and the subscription kata mapkon, leaves the remaining third column blank, which is sufficient
space for the twelve verses. Much account is made of this fact by Drs. Burgon and Scrivener; but
in the same MS. I find, on examination of the facsimile edition, blank spaces from a few lines up
to two-thirds and three-fourths of a column, at the end of Matthew, John, Acts, 1 Pet. (fol. 200), 1
John (fol. 208), Jude (fol. 210), Rom. (fol. 227), Eph. (fol. 262), Col. (fol. 272). In the Old Testament
of B, as Dr. Abbot has first noted (in 1872), there are two blank columns at the end of Nehemiah,
and a blank column and a half at the end of Tobit. In any case the omission indicates an objection
of the copyist of B to the section, or its absence in the earlier manuscript he used.
I add the following private note from Dr. Abbot:, "In the Alexandrian MS. a column and a
third are left blank at the end of Mark, half a page at the end of John, and a whole page at the end
of the Pauline Epistles. (Contrast the ending of Matthew and Acts.) In the Old Testament, note
especially in this MS. Leviticus, Isaiah, and the Ep. of Jeremiah, at the end of each of which half
a page or more is left blank; contrast Jeremiah, Baruch, Lamentations. There are similar blanks at
the end of Ruth, 2 Samuel, and Daniel, but the last leaf of those books ends a quaternion or quire
in the MS. In the Sinaitic MS. more than two columns with the whole following page are left blank
at the end of the Pauline Epistles, though the two next leaves belong to the same quaternion; so at
the end of the Acts a column and two-thirds with the whole of the following page; and at the end
of Barnabas a column and a half. These examples show that the matter in question depended largely
on the whim of the copyist; and that we can not infer with confidence that the scribe of B knew of
any other ending of the Gospel."
There is also a shorter conclusion, unquestionably spurious, which in L and several MSS.
of the Aethiopic version immediately followsMark 16:8, and appears also in the margin of 274,
the Harclean Syriac, and the best Coptic MS. of the Gospel, while in k of the Old Latin it takes the
place of the longer ending. For details, see Westcott and Hort, II., Append., pp. 30, 38, 44 sq.- Eusebius and Jerome state expressly that the section was wanting in almost all the Greek
copies of the Gospels. It was not in the copy used by Victor of Antioch. There is also negative
patristic evidence against it, particularly strong in the case of Cyril of Jerusalem, Tertullian, and
Cyprian, who had special occasion to quote it (see Westcott and Hort, II., Append., pp. 30–38).
Jerome’s statement, however, is weakened by the fact that he seems to depend upon Eusebius, and
that he himself translated the passage in his Vulgate. - It is ’wanting in the important MS. k representing the African text of the Old Latin version,
which has a different conclusion (like that in L), also in some of the best MSS. of the Armenian
version, while in others it follows the usual subscription. It is also wanting in an unpublished Arabic
version (made from the Greek) in the Vatican Library, which is likewise noteworthy for reading
ὅςin 1 Tim. 3:16. - The way in which the section begins, and in which it refers to Mary Magdalene, give it
the air of a conclusion derived from some extraneous source. It does not record the fulfilment of
the promise in Mark 16:7. It uses (16:9) πρώτῃ σαββάτουfor the Hebraistic τῇ μια–ϊ̑ͅ–ͅϊ τῶν
σαββάτωνof 16:2. It has many words or phrases (e.g., πορεύομαιused three times) not elsewhere
found in Mark, which strengthen the impression that we are dealing with a different writer, and it
lacks Mark’s usual graphic detail. But the argument from difference of style and vocabulary has
been overstrained, and can not be regarded as in itself decisive.
II. Arguments in favor of the genuineness:
A.D. 1-100.