Irenaeus and Mark 16:19

            Irenaeus.  Ever hear of him?  You won’t see his name mentioned in the NET’s notes about Mark 16:9-20, or in footnotes about Mark 16:9-20 in the ESV, NLT, CSB, NIV, NKJV, and NRSV.  (The footnote-makers for all these versions seem to have had a strange aversion to mentioning patristic evidence, even when it is earlier than the earliest extant manuscripts of the text being supplemented.)  Irenaeus was a very important patristic writer.  Born around 120, Irenaeus grew up in the city of Smyrna in Asia Minor, and he reports that in his youth he heard the teachings of Polycarp (who had, in turn, been a companion of Papias, and had heard John).   When we walk with Irenaeus, so to speak, we are chronologically barely two generations away from the apostles themselves.

            Irenaeus went on to serve as a presbyter at Lyons (Lugdunum), in Gaul, around 170.  In 177, Irenaeus visited Rome, where he advised Eleutherius about how to deal with Montanism.  When he returned from Rome to Lugdunum, Irenaeus found that in his absence, the church there had been the target of persecution.  Many Christians had been martyred, including Blandina and the church’s bishop, Pothinus.  Irenaeus was chosen to take Pothinus’ place as bishop, an office in which he remained for the remainder of his life.

            As bishop of Lyons, Irenaeus would later counsel Victor of Rome in 190 regarding the Quartodeciman Controversy, recommending the allowance of liberty regarding how to settle a question related to the church’s liturgical calendar which had not been settled in earlier times.  But Irenaeus best-known work is one he composed earlier, in five books:  Against Heresies, in which he exposed the errors of various false teachers, including Marcion. 

            Irenaeus tells his readers when he composed Book Three of Against Heresies, in chapter three, paragraph 3:  it was during the same time that Eleutherius was presiding at Rome, i.e., approximately between 174 and 189. 

            Irenaeus explicitly quotes Mark 16:19 in Book 3 of Against Heresies (in chapter 10, paragraph 5), stating, “Also, towards the conclusion of his Gospel, Mark says: ‘So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God.’”  This portion of Against Heresies in extant only in Latin (as “In fine autem euangelii ait Marcus: Et quidem Dominus Iesus, postquam locutus est eis, receptus est in caelos, et sedet ad dexteram Dei.”

            Dr. Craig Evans, in 2013, claimed (in the Holman Apologetics Commentary) that “it is far from certain that Irenaeus, writing c. 180, was acquainted with Mark’s so-called Longer Ending,” apparently imagining that the Latin translator of Against Heresies “may have incorporated this verse from much later manuscripts.”   Dr. Evans is wrong.  In real life, not only is there no evidence that the Latin translation of Book 3 has been interpolated at this point, but there is clear evidence against the idea.  Irenaeus’ use of Mark 16:19 in Book 3 of Against Heresies is mentioned in Greek in a marginal notation that appears in several copies of the Gospel of Mark, including GA 1582, 72, and the recently catalogued 2954.

The margin-note about Irenaeus' quote of Mark 16:19.
Viewable at the British Library's website.

            Page-views of GA 1582 and GA 72 are online.  GA 1582 is a core representative of family 1 (which would be better-named “family 1582”), a small cluster of MSS which can be traced back an ancestor-MS made in the 400s.  The margin-note says, “Irenaeus, who lived near the time of the apostles, cites this from Mark in the third book of his work Against Heresies.”  (In Greek:   Ειρηναιος ο των αποστόλων πλησίον εν τω προς τας αιρέσεις Τριτωι λόγωι τουτο ανήνεγκεν το ρητον ως Μάρκω ειρημένον.)  Thus there should be no doubt that the Greek text of Against Heresies Book 3 known to the creator of this margin-note contained the reference to Mark 16:19.  Dr. Craig Evans is invited to retract his statement.

            The copy of Mark used by Irenaeus in Lyon, had it survived, would have been older than Codex Vaticanus by a minimum of 125 years.  In addition, Irenaeus was familiar with the text of Mark used in three locales – Asia Minor, Lyons, and Rome (the city where the Gospel of Mark was composed); yet, although he comments on a textual variant in Revelation 13:18 (in Against Heresies Book 5, ch. 29-30) - a passage from a book written a few decades before Irenaeus was born - he never expresses any doubt whatsoever about Mark 16:19.  It may be safely concluded that Irenaeus knew of no other form of the Gospel of Mark except  one that contained Mark 1:1-16:20. 

            As a secondary point, evidence of Irenaeus’ familiarity with Mark 16:9-20 might also be found in Against Heresies Book Two, chapter 32, paragraphs 3-4 (which was quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea in Church History 5:7).  Close verbal connections are lacking here (Irenaeus does not say, in Book Two at this point, that he is referring specifically to what Mark wrote; he points false teachers to “the prophetical writing”), but thematic parallels abound:  Irenaeus states:

            “Those who are truly his disciples, receiving grace from him, do in his name (cf. Mk 16:17) perform [signs], so as to promote the welfare of others, according to the gift which each one has received from him. For some do certainly and truly drive out devils (cf. Mk. 16:17), so that those who have thus been cleansed from evil spirits frequently both believe, and join themselves to the church (cf. Mk. 16:16).

            Others have foreknowledge of what is to come.  They see visions, and utter prophetic expressions.  Yet others heal the sick by laying their hands upon them, and they are made whole (Cf. Mk. 16:18).

          Yea, moreover, as I have said, even the dead have been raised up, and  have stayed among us for many years. And what shall I more say? It is not possible to name the number of the gifts which the church, throughout the whole world (cf. Mk. 16:15), has received from God, in the name of Jesus Christ.”

          Irenaeus concludes Book 2, chapter 32 (which can be read in English at the New Advent website) by stating the the Christian church, “directing her prayers to the Lord . . .and calling upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, has been accustomed to work miracles for the advantage of mankind, and not to lead them into error,” in contrast to the false teachers Simon, Menander, and Carpocrates.

          If there are to be English Bible-footnotes about Mark 16:9-20 (a passage which is attested in all Greek manuscripts of Mark (over 1,650) except two - GA 304 should no longer be considered a legitimate witness to the non-inclusion of vv. 9-20), they should certainly mention the testimony of Irenaeus.  The present footnotes in the ESV, NIV, NLT, CSB, and NASB (to name a few), like the notes in the NET,  do not give readers an accurate picture of the evidence regarding Mark 16:9-20, and, imho, seem designed (by selecting which witnesses are allowed to speak, and which witnesses are silenced) to provoke doubts about the passage.  One could almost think that the footnote-writers did not want readers to know about the evidence for Mark 16:9-20 from the 100s.

 

 

Palladius and Mark 16:19

Palladius of Ratiaria:  ever hear of him?  Probably not:  his name does not appear among the Latin Church Fathers cited in the 4^th edition of the UBS Greek New Testament.  There was a man named Palladius who preached the gospel in Ireland in the early 400s, before Saint Patrick – but Palladius of Ratiaria, in about the same period (late 300s-early 400s) was in a far different region, where Bulgaria is today.

Before the Council of Aquileia in 381, Palladius had served as bishop, but at that council Palladius and Secundianus, another Arian bishop, were removed from office by the other bishops at the council.  Their chief theological opponent was the famous Ambrose of Milan. 

In an early fifth-century manuscript kept at the National Library of France – Manuscript Latin 8907 – several early theological works are preserved, including Hilary of Poitier’s De Trinitate, Contra Auxentium, and De Synodis, and the first two books of Ambrose of Milan’s De Fide.  Also in MS Lat. 8907 is a record of the proceedings of the Council of Aquileia.  Remarkably, this manuscript, produced in the early 400s, preserves writings and records of events from the 300s.

In part of the margin of MS Lat. 8907, there is what has been titled the Dissertation of Maximinus Against Ambrose, or “Arian Scholia on the Council of Aquileia,” which mostly constitutes a critique of the proceedings of the Council of Aquileia from an Arian point of view.  The modern-day author William A. Sumruld describes the second part of the Arian scholia like this:

            “The second major block [of scholia] is separated from the first by a gap of twenty-four pages.  It begins with two extracts from Ambrose’s De Fide, each followed by a reply ascribed to someone called Palladius, probably Palladius of Ratiara (condemned at the council).  The second reply of Palladius is followed by an Arian account of the council’s proceedings, still addressing Ambrose directly in a tone of protest and ending with an appeal for a new hearing before the Senate at Rome.  It portrays Palladius and Secundianus as confessors of the faith faced with a false bishop, Ambrose, and a band of ignorant conspirators.” (p. 154, Augustine and the Arians, © 1994 Associated University Presses Inc.) 

The material from Maximinus (and his sources, including Palladius) in the margin of Latin MS 8907 thus forms an interesting witness to Arian theology in the first half of the 400s.  Roger Gryson edited this material in 1980, with a French translation, in Scolies Ariennes sur le Concile D’Aquilée – Introduction, Texte Latin, Traduction et Notes, replacing an earlier (1899) edition of Maximinus’ dissertation against Ambrose by Friedrich Kauffmann. 

There are plenty of appeals to the New Testament embedded in the portions of the margin of MS Latin 8907 attributed to Palladius.  Some New Testament passages that are utilized in one way or another include:

        In Matthew:  27:54.
        In Mark:  10:17-18, 16:19.

        In Luke:  1:33.

        In John:  1:14, 1:18, 3:16, 8:35, 9:36-37, 10:11, 10:36, 11:42, 14:28, 17:3, 18:37.

        In Acts:  1:11.

        In Romans:  1:20, 1:25, 5:10, 8:31-32, 8:34, 16:27.

        In I Corinthians:  1:13, 1:24, 2:6-8, 8:6, 15:3. 

        In II Corinthians:  1:3.

        In Ephesians:  1:17, 3:14-15, 4:6.

        In Philippians:  3:2.

        In Colossians:  1:15-17, 3:1.

        In I Thessalonians:  1:9-10.

        In I Timothy:  1:17, 6:15, 6:16.

        In Titus:  3:10-11. 

Let’s take a closer look at Palladius’ utilization of Mark 16:19.  In the margin of 347r of Latin MS 8907 (on pages 316-318 of Gryson’s transcription), before the focus shifts to Acts 1:11, we find: 

Tres etiam consessores, cum Spiritus Sanctus de unius eiusdemque sui domini predicauerit sede per Dauid dicens [or dicentem]: Dixit Dominus domino meo:  Sede a dextris meis, sed et euangelista Marcus solum Ihesum Cristum ascendisse in caelum et ad dexteram Dei rettulerit sedere, dicens:  Et dominis quidem Ihesus, postquam locutus est, receptus est in caelos et sedet ad dexteram Dei.

Gryson translated this as:

<< Trois qui siègent ensemble >> également, alors que l’Esprit-Saint a parlé clairement d’un unique siège, celui de son seigneur, en disant par la bouche de David : << Le Seigneur a dit a mon seigneur: Siège à ma droite >>, et que l’évangéliste Marc rapporte que seul Jésus-Christ est monté au ciel et siège à la droite de Dieu : << Et le seigneur Jésus, après qu’il eut parlé, a été accueilli dans les cieux et siège à la droite de Dieu. >>

I am not fluent in French but I think that in English this yields something like:

”Three who sit together:  And while the Holy Spirit spoke clearly of a single seat, that of his lord, speaking by the mouth of David. “The Lord said to my lord:  Sit at my right.”   And the evangelist Mark relates that only Jesus Christ ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God:  “And the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken, was received into heaven and was seated at the right hand of God.””

Whatever improvements might be made in this English rendering, this is a clear citation of Mark 16:19.  I suggest that Palladius’ existence, and his utilization of Mark 16:19, should be acknowledged in the textual apparatus of the UBS Greek New Testament, and in the textual apparatus of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece. 

(With essential assistance from Jil De La Tourette and Grbh Guillaume)