pology, proceeded from Divine lips,--at least
if these concluding verses be genuine. How shall this inconvenient
circumstance be more effectually dealt with than by accepting the
suggestion of the most recent editors, that S. Mark's concluding verses
are an unauthorised addition to his Gospel? "If it be acknowledged that
the passage has a harsh sound," (remarks Dean Stanley,) "unlike the usual
utterances of Him who came not to condemn but to save, the discoveries of
later times have shewn, almost beyond doubt, that it is _not a part of S.
Mark's Gospel, but an addition by another hand_; of which the weakness in
the external evidence coincides with the internal evidence in proving its
later origin."(5)

Modern prejudice, then,--added to a singularly exaggerated estimate of the
critical importance of the testimony of our two oldest Codices, (another
of the "discoveries of later times," concerning which I shall have more to
say by-and-by,)--must explain why the opinion is even popular that the last
twelve verses of S. Mark are a spurious appendix to his Gospel.

Not that Biblical Critics would have us believe that the Evangelist left
off at verse 8, intending that the words,--"neither said they anything to
any man, for they were afraid," should be the conclusion of his Gospel.
"No one can imagine," (writes Griesbach,) "that Mark cut short the thread
of his narrative at that place."(6) It is on all hands eagerly admitted,
that so abrupt a termination must be held to mark an incomplete or else an
uncompleted work. How, then, in the original autograph of the Evangelist,
is it supposed that the narrative proceeded? This is what no one has even
ventured so much as to conjecture. It is assumed, however, that the
original termination of the Gospel, whatever it may have been, has
perished. We appeal, of course, to its actual termination: and,--Of what
nature then, (we ask,) is the supposed necessity for regarding the last
twelve verses of S. Mark's Gospel as a spurious substitute for what the
Evangelist originally wrote? What, in other words, has been the history of
these modern doubts; and by what steps have they established themselves in
books, and won the public ear?

To explain this, shall be the object of the next ensuing chapters.

CHAPTER II.

THE HOSTILE VERDICT OF BIBLICAL CRITICS SHEWN TO BE QUITE OF RECENT DATE.

Griesbach the first to deny the genuineness of these Vers