404 



Clarence Russell Williams, 



The text of e, however, which shows later development than k 

 and a greater divergence from Cyprian, does not, unfortunately, 

 contain Mark xvi. It is therefore not possible to conclude with any 

 degree of certainly whether the shorter conclusion was a recognized 

 portion of the text, and found in the text of Cyprian as read at Car- 

 thage in tlie middle of the third century, before the Decian perse- 

 cution. 



The affinity of k with L is very slight. This peculiarity of k in 

 containing the shorter ending alone, without hint of any other ending 

 for the Gospel, is the more remarkable since the longer ending seems 

 to have early become an integral part of the text of the Gospel as, 

 known at Rome. 



It seems most natural to conclude, in view of the text we have 

 found underlying k, that it received the shorter ending from Egypt, 

 and this receives a measure of confirmation from the fact that, as 

 Zahn has shown, an ancestor of the Bohairic Codex, Hunt. 17 which 

 contains the shorter ending in the margin "must have dealt with the 

 matter in essentially the same manner." 



This assertion of Zahn that there must have been Bohairic MSS 

 which resembled k in text adds further support to our contention 

 that the shorter ending was introduced into the 'African Latin' not 

 from Rome, but from Egypt, possibly through Upper Egypt, as 

 Kennedy suggests, either through or with the support of Coptic MSS ; 

 possibly from Lower Egypt, as Hunt 17 would suggest, with the 

 support of the Bohairic version ; possibly from some Greek MS of 

 Alexandria. 



It would seem, then, probable that the earliest 'African Latin' text 

 did not contain either ending, but concluded the Gospel at v. 8, as 

 do SB, and Ss, with all of which we have found k to have affinity. 

 So WH. 



That the shorter ending was not introduced into the version first 

 by the Alexandrian ( ?) scribe of k, but was copied by him from an 

 earlier exemplar is quite evident, not only from the general charac- 

 teristics of the scribe but from the impossibility of the original trans- 

 lator writing in v. 9 "puero" for "petro" which he had just copied in 

 V. 7 correctly, and bungling the phrase "from the east even unto the 

 west" until he writes "ab oriente usque- usque in orientcm." If an 

 Alexandrian, however, he would most probably be familiar with the 

 shorter ending. 



How long before the transcribing of k in the fifth century the shorter 

 ending was introduced into the Latin it is of course impossible to 

 say. And yet there seems no evidence to forbid our beheving that 



