(1.) All very oracular,—to be sure: but _why_ πᾶσα κτίσις should be thought “Pauline” rather than “Petrine,” I really, once more, cannot discover; seeing that S. Peter has the expression as well as S. Paul.(286) (2.) In this place, however, the phrase is πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις. But even this expression is no more to be called “Pauline” than “Marcine;” seeing that as S. Mark uses it once and once only, so does S. Paul use it once and once only, viz. in Rom. viii. 22. (3.) In the meantime, how does it come to pass that the learned Critic has overlooked the significant fact that the word κτίσις occurs besides in S. Mark x. 6 and xiii. 19; and that it is a word which _S. Mark alone of the Evangelists uses_? Its occurrence, therefore, in this place is a circumstance the very reverse of suspicious. (4.) But lastly, inasmuch as the opening words of our LORD’S Ministerial Commission to the Apostles are these,—κηρύξατε τὸ εὐαγγέλιον πάση τῇ κτίσει (ver. 15): inasmuch, too, as S. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians (i. 23) almost reproduces those very words; speaking of the Hope τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ... τοῦ κηρυχθέντος ἐν πάση [τῇ] κτίσει τῇ ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανόν:—Is it not an allowable conjecture that _a direct reference_ to _that_ place in S. Mark’s Gospel is contained in _this_ place of S. Paul’s Epistle? that the inspired Apostle “beholding the universal tendency of Christianity already realized,” announces (and from imperial Rome!) the fulfilment of his LORD’S commands in his LORD’S own words as recorded by the Evangelist S. Mark? I desire to be understood to deliver this only as a conjecture. But seeing that S. Mark’s Gospel is commonly thought to have been written at Rome, and under the eye of S. Peter; and that S. Peter (and therefore S. Mark) must have been at Rome before S. Paul visited that city in A.D. 61;—seeing, too, that it was in A.D. 61-2 (as Wordsworth and Alford are agreed) that S. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Colossians, and wrote it from _Rome_;—I really can discover nothing unreasonable in the speculation. If, however, it be well founded,—(and it is impossible to deny that the coincidence of expression _may_ be such as I have suggested,)—then, what an august corroboration would _this_ be of “the last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark!” ... If, indeed, the great Apostle on reaching Rome inspected S. Mark’s Gospel for the first time, with what awe will he have recognised in his own recent experience the fulfilment of his SAVIOUR’S great announcement concerning the “signs which should follow them that believe!” Had he not himself “cast out devils?”—“spoken with tongues more than they all?”—and at Melita, not only “shaken off the serpent into the fire and felt no harm,” but also “laid hands on the sick” father of Publius, “and he had recovered?” ... To return, however, to matters of fact; with an apology (if it be thought necessary) for what immediately goes before.