VI.— THE APPENDICES 

 TO THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK 



By Clarence Russell Williams 



INTRODUCTION 



Erasmus, in his notes concerning the Greek New Testament, stated 

 that the last twelve verses of the Gospel according to Mark are 

 wanting in the best authorities. This rill of doubt became a river 

 through such editors as Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, and 

 Tregelles^ until in 1871 in mingled grief and indignation, with profound 

 and minute scholarship, Dean John William Burgon defended their 

 authenticity in his learned monograph, "The Last Twelve Verses 

 of the Gospel according to S. Mark vindicated against recent critical 

 objectors and established," which he closes with the characteristic 

 and triumphal saying : 



Enough to have demonstrated, as I claim to have now 



done, that not a particle of doubt, that not an 



atom of suspicion, attaches to "THE 



LAST TWELVE VERSES OF THE 



GOSPEL ACCORDING TO 



S. MARK." 



TO TEAOI 



But when Westcott and Hort's edition of the Greek New Testament 

 appeared in 1881 these verses were separated from the text of Mark 

 and printed in double brackets, while in the accompanying notes 

 Dr. Hort gave a most thorough and careful discussion of the reasons 

 for their rejection (Vol. II, Notes, pp. 28-51). 



This was followed, in 1884, by a most elaborate defence of the 

 authenticity of these verses by Abbe J. P. P. Martin, a scholar gene- 

 rally and undeservedly neglected by English and American writers 

 though referred to by Zahn as an authority. In his Introduction a la 

 Critique textuelle du Nouveau Testament, the whole of the second 

 volume (Partie pratique) of 554 pages is devoted to a discussion of 

 this problem, with remarkable thoroughness. In its first hand knowl- 

 edge of the evidence of the manuscripts this volume is even superior 

 to the learned monograph of Dean Burgon, and we have found no 



