440 Clarence Russell Williams, 



Jerome, likewise, would not have repeated this statement unless 

 he too was familiar with MSS of this type. The Freer Logion helps 

 us to interpret this testimony of Jerome, for it renders it almost certain 

 that Jerome saw the MS or MSS which contained this logion in Egypt, 

 or found it in one or more MSS brought from Egypt. Very probably 

 then, in quoting the testimony of Eusebius, Jerome is thinking es- 

 pecially of MSS brought from Egypt, or at least of MSS of the type 

 found most abundantly there. 



This testimony of Jerome has been belittled by the defenders of 

 the authenticity of the Longer Conclusion because, after expressing 

 these doubts concerning the last twelve verses, he gave them a place 

 in the Vulgate, without indicating that there was any question as to 

 their authenticity. But, in revising the Old Latin for this purpose, 

 Jerome would most naturally follow the tradition of the church of 

 Rome, which early received them as the authentic conclusion of the 

 Gospel. Whatever the evidence of the MSS of the East, Jerome 

 would be well aware that these verses could be omitted from his 

 version only at the cost of raising a great outcry against it in the West, 

 on the ground that it mutilated the Second Gospel. This practical 

 consideration is quite sufficient to explain his action. Though practi- 

 cally all textual critics now consider these verses unauthentic, what 

 modern editor would dare omit them from a version prepared for 

 popular use? 



The Egyptian origin of the Shorter Conclusion has been suggested 

 by Hort, Zahn, Nestle, and others but, so far as we are aware, the 

 Egyptian provenance of this fragment has not been proved by any 

 English or American writer. In fact so recently as 1908, the Bishop 

 of Moray, writing upon the Gospel according to Mark in Hastings' 

 Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, says concerning the author of 

 the Shorter Conclusion, " Swete conjectures that he was a Westerner, 

 because of the emphasis laid on the West. Nestle makes him an 

 Egyptian, without giving reasons (Hastings DB. IIL 13)." 



The conjecture of Swete is given in "The Gospel according to 

 St. Mark," 1898, p. ci. After presenting the textual evidence, he 

 saj^s concerning the Shorter Ending : 



"Perhaps it may without rashness be attributed to a Roman 



hand ; a Western origin is suggested by the pointed references to 



the westward course of the Apostolic preaching." 



This seems very slender evidence upon which to base such a con- 

 clusion, since it would be as well known to a Christian writer of the 

 second century as of the twentieth that historically the gospel did 

 travel from the East to the West. As has been suggested to the 



