442 Clarence Russell Williams, 



Tlie final stage is of course the total elimination of B and of ever}- 

 reference to it. The superior authority of the church at Rome and 

 the superior excellence of C have at length won for it the struggle 

 with its rival, and C obtains at Alexandria what it had enjoyed from 

 the second century at Rome, recognition as the only authoritative 

 conclusion of the Gospel according to Mark. 



As has been stated, it is not our purpose to imply by this recon- 

 struction of the history of the conclusions of Mark in Egypt that there 

 existed five sliarply defined periods, in which the five forms success- 

 ively dominated the text of Alexandria. Certainly these periods 

 overlapped, and MSS of various forms were used and copied simul- 

 taneously. It is quite possible that one or more of these forms never 

 became dominant either in Egypt or elsewhere, and this is particu- 

 larly true of the third and fourth forms, and possible even of the 

 second form. But evidence of the existence of all these forms is given 

 us both in Greek MSS and in the MSS of versions dominated by the 

 Greek text of Alexandria. Tliis evidence of the versions must now 

 be briefly recapitulated. 



The evidence of the Sahidic MS Weill 16, showing the double ending 

 to Mark, has not, to our knowledge, been used in any previous dis- 

 cussion of this problem. It is of far greater significance and import- 

 ance than would at first appear. That amid the three or four Sahidic 

 fragments containing the last verses of Mark one should reveal the 

 double ending is surprising, for it may witness to the fact that the 

 Shorter Conclusion was at one time relatively common, if not domi- 

 nant, in the version of Upper Egypt. The fact that underlying the 

 Sahidic is a type of text apparently akin to that used by Clement of 

 Alexandria, that is, a second century type of the Alexandrian text, 

 increases the importance of the witness of the Sahidic. While we do 

 not hold that the Sahidic Version originally ended with B, (to us it 

 seems more probable that it originally ended with v. 8), in view of 

 the note which precedes C in the Sahidic. as well as the reference 

 to the Sahidic in the note found in one Bohairic MS (Or. 1315), it 

 seems most probable that at one time a type of text ending with B 

 gained morq or less currency in the Sahidic Version. This form ma}- 

 witness to a later adaptation of the Sahidic Version to a type of text 

 which, as we have seen, gained some currency in the Greek text of 

 Lower Egypt. We find here therefore, an additional witness to the 

 authority and the diffusion of our second and third stages in the de- 

 \elopment of the Greek text of Egypt. 



Since writing the above, we have heard, upon excellent authority, 

 that among the Coptic ^ISS in the recent acquisition to the J. Pierpont 



