The Appendices to the Gospel according to Mark. 359 



Clarendon Press, 1911) confirms this conclusion, and supplies addi- 

 tional particulars. They may be verified by the accompanying photo- 

 graphs, the conclusion of John being introduced as typical of the custo - 

 mary form of the close of the N.T. writings in this MS. It is to be 

 understood that our study included only the New Testament in this 

 codex. Examination shows : 



1. Where the last words of a book do not fill the rest of the line, 

 elsewhere the remainder of the line is invariably left blank Here it 

 is filled up with an elaborate arabesque. 



2. The usual ornament consists of a single line, or at most an orna- 

 mented line, though Matthew shows an ornament consisting of two 

 intertA\ining curved lines. Only at the close of I Thessalonians is 

 there a form resembhng this found at the end of Mark. The orna- 

 ment there though in some respects similar is less elaborate. It is 

 however a broken line crossed by a line of >'s and o's. But the last 

 verses of I Thessalonians were copied by the same scribe who copied 

 this folio of Mark, the scribe D who acted also as diorthota. The 

 difference in ornament noted is therefore in part due to a difference 

 of scribes, but apparently only in part. Tischendorf held that the 

 last verses of John were not penned by the usual scribe of the N.T. (A) 

 but by this scribe, D. There seems reason however to doubt thi^ 

 (compare the photograph). 



3. At the end of the other Gospels the ornament is in black alone. 

 Here it is in black and vermilion. Lake declares : "Red was used 

 for the Eusebian apparatus, the earlier signatures to the gatherings, 

 and in some of the 'Arabesques,' for instance at the end of Mark." 

 Those who desire to verify this statement can do so with the aid of 

 Tischendorf 's edition, where all these are printed in red. 



The marks above and below the letters of the subscription to Mark 

 are not found about the subscriptions of Luke and John (Matthew 

 has no subscription) and are not so marked nor so numerous at the 

 close of any other book. 



In a word, the manner in which the close of the Gospel according 

 to Mark is indicated in N is more elaborate and definitive than in the 

 case of any other N.T. writing. The natural inference is that the 

 scribe intended to indicate by this, in the most marked and definite 

 manner possible without a note, that Mark certainly ended at the 

 close of y. 8. It indicates, since his reason for so doing must have 

 been due to the knowledge that not all MSS did end Mark at this 

 point, that he rejected, at least as far as this codex is concerned, any 

 conclusion for Mark. Whether in so doing he was thinking of the 

 Longer or the Shorter Conclusion we have no means of determining. 



