The Last Twelve Verses of Mark's
Gospel. This Is Appendix
168 From The Companion Bible.
Most modern critics are agreed that the last
twelve verses of Mark 16 are not integral part of his Gospel. They are
omitted by T [A]; not by the Syriac Appendix 94. V.
ii. The question is entirely one of evidence.
From Appendix 94 V. we
have seen that this evidence comes from three sources: (1) manuscripts,
(2) versions, and (3) the early Christian writers, known as "the
Fathers". This evidence has been exhaustively analysed by the late
Dean Burgon, whose work is epitomized in numbers I - III, below.
As to MANUSCRIPTS, there are none
older than the fourth century, and the oldest two unical Manuscripts
( B and , see Appendix 94. V.)
are without those twelve verses. Of all the others (consisting of some
eighteen unicals and some six hundred cursive Manuscripts which contain
the Gospel of Mark there is not one which leaves out these
twelve verses.
- As to the Versions:-
- The S
YRIAC. The oldest is
the Syriac in it various forms: the "Peshitto" (cent. 2)
and the "Curetonian Syriac" (cent. 3). Both are older
than any Greek Manuscript in existence, and both contain these twelve
verses. So with the "Philoxenian" (cent.5) and the
"Jerusalem" (cent. 5) See note 1.
- The LATIN Version.
JEROME (A.D.382), who had
access to Greek Manuscripts older than any now extant, includes these
twelve verses; but this Version (known as the Vulgate) was only a
revision of the VETUS ITALA, which is
believed to belong to cent. 2, and contains these verses.
- The GOTHIC Version
(A.D. 350) contains them.
- The EGYPTIAN Versions: the
Memphitic (or Lower Egyptian, less properly called
"COPTIC"),
belonging to cent. 4 or 5, contains them; as does the
"THEBAIC" (or
Upper Egyptian, less properly called the "SAHIDIC"),
belonging to cent. 3.
- The ARMENIAN (cent. 5), the
ETHIOPIC (cent. 4-7),
and the GEORGIAN (cent. 6) also
bear witness to the genuineness of these verses.
- The FATHERS. Whatever may be
their value (or otherwise) as to doctrine and interpretation yet, in
determining actual words, or their form or
sequence, their evidence, even by an allusion, as to
whether a verse or verses existed or not in their day, is more valuable
than even manuscripts or Versions.
There are nearly
a hundred ecclesiastical writers older than the oldest of our Greek
codices; while between A.D. 300 and
A.D. 600 there are about two hundred more, and they all refer to
these twelve verses.
- PAPIAS (about
A.D. 100) refers to verse 18 (as stated by
Eusebius, Hist. Ecc iii. 39).
- JUSTIN MARTYR (A.D. 151) quotes
verse 20 (
Apol. I. c. 45).
- IRENAEUS (A.D. 180) quotes
and remarks on verse 19 (Adv.
Hoer. lib. iii. c. x. ) .
- HIPPOLYTUS (A.D. 190 - 227)
quotes verses 17 - 19 (Lagarde's
ed., 1858, page 74).
- VINCENTIUS (A.D. 256) quoted
two verses at the seventh Council of Carthage , held under
CYPRIAN.
- The
ACTA PILATI (cent. 2)
quotes verses 15, 16, 17,
18
(Tischendorf's ed., 1853. pages 243, 351).
- The
APOSTOLICAL CONSTITUTIONS (cent. 3 or 4)
quotes verses 16, 17, 18.
- EUSEBIUS (A.D. 325)
discusses these verses, as quoted by MARINUS from a lost
part of his History.
- APHRAARTES (A.D. 337), a Syrian
bishop, quoted verses 16 - 18 in his first
Homily (Dr. Wright's ed., 1869, i., page 21).
- AMBROSE (A.D. 374 - 97),
Archbishop of Milan, freely quotes verses 15 (four times),
16, 17,
18
(three times), and verse 20 (once).
- CHRYSOSTOM (A.D. 400) refers to
verse 9; and states
that verses 19, 20 are
"the end of the Gospel".
- JEROME (b. 331, d.
420) includes these twelve verses in his Latin translation, besides
quoting verses 9 and
14 in his other
writings.
- AUGUSTINE (fl.
A.D. 395 - 430)
more than quotes them. He discusses them as being the work of the
Evangelist MARK, and says that
they were publicly read in the churches.
- NESTORIUS (cent. 5)
quotes verse 20, and
- CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA (A.D. 430) accepts
the quotation.
- VICTOR OF ANTIOCH (A.D. 425) confutes
the opinion of Eusebius, by referring to very many Manuscripts which
he had seen, and so had satisfied himself that the last twelve verses
were recorded in them.
- We should like to add our own judgment as to the root cause of
the doubts which have gathered round these verses.
They contain the
promise of the Lord, of which we read the fulfilment in Hebrews
2:4. The testimony
of "them that heard Him" was to be the
confirmation of His own teaching when on earth:
"God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and
divers miracles, and gifts of pneuma hagion (that is to
say, spiritual gifts. See Appendix 101. II.
14), according to His own will". The
Acts of the Apostles records the fulfilment of the Lord's promise in
Mark 16:17,
18;
and in the last chapter we find a culminating exhibition of "the
Lord's working with them" (verses 3, 5, 8, 9). But already,
in 1 Corinthians
13:8 -
13,
it was revealed that a time was then approaching when all these
spiritual gifts should be "done away". That time coincided
with the close of that dispensation, by the destruction of Jerusalem;
when they that heard the Lord could no longer add their confirmation to
the Lord's teaching, and there was nothing for God to bear witness to.
For nearly a hundred years 2 after the
destruction of Jerusalem there is a complete blank in ecclesiastical
history, and a complete silence of Christian speakers and
writers 3. So far from the
Churches of the present day being the continuation of
Apostolic times, "organized religion", as we see it
to-day, was the work of a subsequent and quite an independent
generation. When later transcribers of the Greek
manuscripts came to the last twelve verses of Mark, and saw no trace of
such spiritual gifts in existence, they concluded that there must be
something doubtful about the genuineness of these verses. Hence, some
may have marked them as doubtful, some as spurious, while others omitted
them altogether. A phenomenon of quite an opposite
kind is witnessed in the present day. Some
(believers in these twelve verses), earnest in their desire to serve the
Lord, but not "rightly dividing the Word of truth" as to
the dispensations, look around, and, not seeing these spiritual gifts in
operation, determine to have them (!) and are led into all sorts of more
than doubtful means in their desire to obtain them. The resulting
"confusion" shows that God is "not the
author" of such a movement (see 1 Corinthians
14:31 -
33).
NOTES
1 Of these, the
Aramaic (or Syriac), that is to say, the Peshitto, is the
most important, ranking as superior in authority to the oldest Greek
manuscripts, and dating from as early as A.D. 170.
Though the Syrian Church was divided by the Third
and Fourth General Councils in the fifth century, into three, and
eventually into yet more, hostile communions, which have lasted for 1,400
years with all their bitter controversies, yet the same version is ready
to-day in the rival churches. Their manuscripts have flowed into the
libraries of the West. "yet they all exhibit a text in every
important respect the same." Peshitto means a
version simple and plain, without the addition of allegorical or mystical
glosses. Hence we have given this authority, where
needed throughout our notes, as being of more value than the modern
critical Greek texts; and have noted (for the most part) only those
"various readings" with which the Syriac agrees.
2 See Colossians
1, opposite.
3 Except the
Didache or Teaching of the Twelve, which is
supposed to be about the middle of the second century, but which shows how
soon the corruption of New Testament "Christianity" had set
in.
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