Mark 16:9-20 - Taking It to the Streets

More than one publishing-house and more than one Christian commentator have refused to quietly correct the mistakes in their commentaries and similar books.  So I shall do so publicly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfbSjIkCIF0

In this 48-minute video I expose some commentators' errors about Mark 16:9-20 such as the popular (but erroneous) claim about doubt-conveying asterisks and obeli.

When doing apologetics and wielding the sword of the Spirit . . . make sure its metal hasn't been weakened before going into battle. First Timothy 5:20

Proverbs 18:9

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.

Wrong Again Dr. Head - PSA is NOT a Witness to the Abrupt Ending of Mark

 Dr Peter Head, in a 2022 article at Text & Canon Institute, claimed that "The earliest evidence we have for the Christian Palestinian Aramaic version of Mark (Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus in St Petersburg, Syr. No. 16) ends at 16:8."

In real life, as Steven Avery has stated, Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus in St Petersburg, Syr. No. 16 has a lacuna near the beginning of verse 8.  The manuscript is simply a silent witness.  

While on the subject of correcting Dr. Head, his claim that Hesychius of Jerusalem weighs in against Mark 16:9-20 must also be addressed.  In the composition In Christi Resurrectionem (also attributed to Severus of Antioch) Eusebius' statements to Marinus are recycled - but further along in the composition the author stated, "But likewise also that which has been written by Mark, 'The Lord therefore on the one hand, after he had spoken to them was received into the heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.'"

Let it be noted that the number of inaccuracies in Dr. Head's initial article are accumulating:   he is flatly incorrect regarding the Diatessaron, regarding the CPA, and regarding Hesychius - and no retraction has been forthcoming.  He is invited to use the comments-section.

Charles Taylor's 1893 Analysis of Second-century Support for Mark 16:9-20

In 1893 the following material (slightly adjusted to American orthography) was published in The Expositor journal.   It remains an effective counterweight against those who still wish to belittle the testimony of Justin Martyr and to employ the name of Clement as a witness against Mark 16:9-20.

SOME EARLY EVIDENCE FOR THE TWELVE VERSES

ST. MARK 16:9-20.

 

by Charles Taylor

 

Originally published on pages 71-78 of The Expositor, Volume 8, 

edited by Robertson Nicholl. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1893.

 

 

          It has been said that in the whole Greek ante-Nicene literature there are at most but two traces of St. Mark 16:9-20.  My purpose in these notes is to show by a few instances that the early evidence for the disputed twelve verses has perhaps been understated.

 

1. IRENAEUS

          “Irenaeus (188) clearly cites 16:19 as St. Mark’s own (In fine autem evangelii ait Marcus, corresponding to Marcus interpres et sectator Petri initium evangelicae conscriptionis fecit sic) ; and the fidelity of the Latin text is supported by a Greek scholium” (W. H., App. 39). See lib. 3:11.6 in Harvey’s Irenaeus (vol. II. p. 39).

          Irenaeus writes that St. Mark’s “beginning of the Gospel” (1:1) was fulfilment of prophecy; and that in accordance with this beginning he writes at the end, So then the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken unto them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God; thus confirming the prophecy of Psalm 90:  “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool.”

 2. JUSTIN MARTYR

          Having such testimony to the disputed twelve verses in the latter half of the second century, we may go back a generation to Justin Martyr, and seek for traces of them in his acknowledged writings, without any presumption against the possibility of his acquaintance with them.  The New Testament will in general be cited in Greek from Westcott and Hort’s edition, and in English from the Revised Version of 1881.  Before seeking traces of verses 9-20 we must notice what are their characteristics, not neglecting the previous labors of learned assailants of the verses, who have duly emphasized some of their peculiarities of thought and diction, and thus made it the easier to recognize allusions to them.

          Mark 16:9. Now when he was risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene. When He was risen (ἀναστάς), on the first day (πρώτῃ), He appeared (ἐπάνη).  Each of the words ἀναστάς , πρώτῃ, ἐπάνη is in a sense peculiar to this verse, as is also the statement that Christ rose on the first day.  In Matthew 28:6 we find only, “He is not here; for He is risen, even as He said,” risen before the arrival of the women, who came “late on the Sabbath day as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week” (ver. 1).  Some – notice the harmonistic rendering of the Authorized Version – have found this hard to reconcile with St. Mark’s ἀναστάς πρώτῃ, and have suspected that Mark 16:9 must be spurious:  see Eusebius to Marinus in W. H., App. 31: others condemn the self-same verse for its “otiose triple repetition.”  But we have not as yet found, except in that verse, express testimony to His rising on the first day, nor do I know that other such Gospel testimony is to be found.  That “He hath been raised on the third day” is of itself indecisive of the day of the week.  Early fathers dwell upon the Lord’s rising on a Sunday as a cardinal historic fact, and if in so doing they express themselves more or less in terms of the disputed verse 9, we may think (unless reason can be shown to the contrary) that they accepted it as part of the Gospel as it had come down to them.

          In Mark 16:2, 9, 14 three Greek words are represented by “was risen” (R.V.). In Matthew 28:6 the Greek for “He was risen” is ἠγέρθη,and this word, and not ἀναστή, is used throughout the Gospel narratives properly so-called of the Resurrection-that is to say, excluding the predictive δεῖ άναστῆνει – except in Mark 16:9, where we have the latter word in the participial form ἀναστάς.  This is therefore in a sense distinctly characteristic of that verse.

          No less characteristic is its expression πρώτῃ for “on the first day,” which is alleged as proof of the spuriousness of the verse.  The evening and the morning were “day one (μία)”; and this Hebraism is used in the Gospels for the first day of the week, except in Mark 16:9, where it is called-as some say by a Latinism, pointing to the Roman origin of the section-not the “one” but the “first” day.

          A third word, peculiar in a sense to the same verse is ἐπάνη, “he appeared,” which is found there only of appearances of the Lord after the Resurrection.  The words for “appear” (R.V.) in Acts 1:3 and 1 Corinthians 15:5-8 are different.  Thus we have found four things peculiar in a sense to Mark 16:9, namely, its distinct specification of the day of the Resurrection, and the two words which express

this, and the word expressing that “He appeared” on that day.

          Justin, in Trypho § 138, speaks of the “day eighth in number, in which our Christ appeared (ἐπάνη), when He was risen (ἀναστάς) from the dead, but in rank ever first (πρώτης),” laying stress upon the word “first” to which special attention is always called in discussions of the twelve verses.

          In Apol. 1: 67 he tells us that “On Sunday so-called there is an assemblage of all, whether resident in town or country, and the Memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the Prophets are read (p. 98 D).  And on Sunday it is that we all assemble, since it is the first (πρώτη) day, on which God changed the darkness and matter and made cosmos, and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose

(ανέστη) from the dead; for on the day before Saturday they crucified Him, and on Sunday, the day after Saturday, He appeared (φανείς) to His apostles and disciples and taught these things” (p. 99 A, B).

          In each case Justin states expressly and emphatically that Christ rose on the first day, and in each he has a threefold verbal agreement with St. Mark as tabulated below:

          Mk 16:9                         Apol. 1:67                      Trypho 138

          ἀναστάς                          ανέστη                            ἀναστάς

          πρώτῃ                             πρώτη                            πρώτης

          ἐπάνη                             φανείς                            ἐπάνη

 

Hence (1) the verse Mark 16:9, or something closely resembling it, must have formed part of his “Memoirs of the Apostles,” and (2) it must have been much relied upon as Gospel authority for the fact of the Resurrection upon a Sunday, and for the consequent observance of the first day of the week as the Lord’s Day.

 

Mark 16:17.  And these signs shall follow them that believe: in My name shall they cast out devils.

          On this and the following verse it has been said, that they “contain suspicious circumstances-an excessive love of the miraculous. Miracles and the power of performing them are attributed to all believers.”  This again is a criticism which I welcome as serviceable for my present purpose, since it sets in strong relief the powers assigned to the faithful as such, one of which was the power to exorcise δαιμόνια.  Akin to these verses is Matthew 7:22, “Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not by Thy name cast out devils, and by Thy name do many mighty works?”  But peculiar to Mark 16:17 is its place in a narrative of the Lord's Resurrection and Ascension, and its express promise of the power named to “them that believe.”

          The assertion that this power was possessed by such persons is a salient feature in the writings of Justin.  In Trypho § 85 he writes that by the name of Him who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and arose (ἀναστάντος) from the dead, and went up to heaven every devil (δαιμόνιον) when exorcised is vanquished and made subject.

          In Trypho § 76 he quotes Matthew 7:22 (p. 301 D), and adds that now we that believe (οἱ πιστεύοντες) in our Lord Jesus, who was crucified, have all devils (δαιμόνια) and evil spirits subject to us by exorcism.

          These and other passages in his works ascribe to believers the power of casting out devils by the name of Christ, and they connect this power with the Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension.  The express mention of οἱ πιστεύοντες as having this power, and some other things in the passages in question, point again to Mark 16:9 sq. as one of Justin’s sources.

Mark 16:20.  And they went forth, and preached everywhere (ἐξελθόντες ἐκρύξαν πανταχοῦ), the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed.

“The Greek patristic evidence for vv. 9-20 perhaps begins with Justin (Ap. i. 45), who interprets Psalm 110:3 as predictive τοῦ λόγου τοῦ ἰσχυροῦ ὄν ἀπὸ Ιερουσαλήμ οἱ ἀπόστολοι αὐτοῦ ἐξελθόντες πανταχοῦ ἐκρύξαν  . . . . On both sides the evidence is slight, and decision seems impossible” (W. H., App. 39).

          With reference to this apparent quotation from our verse 20 “the word which . . . they went forth and preached everywhere,” Dr. Samuel Davidson remarks that “probably Justin Martyr” had the disputed twelve verses before him (1868). Scrivener, following Burgon, judged that they were cited “unquestionably by Justin Martyr” (1874).

          The late Dean Alford, perhaps not thinking of Apol. 1: 45, asserted that Justin took no notice of the verses.  To Westcott and Hort “decision seems impossible”: that is to say from Apol. 1:45 only.  

          But what has been said above on other passages, and in The Witness of Hermas to the Four Gospels on that passage, may to some readers seem to suffice to turn the scale.  If not, there is still much more to be said in proof that Justin knew the so-called appendix to St. Mark’s Gospel. It seems to me that he was well acquainted with it; knew it (like Irenaeus) as part of one of the Gospels customarily read in his own day on Sunday; and has frequent allusions to things in it, some of which are not mentioned in these notes.

 

3. THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS

          The Epistle of Barnabas was perhaps written about 120 A.D.  Its parallelisms with Justin’s works are of such a nature that the two writers can scarcely have been wholly independent of one another.  If Justin did not quote

Barnabas, the ideas common to them must have been drawn in part from the Church teaching of their day.  They speak in like terms of the Christian observance of the “eighth day,” and had presumably the same Gospel authority for holding it in honor as the day of the Resurrection.

          In Epist. Barn. 15:9, we read:  “Wherefore also we celebrate the eighth day unto gladness, whereon Jesus arose (ἀνέστη) from the dead, and was manifested (ἐφανερώθη), and went up to the heavens.”  The word eighth implies the use of  πρώτη as by Justin and St. Mark ; the word arose, and the fact of the ascent to heaven, are common to the Evangelist and Barnabas : and these agree in two other points which must now be mentioned.

          St. Mark 16:12-14:  And after these things He was manifested (ἐφανερώθη) in another form unto two of them as they walked. And afterward He was manifested (ἐφανερώθη) unto the eleven themselves as they sat at meat.  Here ἐφανερώθη is used twice of appearances of the Lord after the Resurrection. It is so used again once only in the New Testament, namely, in John 21:14, “This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples after that He was risen from the dead.”   St. John indeed uses also ἐφανερώθη ἑαυτόv in the like sense, He manifested Himself, but it remains that ἐφανερώθη, He was manifested, may be said to be characteristic of the disputed twelve verses. We may therefore reckon φανερώθεις, having been manifested, in the passage from Barnabas, as a perhaps not undesigned coincidence with St. Mark.

          Again, Mr. Rendal quotes from the book Supernatural Religion:  “In making the Resurrection, appearances to the disciples, and the Ascension take place in one day, the author [of Epist. Barn.] is in agreement with Justin Martyr, who made use of a Gospel different from ours.”

          The statement is open to criticism. Were it in part true, we might say that Barnabas and Justin had the twelve verses for their authority, interpreted them hastily, and so were led to express themselves as they have done; for in the

said verses there is no palpable break between the Resurrection and the Ascension. A short summary of Mk. 16:9-19 is “On the first day He arose; He was manifested; He ascended to heaven.”  And this is what Barnabas says, agreeing in substance with the eleven verses, and, except as regards the Ascension, with their phraseology; for his “eighth” implies πρώτη (rather than μία) for “first” day. The hypothesis that they were acquainted with the ending of St. Mark’s Gospel, accounts for the passage quoted from Barnabas as well as for the parallels in Justin.

          We have seen that there are other indications that Justin knew the passage; and when we go back some three decades to the earlier writer, who has such striking coincidences with Justin, we do not need any great mass or evidence to make it probable, or not improbable, that he knew what was known to Justin.  Their singular agreement in the matter of the “eighth” day at once raises a presumption that they rested upon the same authority for its religious observance perhaps to show other traces of them in his Epistle.

          Of  such actual or possible traces, I will here mention one only.  If he knew Mark 16:17, with its promise of miraculous powers to true believers indiscriminately, this would certainly have appealed strongly to a writer of his individualizing bias, and we might have expected to find some trace of the verse in his writings. Further, we might have anticipated, from his inveterate habit of spiritualizing, that he would have been tempted to explain away the outward fact of demoniacal possession and make the “devils” tendencies in the heart of man. Accordingly, in Epist. Barn. 16:7, we read:  “Before we believed (πιστεῦσαι) our heart was truly a temple made by hand, for it was full of idolatry, and a house of devils (δαιμονίων), because we did whatsoever things were contrary to God.  But it shall be built upon the name of the Lord.”  This is his way of saying, They that believe do thereby cast out devils in the name of the Lord Jesus.

     4. THE QUARTODECIMAN CONTROVERSY

          The late Bishop Lightfoot wrote of Polycarp of Smyrna, who flourished not very long before the date to which we have traced the twelve verses:

          “In the closing years of his life he paid a visit to Rome, where he conferred with the Bishop Anicetus.  They had other points of difference to discuss, but one main subject of their conference was. the time of celebrating the Passion.

Polycarp pleaded the practice of St. John, and the other Apostles with whom he had conversed, for observing the actual day of the Jewish Passover, the 14th Nisan, without respect to the day of the week. On the other hand, Anicetus could point to the fact that his predecessors, at least as far back as Xystus, who succeeded to the see soon after the beginning of the century, had always kept the anniversary of the Passion on a Friday, and that of the Resurrection on a Sunday, thus making the day of the month give place to the day of the week.”

          The weekly observance of the first day as the day of the Lord’s Resurrection prepared the way for the decision of this controversy in the above sense. If St. Mark's “when He was risen on the first day” was the most obvious Gospel authority for the Christian observance of Sunday in each week, it would have served as an argument for keeping Easter always on a first day; and the argument

would have commended itself all the more to a bishop of Rome if the verse was found in a Gospel traditionally associated with that city.  St. Mark’s Gospel generally satisfies this condition; and in the twelve verses, the very expression “first” day (as above remarked) has been thought by some to be a sign of their Roman origin.  Can we confirm the hypothesis that one of the twelve verses decided the Quartodeciman controversy by adducing evidence that they were known at Rome before or about, the end of the first century'?

       5. CLEMENT OF ROME

         Clem. R. § 42 runs thus in the translation in Lightfoot’s edition: – “The Apostles received the Gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ was sent forth from God.  So then Christ is from God, and the apostles are from Christ.

         Having therefore received a charge, and having been fully assured through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and confirmed in the word of God with full assurance of the Holy Ghost, they went forth (ἐξελθον) with the glad tidings that the kingdom of God should come.  So preaching (κηρύσσοντες) everywhere in country and town, they appointed their firstfruits, when they had proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons unto them that should believe.”

          Thus the Roman Clement, for St. Mark’s ἐξελθόντες πανταχοῦ ἐκρύξαν, has ἐξελθόν κηρύσσοντες, with a paraphrase for the word πανταχοῦ, which he had used in the previous chapter of his Epistle.

          If St. Clement knew the twelve verses, they must have been known to Anicetus, and cited by him against Polycarp’s authorities for regulating the date of Easter by the Jewish calendar. If he so cited them, they must have contributed not a little to a decision which has governed the usage of the Church from that day till now. That decision was the logical sequel to the disestablishment of the Sabbath by the hebdomadal observance of the First Day.

 

C. TAYLOR

 

Four More Witnesses Affirming Mark 16:9-20

 The indefatiguible Jil De La Tourette has recently confirmed the following:

· An Anonymous Author in the 400s writing Consultationes Zacchei Christiani et Appolonii Philosophi (Questions of a Pagan to a Christian) - in Book II, XII:18 utilized Mark 16:19.  (Thanks to Rahel Schar for working on this source.)

· Quodvultdeus of Carthage (mid-400s) quoted from Mark 16:19 several times in Liber Promissionum et Praedicatorum Dei  (Book of the Promises and Predictions of God), Book III, XXX:31-32 (16:14 twice) and Book III, XXX. 32 (16:19).

· The Venerable Bede in

De Tabernaculo cited 16:15-16 in Book II, 63, 16:19 in  Book II, 98 16:17-18 in Book III, 34, and 16:19 in Book III, 116.

· John Scotus Erigena (800s) utilized material from 16:9-20 in Periphyseon (On the Division of Nature) in Book IV, 760A & 774B and Book V, 912A.

This information supplements the data about early manuscripts,  earlier patristic sources, early versions, lectionaries, and talismans supportive of the last twelve verses of the second Gospel compiled in my book Authentic:  The Case for Mark 16:9-20 (4th ed.), now available on Amazon.

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.