I shall have to request my reader by-and-by to accept it as one of the most striking notes of Divine origin which these verses contain.—For the moment, I pass on. (II.) Less excusable is the coarseness of critical perception betrayed by the next remark. It has been pointed out as a suspicious circumstance that in ver. 9, “the phrase ἀφ᾽ ἧς ἐκβεβλήκει ἑπτα δαιμόνια is attached to the name of Mary Magdalene, although she had been mentioned three times before without such appendix. It seems to have been taken from Luke viii. 2.”(270)—Strange perversity, and yet stranger blindness! (1.) The phrase _cannot_ have been taken from S. Luke; because S. Luke’s Gospel was written after S. Mark’s. It _was_ not taken from S. Luke; because _there_ ἀφ᾽ ἧς δαιμόνια ἑπτα ἐξεληλύθει,—here, ἀφ᾽ ἧς ἐκβεβλήκει ἑπτα δαιμόνια is read. (2.) More important is it to expose the shallowness and futility of the entire objection.—Mary Magdalene “had been mentioned three times before, _without such appendix_.” Well but,—What _then_? After twice (ch. xiv. 54, 66) using the word αὐλή without any “appendix,” in the very next chapter (xv. 16) S. Mark adds, ὅ ἐστι πραιτώριον.—The beloved Disciple having mentioned himself without any “appendix” in S. John xx. 7, mentions himself with a very elaborate “appendix” in ver. 20. But what of it?—The sister of the Blessed Virgin, having been designated in chap. xv. 40, as Μαρία ἡ Ἰακώβου τοῦ μικροῦ καὶ Ἰωσῆ μήτηρ; is mentioned with one half of that “appendix,” (Μαρία ἡ Ἰωσῆ) in ver. 47, and _in the very next verse_, with the other half (Μαρία ἡ τοῦ Ἰακώβου.)—I see no reason why the Traitor, who, in S. Luke vi. 16, is called Ἰούδας Ἰσκαριώτης, should be designated as Ἰούδαν τὸν ἐπικαλούμενον Ἰσκαριώτην in S. Luke xxii. 3.—I am not saying that such “appendices” are either uninteresting or unimportant. That I attend to them habitually, these pages will best evince. I am only insisting that to infer from such varieties of expression that a different author is recognisable, is abhorrent to the spirit of intelligent Criticism. (3.) But in the case before us, the hostile suggestion is peculiarly infelicitous. There is even inexpressible tenderness and beauty, the deepest Gospel significancy, in the reservation of the clause “out of whom He had cast seven devils,” for this place. The reason, I say, is even obvious why an “appendix,” which would have been meaningless before, is introduced in connexion with Mary Magdalene’s august privilege of being the first of the human race to behold the risen SAVIOUR. Jerome (I rejoice to find) has been beforehand with me in suggesting that it was done, in order to convey by an example the tacit assurance that “where Sin had abounded, there did Grace much more abound.”(271) Are we to be cheated of our birthright by Critics(272) who, entirely overlooking a solution of the difficulty (_if_ difficulty it be) Divine as this, can see in the circumstance grounds only for suspicion and cavil? Απαγε.