ted as bearing on the
genuineness of S. Mark xvi. 9-20: giving the former _in numerical order_,
and stating generally concerning them that in one or other of those
authorities it would be found recorded "that the verses in question were
anciently _wanting_ in some, or in most, or in almost all the Greek
copies, or in the most accurate ones:--or else that they were _found_ in a
few, or in the more accurate copies, or in many, or in most of them,
specially in the Palestinian Gospel." The learned writer (who had made up
his mind long before that the verses in question are to be rejected) no
doubt perceived that this would be the most convenient way of disposing of
the evidence for and against: but one is at a loss to understand how
English scholars can have acquiesced in such a slipshod statement for well
nigh a hundred years. A very little study of the subject would have shewn
them that Griesbach derived the first eleven of his references from
Wetstein,(194) the last fourteen from Birch.(195) As for Scholz, he
unsuspiciously adopted Griesbach's fatal enumeration of Codices; adding
five to the number; and only interrupting the series here and there, in
order to insert the quotations which Wetstein had already supplied from
certain of them. With Scholz, therefore, rests the blame of everything
which has been written since 1830 concerning the MS. evidence for this
part of S. Mark's Gospel; subsequent critics having been content to adopt
his statements without acknowledgment and without examination.
Unfortunately Scholz did his work (as usual) in such a slovenly style,
that besides perpetuating old mistakes he invented new ones; which, of
course, have been reproduced by those who have simply translated or
transcribed him. And now I shall examine his note "(z)",(196) with which
practically all that has since been delivered on this subject by
Tischendorf, Tregelles, Davidson, and the rest, is identical.

(1.) Scholz (copying Griesbach) first states that in two MSS. in the
Vatican Library(197) the verses in question "are marked with an asterisk."
The original author of this statement was Birch, who followed it up by
explaining the fatal signification of this mark.(198) From that day to
this, the asterisks in Codd. Vatt. 756 and 757 have been religiously
reproduced by every Critic in turn; and it is universally taken for
granted that they represent two ancient witnesses against the genuineness
of the last twelve verses of the Gosp