TER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}:(33) which is nothing else but a
quotation from the last verse of S. Mark's Gospel,--{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}. And thus it is found that the conclusion of S. Mark's
Gospel was familiarly known within fifty years of the death of the last of
the Evangelists.

III. When IRENAEUS, in his third Book against Heresies, deliberately quotes
and remarks upon the 19th verse of the last chapter of S. Mark's
Gospel,(34) we are put in possession of the certain fact that the entire
passage now under consideration was extant in a copy of the Gospels which
was used by the Bishop of the Church of Lyons sometime about the year A.D.
180, and which therefore cannot possibly have been written much more than
a hundred years after the date of the Evangelist himself: while it _may_
have been written by a contemporary of S. Mark, and probably _was_ written
by one who lived immediately after his time.--Who sees not that this single
piece of evidence is in itself sufficient to outweigh the testimony of any
codex extant? It is in fact a mere trifling with words