spel,"--S. Mark's narrative was
furnished by some unknown individual with its actual termination in order
to remedy its manifest incompleteness; and that this volume became the
standard of the Alexandrine recension of the text: in other words, became
the fontal source of a mighty family of MSS. by Griesbach designated as
"Alexandrine." But there will have been here and there in existence
isolated copies of one or more of the Gospels; and in all of these, S.
Mark's Gospel, (by the hypothesis,) will have ended abruptly at the eighth
verse. These copies of single Gospels, when collected together, are
presumed by Griesbach to have constituted "the Western recension." If, in
codices of this family also, the self-same termination is now all but
universally found, the fact is to be accounted for, (Griesbach says,) by
the natural desire which possessors of the Gospels will have experienced
to supplement their imperfect copies as best they might. "Let this
conjecture be accepted," proceeds the learned veteran,--(unconscious
apparently that he has been demanding acceptance for at least half-a-dozen
wholly unsupported as well as entirely gratuitous conjectures,)--"and every
difficulty disappears; and it becomes perfectly intelligible how there has
crept into almost every codex which has been written, from the second
century downwards, a section quite different from the original and genuine
ending of S. Mark, which disappeared before the four Gospels were
collected into a single volume."--In other words, if men will but be so
accommodating as to assume that the conclusion of S. Mark's Gospel
disappeared before any one had the opportunity of transcribing the
Evangelist's inspired autograph, they will have no difficulty in
understanding that the present conclusion of S. Mark's Gospel was not
really written by S. Mark.

It should perhaps be stated in passing, that Griesbach was driven into
this curious maze of unsupported conjecture by the exigencies of his
"Recension Theory;" which, inasmuch as it has been long since exploded,
need not now occupy us. But it is worth observing that the argument
already exhibited, (such as it is,) breaks down under the weight of the
very first fact which its learned author is obliged to lay upon it. Codex
B.,--the solitary manuscript witness for _omitting_ the clause in question,
(for Codex {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~} had not yet been discovered,)--had been already claimed by
Griesbach as a chief exponent of