MfiS Clarence Russell Williams, 



culunm indicates, on the part of the scribe oi B, knowledge of the 

 existence in his day of a conclusion to Mark. One may infer that 

 the exemplar from which the scribe was co})ying also concluded the 

 Gospel with v. 8 (so WH) though one cannot deny the possibility 

 that he copied from an archetype in which, by some sign, the un- 

 authentic character of the last twelve verses was indicated and this, 

 possibly combined with his knowledge of the best current text, caused 

 their omission. 



Can we infer from this blank which of the two conclusions the scribe 

 of B had in mind, the Longer or the Shorter ? 



Burgon argued (p. 87) that this space furnished "a blank abun- 

 danth' sufficient to contain the twelve verses." Zahn, on the con- 

 trary, declares that even if we accept the conclusion of Scrivener 

 (Vol. I. p. 106) that both the arabesque ornament and the subscrip- 

 tion xaTocTMapxcv are by a later hand, with the additional space thus 

 gained the Longer Conclusion could not have been contained. He 

 therefore concludes that the scribe knew the Shorter Conclusion 

 (GK. IL p. 912). But, though agreeing that the space is insufficient 

 to contain the Longer Conclusion, it does not seem a necessary 

 inference that the scribe would measure out a blank space exactly 

 corresponding with the space required for the copying of the con- 

 clusion with which he was acquainted. While it would be a most wel- 

 come support to our argument for the Egyptian origin of the Shorter 

 Conclusion to find a witness for it in Codex Vaticanus, we are unable 

 to infer more than that the scribe knew of the existence of a con- 

 clusion to the Gospel, which he did not feel authorized to copy. 

 It is even possible that he knew of the existence of both conclusions, 

 and his doubt was in part due to this fact. It is, however, evident 

 that he considered the form of the Gospel which ended with v. 8. as 

 the authentic one. 



Codex Sinaiticus (Gregory ^<, von Soden V^) also concludes Mark 

 at V. 8, the last line "containing only the letters TOFAP has the rest 

 of the space (more than half the width of the column) filled up with a 

 minute and elaborate 'arabesque' executed with the pen in ink and 

 vermilion, nothing like which occurs in the whole IMS (O.T. or N.T.), 

 such spaces being elsewhere invariably left blank." So sa^'S John 

 (iwynn, apparently the first to call attention to this fact, who argues 

 from it that it implies a knowledge, on the part of the scribe, of a con- 

 clusion for the Gospel. (Scrivener's Introduction, I. p. 95, footnote 

 dated May 21, 1883.) 



Our own study of Codex Sinaiticus in both Tischendorf's edition 

 and in the recent photographic edition of Kirsopj) Lake (Oxford, 



