us the testimony of
an hitherto unsuspected witness. The earlier scribe, I repeat,
unmistakably comes forward at this stage of the inquiry, to explain that
_he_ at least is prepared to answer for the genuineness of these Twelve
concluding Verses with which the later scribe, his copyist, from his
omission of them, might unhappily be thought to have been unacquainted.

It will be perceived that nothing is gained by suggesting that the scribe
of Cod. B. _may_ have copied from a MS. which exhibited the same
phenomenon which he has himself reproduced. This, by shifting the question
a little further back, does but make the case against Cod. {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~} the stronger.

But in truth, after the revelation which has been already elicited from
Cod. B, the evidence of Cod. {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~} may be very summarily disposed of. I have
already, on independent grounds, ventured to assign to that Codex a
somewhat later date than is claimed for the Codex Vaticanus.(151) My
opinion is confirmed by observing that the Sinaitic contains no such blank
space at the end of S. Mark's Gospel as is conspicuous in the Vatican
Codex. I infer that the Sinaitic was copied from a Codex which had been
already mutilated, and reduced to the condition of Cod. B; and that the
scribe, only because he knew not what it meant, exhibited S. Mark's Gospel
in consequence as if it really had no claim to those twelve concluding
verses which, nevertheless, _every_ authority we have hitherto met with
has affirmed to belong to it of right.

Whatever may be thought of the foregoing suggestion, it is at least
undeniable that Cod. B and Cod. {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~} are at variance on the main point. They
_contradict_ one another concerning the twelve concluding verses of S.
Mark's Gospel. For while Cod. {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~} refuses to know anything at all about
those verses, Cod. B admits that it remembers them well, by volunteering
the statement that they were found in the older codex, of which it is in
every other respect a faithful representative. The older and the better
manuscript (B), therefore, refutes its junior ({~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~}). And it will be seen
that logically this brings the inquiry to a close, as far as the evidence
of the manuscripts is concerned. We have referred to the oldest extant
copy of the Gospels in order to obtain its testimony: and,--"Though without
the Twelve Verses concerning which you are so solicitous," (it seems to
say,