat that the evidence of what the copyist had done literally came to light.

            The initial excision of John 21:25 in Sinaiticus was probably not an altogether isolated case; Theodore of Mopsuestia (350 to 428), in a statement preserved in Ishodad of Merv’s Commentary on the Gospels, claimed that the extra material in the Septuagint version of Job, and the sentence about the angel moving the waters in John 5:4, and this verse, John 21:25, are “Not the text of Scripture, but were put above in the margin, in the place of some exposition; and afterwards, he says, they were introduced into the text by some lovers of knowledge.”  Theodoret may have been repeating a theory of an earlier writer which was also known to Scribe A of Sinaiticus.

           

Vaticanus and the Shorter Ending of Mark

          Codex Vaticanus is our oldest substantial manuscript which includes most of the Gospel of Mark, having been produced around the year 325.  (P45 is older, but is missing most of its pages from Mark.)  This date is based on paleographical grounds.  We usually have no way of knowing if a scribe was young – say, 20 years old – and had just started his career as a scribe, or if he was nearing the end of his career – at, say, 70 years of age.  So there is a default degree of variation of about 50 years in either direction to most paleography-based production-dates. 

          But Christians were not likely to be capable of producing manuscripts like Codex Vaticanus – a large parchment book that probably contained, when produced, almost the entire Greek Old Testament and almost all of the New Testament (it is still debated whether or not Vaticanus initially contained the Pastoral Epistles and Revelation) – until the time when copyists could do so without the threat of Roman persecution, i.e., until 313, when Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, declaring that Christianity was a legal religion.  Another factor influencing the dating of Codex Vaticanus is something it doesn’t have:  the Eusebian Section-numbers, which are in the margin of most other Greek manuscripts of the Gospels.  The other famous very large codex from the 300s, Codex Sinaiticus, has the Eusebian Section-numbers, albeit incompletely and somewhat imprecisely. 

          With the exception of GA 304, a medieval commentary-manuscript which may have been copied from a damaged exemplar, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are the only Greek manuscripts in which the text of the Gospel of Mark stops at 16:8.  (1420 and 2386, once cited by William Lane as if they also stopped the text of the Gospel of Mark at 16:8, have turned out to merely be damaged MSS at this point.)  The copyist of Vaticanus, though, left a blank space after Mark 16:8, including a blank column – the only blank column in the New Testament.  This blank space is sufficient to include verses 16:9-20, as I have shown here. 

          But in Egypt, there was another ending of Mark, known as the “Shorter Ending.”  It is extant (along with at least part of the usual 12 verses) in eight Greek manuscripts:  Codices L (019), Y (044), 083, 099, 274 (in the lower margin), 579, and in 1422 and 2937 (these last two MSS were recently verified by Mina Monier as witnesses to the Shorter Ending and to 16:9-20).  The Shorter Ending, followed by 16:9-20, is also found in Greek-Sahidic lectionary 1602, and in numerous Ethiopic copies.  The double-ending (SE + vv. 9-20, with marginalia) appears to have been distinctly Egyptian at first, before being adopted later adopted in several versions.

          Codex Vaticanus itself, though, is the focus of a specific question which can be answered here:  when the scribe of Vaticanus left blank space after 16:8, was he thinking about the Shorter Ending?

         The answer is, “No,” and this is shown by two things:  first, the Shorter Ending fits in the second column in the blank space following 16:8.  Thus there would be no need to leave column 3 blank.  Second, in Ad Marinum (which is available as a free download from Roger Pearse, so there is no need for commentators to keep repeating (and distorting) Metzger’s misleading context-free snippets (looking at you, Ben Witherington III)), Eusebius never mentions the Shorter Ending when, as he addresses a question about how to harmonize Matthew 28:2 and Mark 16:9, he describes what a person might say about the ending of Mark. (Eusebius wrote in the decades which immediately followed the Diocletian persecution, so it should not be imagined that he had the ability to survey MSS beyond his reach.)

Samuel Tregelles and Mark 16:9-20

           In 1844, the year when Constantine Tischendorf first saw pages of Codex Sinaiticus at St. Catherine’s monastery, Samuel Tregelles released An Account of the Printed Text of the New Testament, a book which had a significant influence among researchers into the text of the New Testament.

          Recently, after discussing Mark 16:9-20 with Stephen Boyce of Explain International, someone observed that my position (that Mark was permanently interrupted as he wrote 16:8, and someone else attached verses 9-20 (from another composition by Mark) to complete the narrative, before the Gospel of Mark began to be disseminated for church-use, and that verses 9-20 are thus part of the original text) resembled the view of Tregelles, and it occurred to me that many discussion-viewers might not know what that means.  (I had read Tregelles, years ago, but on the spur of the moment I couldn’t recall his view in detail.)  So here, I have reproduced a large excerpt from Tregelles’ own statements on the subject, along with a few notes of my own, from pages 246-261 of An Account of the Printed Text of the New Testament.  I have not included the footnotes, in the interest of brevity.  Some readers, wearied by Tregelles’ thoroughness,  may wish to proceed to Tregelles’ closing comments, which I have marked with “···.”

Tregelles wrote:    

          “St. Mark xvi. 9-20. The last twelve verses of this Gospel have some remarkable phenomena connected with their history; in order fully to discuss their authority, it is needful first to establish by evidence of facts certain propositions.

I. That it is historically known that in the early ages it was denied that these verses formed a part of the Gospel written by St. Mark.

II. That it is certain, on grounds of historical transmission, that they were from the second century, at least, and onward, known as part of this book.

III. That the early testimony that they were not written by St. Mark is confirmed by existing monuments.

          After these propositions have been established, the conclusions to be drawn may assume the form of corollaries.

(I)  The absence of this portion from some, many, or most copies of St. Mark’s Gospel, or that it was not written by St. Mark himself, is attested by Eusebius, Gregory of Nyssa, Victor of Antioch, Severus of Antioch, Jerome; and by later writers (especially Greeks), who, even though they copied from their predecessors, were competent to transmit the record of a fact.

(i) Eusebius, in the first of his Questiones ad Marinum, discusses πως παρα μεν τω Ματθαιω “οψε σαββάτων” φαίνεται εγηγερμενος ο σωτηρ, παρα δε τω Μάρκω “πρωι τη μια των σαββάτων.”  [Tregelles then presents an extract from Eusebius’ composition Ad Marinum, which is similar to what Roger Pearse presents on p. 96 of Eusebius of Caesarea:  Gospel Problems and Solutions, and which translates in that book to: 

“The answer to this would be twofold.  The actual nub of the matter is the pericope which says this. One who athetises that pericope would say that it is not found in all copies of the gospel according to Mark:  accurate copies end their text of the Marcan account with the words of the young man whom the women saw, and who said to them: “‘Do not be afraid; it is Jesus the Nazarene that you are looking for, etc. … ’ ”, after which it adds: “And when they heard this, they ran away, and said nothing to anyone, because they were frightened.”  That is where the text does end, in almost all copies of the gospel according to Mark. What occasionally follows in some copies, not all, would be extraneous, most particularly if it contained something contradictory to the evidence of the other evangelists.”  That, then, would be one person’s answer: to reject it, entirely obviating the question as superfluous.”]

          Tregelles continues:  “Eusebius then goes on to explain the supposed difficulty, irrespective of the supposed authorship of these verses.  This testimony, then, is clear, that the greater part of the Greek copies had not the twelve verses in question.  It is evident that Eusebius did not believe that they were written by Mark himself, for he  says, κατὰ Μάρκον μετὰ τὴν ανάστασιν οὐ λέγεται ὤφθαι τοις μαθηταις.  The arrangement of the Eusebian Canons are also an argument that he did not own the passage; for in genuine copies of the notation of these sections the numbers do not go beyond ver. 8, which is marked σλγʹ (233).  Some copies, carry indeed, this notation as far as ver. 14, and some to the end of the chapter; but these are unauthorised additions, and contradicted by not only good copies which contain these sections, both Greek and Latin (for instance A, and the Codex Amiatinus), but also by a scholion found in a good many MSS. at ver. 8, εως ωδε Εὐσέβιος εκανόνισεν.  It has been objected that these sections show nothing as to the MSS. extant in Eusebius’s time, but only the condition of the Harmony of Ammonius, from which the divisions were taken.  [It does not seem to have occurred to Tregelles that Eusebius, after endorsing to Marinus the inclusion of verses 9-20, could have changed his mind when subsequently creating his Canons.]  The objection is not without significance; but it really carries back our evidence from the fourth century to the third; and thus it is seen, that just as Eusebius found these verses absent in his day from the best and most numerous copies, so was also the case with Ammonius when he formed his Harmony in the preceding century.”

          [That the “Ammonian Sections” are the work of Eusebius, and not Ammonius, was later demonstrated by John Burgon in Appendix G of his 1871 book, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark Vindicated Against Recent Critical Objectors and Established.] 

          [Tregelles then reviews the testimony from Gregory of Nyssa – which, subsequent to Tregelles, was regarded as the work of Hesychius – and Victor of Antioch, noting that Victor’s remark] “is worthy of attention; for his testimony to the absence of these twelve verses from some or many copies, stands in contrast to his own opinion on the subject.  He seems to speak of having added the passage in question (to his own copy, perhaps) on the authority of a Palestinian exemplar.”

          Next, Tregelles reviews a statement from Severus of Antioch, and says, “This testimony may be but a repetition of that already cited from Gregory of Nyssa; but if so, it is, at least, an approving quotation.”

          “It is worthy of remark that both Eusebius and Victor have τῇ μιᾷ where our text has πρώτη; this may be an accidental variation; as they do not afterwards give the words precisely as they had before quoted them; or it may show that they spoke of the passage, ver. 9-20, without having before them a copy which contained it, and thus that they unintentionally used τῇ μιᾷ as the more customary phraseology in the New Testament.

          “Dionysius of Alexandria has been brought forward as a witness on each side.  Scholz refers to his Epistle to Basilides, as though he had there stated that some, or many, copies did not contain the passage; and Tischendorf similarly mentions his testimony; while, on the other hand, Dr. Davidson (Introd. i. 165) places Dionysius amongst those by whom the passage “is sanctioned.”  All, however, that I can gather from his Epistle to Basilides (Routh, Rel. Sac. iii. 223-32) is, that in discussing the testimony of the four evangelists to the time (whether night, or early in the morning) at which our Lord arose from the dead, he takes no notice whatever of Mark xvi. 9; and this he could hardly fail to have done, as bearing more closely on the question, when referring to the beginning of the same chapter, if he had acknowledged or known the last twelve verses. His testimony, then, quantum valeat, is purely negative.

          “Jerome’s testimony is yet to be adduced.  He discusses (Ad Hedibiam, Qusest. II. ed. Vallarsi, i. col. 819,) the difficulties brought forward as to the time of the resurrection. “Hujus qusestionis duplex solutio est; aut enim non recipimus Marci testimonium, quod in raris fertur Evangeliis, omnibus Grceciae libris pene hoc capitulum in fine non habentibus, praesertim quum diversa atque contraria Evangelistis caeteris narrare videatur ; aut hoc respondendum, quod uterque verum dixerit,” etc.  He then proposes to remove the difficulty by a different punctuation, in the same manner as Eusebius and Victor did.”

          “But an endeavour has been made to invalidate Jerome s testimony by referring to what he says in his Dialogue against the Pelagians, II. 15.  “In quibusdam exemplaribus, et maxime in Græcis codicibus juxta Marcum in fine ejus Evangelii scribitur:  Postea quum accubuissent undecim apparuit eis lesus, et exprobravit incredulitatem et duritiam cordis eorum, quia his qui viderant eum resurgentem non crediderunt.  Et illi satisfaciebant dicentes; Sæculum istud iniquitatis et incredulitatis substantia* est, quæ non sinit per immundos spiritus veram Dei apprehendi virtutem: idcirco jam nunc revela justitiam tuam. Cui si contradicitis, illud certe renuere non audebitis; Mundus in maligno positus est,” etc. (Ed. Vallarsi. ij. 744, 5.)  Hence it has been inferred that Jerome contradicts himself as to the Greek copies.  But (i.) that conclusion does not follow, because he may here speak of those Greek copies which did contain the verses in question, and not of the MSS. in general, (ii.) If this testimony be supposed to relate to Greek MSS. in general, it is at least remarkable that we have no other trace of such an addition at ver. 14. [The situation to which Tregelles alluded changed when Codex W was discovered.]  (iii.) Jerome wrote against the Pelagians in extreme old age, and he made in that work such demonstrable errors (e. g. citing II. 2, Ignatius instead of Polycarp), that it would be a bold step if any were to reject an unequivocal testimony to a fact stated in his earlier writings on the ground of something contained in this; especially when, if the latter testimony be admitted as conclusive, it would involve our accepting a strange addition at ver. 14 (otherwise wholly unknown to MSS., versions, and fathers) as a reading then current in Greek copies.

          These testimonies sufficiently establish, as an historical fact, that in the early ages it was denied that these twelve concluding verses formed a part of the Gospel of St. Mark.

(II.) I now pass to the proofs of the second proposition; that it is certain, on grounds of historical transmission, that, from the second century at least, this Gospel concluded as it does now in our copies.

          This is shown by the citations of early writers who recognise the existence of the section in question. These testimonies commence with Irenaeus: “In fine autem Evangelii ait Marcus, Et quidem Dominus Iesus, postquam locutus est eis, receptus est in caelos, et sedet ad dexteram Dei” (C. H. iii. 10. 6).  This sentence of the old Latin translator of Irenseus is thus cited in Greek in confirmation of his having used this part of the Gospel:  Ὁ μὲν ουν κύριος μετὰ τὸ λαλησαι αὐτοις ἀνελήφθε εις τὸν ουρανόν, καὶ εκάθισεν εκ δεξιων του θεου.  Εἰρηναιος ὁ των ἀποστόλων πλησίον ἐν τω πρὸς τὰς αιρέσεις γʹ λόγω τουτο ανήνεγκεν τὸ ρητὸν ὡς Μάρκῳ ειρημένον.  [A footnote in Printed Account states that this was drawn by Cramer from Cod. Harl. 5647, that is, minuscule 72.  What Tregelles presented is a combination of 72’s text of Mark 16:19, and the note in 72’s side-margin.] 

          “Whether this part of St. Mark was known to Celsus has been disputed.  My own opinion is, that that early writer against Christianity did, in the passage which Origen discusses (lib. II. §§ 59 and 70), refer to the appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalen, as found in Mark xvi. 9; but that Origen, in answering him, did not exactly apprehend the purport of his objection, from (probably) not knowing or using that section of this Gospel.  This would not be the only place in which Origen has misapprehended the force of remarks of Celsus from difference of reading in the copies which they respectively used, or from his not being aware of the facts to which Celsus referred.

          Tregelles turns next to Hippolytus, and supplies an extensive quotation from Περὶ Χαρισμάτων Ἀποστολικὴ Παράδοσις “in which this part of St. Mark s Gospel is distinctly quoted.”

          “After these testimonies of the second and third centuries, there are many who use the passage; such for instance as Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose, Augustine, Nestorius, (ap. Cyr. Alex. vi. 46.)

          Under this head may be mentioned the MSS. and versions in general (the conspectus of their evidence on both sides will be given under the next proposition); and amongst the MSS.  Those may in particular be specified which continue the Ammonian Sections on to the end of the chapter.  This seems to have been done to supply a supposed omission; and in ancient MSS., such as C, it is clear that the copyist took this section for an integral part of the book.

          The early mention and use of this section, and the place that it holds in the ancient versions in general, and in the MSS., sufficiently show, on historical grounds, that it had a place, and was transmitted as a part of the second Gospel.

III. To consider properly the third proposition (that the early testimony that St. Mark did not write these verses is confirmed by existing monuments), the evidence of the MSS. and versions must be stated in full.

          The passage is wholly omitted in Codex B.,* in the Latin Codex Bobbiensis (k), in old MSS. of the Armenian, and in an Arabic version in the Vatican (Cod. Arab. Vat. 13).  [This was later shown to be an effect of damage to the manuscript, as Metzger says in a footnote in his Textual Commentary:  “Since, however, through an accidental loss of leaves the original hand breaks off just before the end of Mark 16.8, its testimony is without significance in discussing the textual problem.”  See also Clarence Russell Williams’ comments about Cod. Arab. Vat. 13 on p. 398 of Williams’ The Appendices to the Gospel of St. Mark, which is contained as the last essay in Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 18 (Feb. 1915, Yale University Press).]  Of these versions, the Codex Bobbiensis adds a different brief conclusion, “Omnia autem quaecunque praecepta erant et qui cum puero [1. cum Petro] erant breviter exposuerunt. Posthaec et ipse jhesus adparuit. et ab orientem usque. usque in orientem. misit per illos sanctam et incorruptam (add. praedicationis, -nem ?) salutis aeternae. Amen.”  And the Armenian, in the edition of Zohrab, separates the concluding twelve verses from the rest of the Gospel.  Mr. Rieu thus notices the Armenian MSS.; “ἐφοβουντο γάρ·   Some of the oldest  MSS. end here : many put after these words the final Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μάρκον, and then give the additional verses with a new superscription, εὐαγγ. κατὰ Μ.  Oscan goes on without any break.”  The Arabic MS. in the Vatican is that described by Scholz in his “Biblisch-Kritische Keise” (pp. 117-126); and though the Arabic versions are of too recent a date to possess much critical value, this MS., so far as may be judged from the few extracts made, seems to be based on an ancient Greek text.  Besides the MS. which omits the verses, they are marked with an asterisk in two cursive copies. [The two cursive copies to which Tregelles referred here are 137 and 138 – neither of which is as Tregelles described it; both have the Catena Marcum and feature the comment that alludes to a cherished Palestinian exemplar.]

          [Tregelles then reviews the note in Codex L that appears before the Shorter Ending, and L’s text of the Shorter Ending.] “Thus far L is supported by the cursive cod. 274, by the marg. of the Harclean Syriac, and by the Latin Codex Bobbiensis (see above). L then continues :  “ἔστην [i. e. -τιν] δὲ καὶ ταυτα φερόμενα μετὰ τὸ Ἐφοβουνται γάρ” ~ - - - - - - - ~ ἀναστὰς δὲ κτλ. (and then follow the twelve verses).

          In Cod. 1, ver. 8 ends on folio 220 A, and at the top of the next page is written in vermillion, ἔν τισι μὲν των ἀντυγράφων ἕως ωδε πληρουται ὁ ευαγγελιστής· ἔως ου καὶ Ευσέβιος ὁ παμφίλου ἐκανόνισεν. ἐν πολλοις δὲ καὶ ταυτα φέρεται (and then follow ver. 9 20).  A similar note or a scholion stating the absence of the following verses from many, from most, or from the most correct copies (often from Victor or Severus), is found in twenty-five other cursive codices; sometimes with τελος interposed after ver. 8.  The absence of Ammonian divisions in A L and other good copies after ver. 8 should here be remembered.

          Such is the testimony of existing monuments confirming the ancient witnesses against this passage.

          On the other hand, the passage is found in the uncial codd. A C D, X Δ, E G Π K M S U V (F is defective); as well as in 33, 69, and the rest of the cursive copies which have been collated.  It is in copies of the Old Latin; in the Vulg. in the Curetonian Syriac, as well as the Peshito and the Harclean (with the marginal note given above), and the Jerusalem Syriac; in the Memphitic, Gothic, and Æthiopic; besides those which have been previously mentioned as characterised by some peculiarity.  The Thebaic is here defective, but it is supposed that a citation in that language may be a paraphrase of ver. 20.  The Gothic is defective in the concluding verses, but enough is extant to show that it recognised the passage; [The final page of Mark in the Gothic manuscript Codex Argenteus, containing verse 12-20 of the sixteenth chapter, was not recovered until 1970, when Franz Haffner found it in St. Afra’s Chapel in the cathedral in Speyer, Germany.] and of the Curetonian Syriac no part of this Gospel is found except a fragment containing ver. 17 to the end of this chapter.

          The Old Latin is here defective in the best copies; for the Codex Vercellensis is imperfect from ch. xv. 15, and Cod. Veronensis from xiii. 24.  Also the Cod. Brixianus is defective from xiv. 70.  The mode in which Cod. Bobbiensis concludes has been noticed already. The Codices Colbertinus, Corbiensis, and others, are those which may be quoted as showing that the Old Latin contains this section.

          It has been suggested that this portion of St. Mark was omitted by those who found a difficulty in reconciling what it contains with the other Evangelists.  But so far from there being any proof of this, which would have required a far less change, we find that the same writers who mention the non-existence of the passage in many copies, do themselves show how it may be harmonised with what is contained in the other Gospels ; we have no reason for entertaining the supposition that such a Marcion-like excision had been here adopted.

          In opposing the authenticity of this section, some have argued on the nature of the contents;‒ that the appearance of our Lord to Mary Magdalene first, is not (it is said) in accordance with what we learn elsewhere; that the supposition of miraculous powers to be received (ver. 17, 18) is carried too far; that (in ver. 16) Baptism is too highly exalted. I mention these objections, though I do not think any one of them separately, nor yet the whole combined, to be of real weight. There is no historical difficulty which would be regarded as of real force, if, on other grounds, doubt had not been cast on the passage; for else we might object to many Scripture narrations, because we cannot harmonise them, owing to our not being acquainted with all the circumstances.  As to the doctrinal points specified, it is hard to imagine what difficulty is supposed to exist; I see nothing that would involve the feelings and opinions of an age subsequent to the apostolic.

          The style of these twelve verses has been relied on as though it were an argument that they were not written by Mark himself.  I am well aware that arguments on style are often very fallacious, and that by themselves they prove very little; but when there does exist external evidence, and when internal proofs as to style, manner, verbal expression, and connection, are in accordance with such independent grounds of forming a judgment, then these internal considerations possess very great weight.

          A difference has been remarked, and truly remarked, between the phraseology of this section and the rest of this Gospel.  This difference is in part negative and in part positive. The phraseology of St. Mark possesses characteristics which do not appear in these verses.  And besides these negative features, this section has its own peculiarities; amongst which may be specified πρώτη σαββάτω (ver. 9), instead of which τη μια των σαββάτων would have been expected: in ver. 10 and 14 sentences are conjoined without a copulative, contrary to the common usage in St. Mark.  εκεινος is used four times in a manner different from what is found in the rest of the Gospel.  The periodic structure of verses 19 and 20 is such as only occurs once elsewhere in this Gospel (xiv. 38).

          Many words, expressions, and constructions occur in this section, and not in any other part of St. Mark:  e. g. πορεύομαι (thrice), θεάομαι (twice), απίστεω (twice), ἕτερος, παρακολουθέω, βλάπτω, επακολουθέω, συνεργέω, βεβαιόω, πανταχου, μετὰ ταυτα, εν τω ονοματι, ὁ κυριος, as applied absolutely to Christ (twice).  Now, while each of these peculiarities (except the first) may possess singly no weight, yet their combination, and that in so short a portion, has a force which can rather be felt than stated.  And if any parallel be attempted, as to these peculiarities, by a comparison of other portions of St. Mark, it will be found that many chapters must be taken together before we shall find any list of examples as numerous or as striking as those which are crowded together here in these few verses.  

          These considerations must be borne in mind as additional to the direct evidence stated before.

          It has been asked, as an argument that the section before us was actually written by St. Mark, whether it is credible that he could have ended his Gospel with . . . ἐφοβουντο γάρ.  Now, however improbable, such a difficulty must not be taken as sufficient, per se, to invalidate testimony to a fact as such. We often do not know what may have caused the abrupt conclusion of many works.  The last book of Thucydides has no proper termination at all; and in the Scripture some books conclude with extraordinary abruptness:  Ezra and Jonah are instances of this.  Perhaps we do not know enough of the circumstances of St. Mark when he wrote his Gospel to say whether he did or did not leave it with a complete termination.  And if there is difficulty in supposing that the work ever ended abruptly at ver. 8, would this have been transmitted as a fact by good witnesses, if there had not been real grounds for regarding it to be true?  And further, irrespective of recorded evidence, we could not doubt that copies in ancient times did so end, for B, the oldest that we have, actually does so.  Also the copies which add the concluding twelve verses as something separate, and those (as L) which give another brief termination, show that this fact is not incredible. Such a peculiarity would not have been invented.

          It has also been urged with great force that the contents of this section are such as preclude its having been added at a post-apostolic period, and that the very difficulties which it contains afford a strong presumption that it is an authentic history: the force of this argument is such that I do not see how it can be avoided; for even if a writer went out of his way to make difficulties in a supplement to St. Mark’s Gospel, it is but little likely that his contemporaries would have accepted and transmitted such an addition, except on grounds of known and certain truth as to the facts recorded.  If there are points not easy to be reconciled with the other Gospels, it is all the less probable that any writer should have put forth, and that others should have received, the narrative, unless it were really authentic history. As such it is confirmed by the real or supposed points of difficulty.

          As, then, the facts of the case, and the early reception and transmission of this section, uphold its authenticity, and as it has been placed from the second century, at least, at the close of our second canonical Gospel; and as, likewise, its transmission has been accompanied by a continuous testimony that it was not a part of the book as originally written by St. Mark; and as both these points are confirmed by internal considerations― 

          The following corollaries flow from the propositions already established:‒

[···]

          I. That the book of Mark himself extends no farther than ἐφοβουντο γάρ, xvi. 8.

          II. That the remaining twelve verses, by whomsoever written, have a full claim to be received as an authentic part of the second Gospel, and that the full reception of early testimony on this question does not in the least involve their rejection as not being a part of Canonical Scripture.

          It may, indeed, be said that they might have been written by St. Mark at a later period; but, even on this supposition, the attested fact that the book once ended at ver. 8 would remain the same, and the assumption that the same Evangelist had added the conclusion would involve new difficulties, instead of removing any.

          There is in some minds a kind of timidity with regard to Holy Scripture, as if all our notions of its authority depended on our knowing who was the writer of each particular portion; instead of simply seeing and owning that it was given forth from God, and that it is as much his as were the commandments of the Law written by his own finger on the tables of stone.  As to many books of Scripture, we know not who the writers may have been; and yet this is no reason for questioning their authority in the slightest degree.  If we try to be certain as to points of which there is no proof, we really shall find ourselves to be substituting conjecture in the place of evidence.  Thus some of the early Church received the Epistle to the Hebrews as Holy Scripture; who, instead of absolutely dogmatising that it was written by St. Paul ‒ a point of which they had no proof ‒ were content to say that “God only knoweth the real writer”: and yet to many in the present day, though they have not one whit more evidence on the subject, it seems, that to doubt or disbelieve that Epistle to have been written by St. Paul himself, and to doubt or disbelieve its canonical authority, is one and the same thing.  But this mode of treating Scripture is very different from what ought to be found amongst those who own it as the word of God.

          I thus look on this section as an authentic anonymous addition to what Mark himself wrote down from the narration of St. Peter (as we learn from the testimony of their contemporary, John the Presbyter); and that it ought as much to be received as part of our second Gospel, as the last chapter of Deuteronomy (unknown as the writer is) is received as the right and proper conclusion of the books of Moses.

          I cannot but believe that many upholders of orthodox and evangelical truth practically narrow their field of vision as to Scripture by treating it (perhaps unconsciously) as though we had to consider the thoughts, mind, and measure of apprehension possessed personally by each individual writer through whom the Holy Ghost gave it forth.  This is a practical hindrance to our receiving it, in the full sense, as from God; that is, as being really inspired: for, if inspired, the true and potential author was God, and not the individual writer, known or anonymous. 

          We know from John the Presbyter just enough of the origin of St. Mark’s Gospel to be aware that it sprang from the oral narrations of the Apostle Peter; and we have the testimony of that long-surviving immediate disciple of Christ when on earth (in recording this fact) that Mark erred in nothing.  But even with this information, if we thought of mere human authorship, how many questions might be started : but if we receive inspiration as a fact, then inquiries as to the relation of human authors become a matter of secondary importance.  It has its value to know that Apostles bore testimony to what they had seen of Christ’s actions, and that they were inspired to write as eye and ear witnesses of his deeds and teaching.  So it is of importance to know that in this Gospel we have the testimony of Peter confirmed by John the Presbyter; but the real essential value of the record for the continuous instruction of believers, is that inspiration of the Holy Ghost which constitutes certain writings to be Holy Scripture.  Those which were originally received on good grounds as such, and which have been authentically transmitted to us, we may confidently and reverently receive, even though we may not know by what pen they were recorded. 

          To sum up:  Tregelles believed that verses 9-20 were not written by Mark, but that verses 9-20 nevertheless “have a full claim to be received as an authentic part of the second Gospel,” just as Deuteronomy 34 is received as the proper conclusion of the books of Moses.