382 Clarence Russell Williams, 



Edschmiadzin has disclosed no other instance, and it does not 

 occur in any of tl»e codices found in \'enice, Paris, London, and 

 Oxford. 



G. Moreover if this tradition came from an ancient and authentic 

 Syriac MS why has it not been found in some Striae codex ? 



Zahn, who felt these latter difficulties, would resolve them by 

 assuming that " a learned man of the fourth or fifth century, who was 

 interested in the question of the origin of Mark xvi. 9—20, because he 

 did not find the section in all copies, who also knew the work of Papias, 

 and found in it a Diegesis of Aristion's, essentially the same with 

 Mark xvi. 14—18, availing himself of his information, entered on the 

 margin of his copy of tjie Gospels the words W^igtuovoc, ;:p£0-[i'jT£pou. 

 This notice ma}' then ha^•e gained currency over a small range and 

 have made its way to Armenia among other places." (See Conybeare's 

 Translation of Zahn's article, Expositor, Sept. 1894, p. 225.) While 

 we do not accept this supposition of Zahn's, his theory is interesting 

 for it suggests that the rubric may be founded ultimately upon the 

 inference or supposition of some student or scribe, which we believe 

 to have been probably the case. 



To us, then, it seems probable that the rubric "Ariston Eritzou" 

 was not contained in the text of the fifth century exemplar of this 

 codex, and that quite' possibly it was added from a much later source, 

 which may have been based on a late tradition or supposition or 

 a mistaken inference. Furthermore it does not seem to us that 

 this rubric was intended to have the same dignity as the titles "Of 

 Matthew" etc. affixed to the Gospels. 



At the same time it is probable that these verses were translated 

 into the Armenian as early as the fifth century, since Eznik, a fifth 

 century Father of the Armenian Church cites vs, 17, 18 almost pre- 

 cisely as we have them in the present text, but seems to carefulh' 

 abstain from quoting them as belonging to Mark. That these verses 

 belonged to the early Armenian version but were afterwards excised, 

 is declared by a late Greek Father, according to Conybeare who does 

 not give his name. Was this Theodore Chrthenavor early in the eighth 

 centur}-, who declared that Luke 22 : 43, 44 was cut out from the early 

 Armenian version by certain Docetic heretics ? (See Conybeare, Ex- 

 positor, Dec. 1895, p. 405.) 



As far as internal evidence goes this is quite possible, since these 

 \erses as found in the Edschmiadzin codex agree fairly well with 

 the rest of the Gospel. However they might have been translated 

 at a later time in an archaic style, by a careful student of the 

 version . 



