Mark 16:10 [Textus Receptus (Elzevir) (1624)]185
Ἐκείνη πορευθεῖσα ἀπήγγειλε τοῖς μετ’ αὐτοῦ γενομένοις, πενθοῦσι καὶ κλαίουσι.
MSS: Y, Ω, 1※, 7, 22※ (f107r), 438, 439, 1582※ (f133v), ℓ339 (f25rc2)
Mark 16:10 [Codex Alexandrinus (A02) (5th century)]18rc2
εκεινη πορευθεισα απηγγειλεν τοις μετ αυτου γενομενοις πενθουσιν και κλαιουσιν·
MSS: A, L (f113vc1)
Mark 16:10 [Codex Vaticanus Gr. 1209 (B03) (4th century)]37ac2
OMITTED
Mark 16:10 [Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus (C04) (5th century)]84
Εκεινη .. πορευθεισα απηγγειλεν τοις μετ αυτου γενομενοις πενθουσι και κλαιουσιν·
Mark 16:10 [Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis (D05) (5th century)]347v|675
Εκεινη πορευθεισα· απηγγειλεν αυτοις τοις μετ αυτου γενομενοις πενθουσι και κλαιουσι
Critical Apparatus :
(1) Mark 16:10 : A, D, E, G, K, L, M, S, W, Y, Δ, Ω, 1※, 7, 8, 9, 13, 22※, 438, 439, 700, 892, 1582※, ℓ339, ℓ1086 (ii), Majority
(2) OMIT Mark 16:10 : א, B, 1*, 1582*
(3) εκεινη : A, D, E, G, K, L, M, S, W, Y, Δ, Ω, 1※, 7, 9, 13, 22※, 438, 439, 700, 892, 1582※, ℓ339, ℓ1086 (ii), Majority
(4) εκεινα : 8
(5) πορευθεισα : A, C, D, E, G, L, M, S, W, Y, Ω, 1※, 7, 8, 22※, 438, 439, 700, 1582※, ℓ339, Majority
(6) πορευθισα : Δ
(7) πορευθησα : 13, ℓ1086 (ii)
(8) απελθουσα : K, 9, 892
(9) απηγγειλε : M, Y, Ω, 1※, 7, 8, 9, 13, 22※, 438, 439, 700, 892, 1582※, ℓ339, ℓ1086 (ii), Majority
(10) απηγγειλεν : A, C, E, G, K, L, S, W, Δ
(11) απηγγειλεν αυτοις : D
(12) πενθουσι : C, D, E, K, M, S, Y, Ω, 1※, 7, 8, 9, 22※, 438, 439, 700, 892, 1582※, ℓ339, ℓ1086 (ii)
(13) πενθουσιν : A, G, L, W, Δ, 13
(14) και κλαιουσι : D, M, S, Y, Ω, 1※, 7, 8, 9, 22※, 438, 439, 892, 1582※, ℓ339, ℓ1086 (ii)
(15) και κλαιουσιν : A, C, E, G, K, L, Δ, 13, 22※?, 700
(16) OMIT και κλαιουσι : W
CΛΕ :
C (84), G (f115rc2), M (f132rc1), 7 (f96v), 8 (f104rc2)
A Textual Commentary On Mark 16:10
(a) It is only since the appearance of Griesbach’s second edition [1796–1806] that Critics of the New Testament have permitted themselves to handle the last twelve verses of S. Mark’s Gospel with disrespect. Previous critical editions of the New Testament are free from this reproach. “There is no reason for doubting the genuineness of this portion of Scripture,” wrote Mill in 1707, after a review of the evidence (as far as he was acquainted with it) for and against. Twenty-seven years later, appeared Bengel’s edition of the New Testament (1734) ; and Wetstein, at the end of another seventeen years (1751-2), followed in the same field . Both editors, after rehearsing the adverse testimony in extenso, left the passage in undisputed possession of its place. Alter in 1786-7, and Birch in 1788a, (suspicious as the latter evi dently was of its genuineness,) followed their predecessors ‘ example. But Matthaei, ( who also brought his labours to a close in the year 1788,) was not content to give a silent suffrage. He had been for upwards of fourteen years a laborious collator of Greek MSS. of the New Testament, and was so convinced of the insufficiency of the arguments which had been brought against these twelve verses of S. Mark, that with no ordinary warmth, no common acuteness, he insisted on their genuineness. “ With Griesbach, ” (remarks Dr. Tregelles b,) ” Texts which may be called really critical begin ; ” and Griesbach is the first to insist that the concluding verses of S. Mark are spurious. That he did not suppose the second Gospel to have always ended at verse 8, we have seen already ‘. He was of opinion, however, that “ at some very remote period, the original ending of the Gospel perished, —disappeared perhaps from the Evangelist’s own copy, —and that the present ending was by some one substituted in its place. ” Griesbach further in vented the following elaborate and extraordinary hypothesis to account for the existence of S. Mark xvi. 9–20. He invites his readers to believe that when , (before the end of the second century,) the four Evangelical narratives were collected into a volume and dignified with the title of “The Gospel,” — S. Mark’s narrative was furnished by some unknown individual with its actual termination in order to remedy its manifest incompleteness ; and that this volume became the standard of the Alexandrine recension of the text : in other words, became the fontal source of a mighty family of MSS. by Griesbach designated as “Alexandrine.” But there will have been here and there in existence isolated copies of one or more of the Gospels ; and in all of these, S. Mark’s Gospel, (by the hypothesis,) will have ended abruptly at the eighth verse. These copies of single Gospels , when collected together, are presumed by Griesbach to have constituted “ the Western recension . ” If, in codices of this family also, the self – same termination is now all but universally found , the fact is to be accounted for, (Griesbach says,) by the natural desire which possessors of the Gospels will have experienced to supplement their imperfect copies as best they might. “Let this conjecture be accepted,” proceeds the learned veteran, – (unconscious apparently that he has been demanding acceptance for at least half – a – dozen wholly unsupported as well as entirely gratui tous conjectures,) — ” and every difficulty disappears; and it becomes perfectly intelligible how there has crept into almost every codex which has been written, from the second century downwards, a section quite different from the ori . ginal and genuine ending of S. Mark, which disappeared before the four Gospels were collected into a single volume.” -In other words, if men will but be so accommodating as to assume that the conclusion of S. Mark’s Gospel disappeared before any one had the opportunity of transcribing the Evangelist’s inspired autograph, they will have no difficulty in understanding that the present conclusion of S. Mark’s Gospel was not really written by S. Mark. It should perhaps be stated in passing, that Griesbach was driven into this curious maze of unsupported conjecture by the exigencies of his “Recension Theory ;” which, inas much as it has been long since exploded, need not now occupy us. But it is worth observing that the argument already exhibited, (such as it is,) breaks down under the weight of the very first fact which its learned author is obliged to lay upon it. Codex B., — the solitary manuscript witness for omitting the clause in question, (for Codex g had not yet been discovered, had been already claimed by Griesbach as a chief exponent of his so-called “Alexandrine Recension.” But then, on the Critic’s own hypothesis, (as we have seen already,) Codex B. ought, on the contrary, to have contained it. How was that inconvenient fact to be got over? Griesbach quietly remarks in a foot – note that Codex B. “has affinity with the Eastern family of MSS.” — The misfortune of being saddled with a worthless theory was surely never more apparent. By the time we have reached this point in the investigation, we are reminded of nothing so much as of the weary traveller who, having patiently pursued an ignis fatuus through half the night, beholds it at last vanish ; but not until it has conducted him up to his chin in the mire. Neither Hug, nor Scholz his pupil, —who in 1808 and 1830 respectively followed Griesbach with modifications of his recension – theory, — concurred in the unfavourable sen tence which their illustrious predecessor had passed on the concluding portion of S. Mark’s Gospel . The latter even eagerly vindicated its genuineness d. But with Lachmann, – whose unsatisfactory text of the Gospels appeared in 1842, – originated a new principle of Textual Revision ; the principle, namely, of paying exclusive and absolute deference to the testimony of a few arbitrarily selected ancient documents ; no regard being paid to others of the same or of yet higher antiquity. This is not the right place for discussing this plausible and certainly most convenient scheme of textual revision. That it leads to conclusions little short of irrational, is certain. I notice it only because it supplies the clue to the result which, as far as S. Mark xvi. 9-20 is concerned, has been since arrived at by Dr. Tischendorf, Dr. Tregelles, and Dean Alford, the three latest critics who have formally undertaken to reconstruct the sacred Text.
a Quatuor Evangelia Graece cum variantibus a textu lectionibus Codd. MSS. Bibliothecae Vaticanae, etc. Jussu et sumtibus regiis edidit Andreas Birch, Havniae, 1788. A copy of this very rare and sumptuous folio may be seen in the King’s Library (Brit. Mus.)
b Account of the Printed Text, p. 83.
(John W. Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark, pp. 5-8)