to the verses in question. This done,
he sets about discussing the possibility of reconciling an isolated
expression in S. Mark's Gospel with another in S. Matthew's: just as if on
_that_ depended the genuineness or spuriousness of the entire context: as
if, in short, the major premiss in the discussion were some such postulate
as the following:--"Whatever in one Gospel cannot be proved to be entirely
consistent with something in another Gospel, is not to be regarded as
genuine." Did then the learned Archbishop of Caesarea really suppose that a
comma judiciously thrown into the empty scale might at any time suffice to
restore the equilibrium, and even counterbalance the adverse testimony of
almost every MS. of the Gospels extant? Why does he not at least deny the
truth of the alleged facts to which he began by giving currency, if not
approval; and which, so long as they are allowed to stand uncontradicted,
render all further argumentation on the subject simply nugatory? As
before, I really cannot tell,--except on the hypothesis which has been
already hazarded.
3. Note also, (for this is not the least extraordinary feature of the
case,) what vague and random statements those are which we have been
listening to. The entire section (S. Mark xvi. 9-20,) "_is not met with in
all_ the copies:" at all events _not_ "_in the accurate_" ones. Nay, it is
"_met with seldom_." In fact, it is _absent from_ "_almost all_" copies.
But,--Which of these four statements is to stand? The first is
comparatively unimportant. Not so the second. The last two, on the
contrary, would be absolutely fatal,--if trustworthy? But _are_ they
trustworthy?
To this question only one answer can be returned. The exaggeration is so
gross that it refutes itself. Had it been merely asserted that the verses
in question were wanting in _many_ of the copies,--even had it been
insisted that _the best copies_ were without them,--well and good: but to
assert that, in the beginning of the fourth century, from "_almost all_"
copies of the Gospels they were away,--is palpably untrue. What had become
then of the MSS. from which the Syriac, the Latin, _all_ the ancient
Versions were made? How is the contradictory evidence of _every copy of
the Gospels in existence but two_ to be accounted for? With Irenaeus and
Hippolytus, with the old Latin and the Vulgate, with the Syriac, and the
Gothic, and the Egyptian versions to refer to, we are able to assert that
the author
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