VI. And yet, although the practice of thus indicating the beginning and the end of a liturgical section, does not seem to have come into general use until about the xiith century; and although, previous to the ixth century, systematic liturgical directions are probably unknown;(417) the _need_ of them must have been experienced by one standing up to read before the congregation, long before. The want of some reminder where he was to begin,—above all, of some hint where he was to leave off,—will have infallibly made itself felt from the first. Accordingly, there are not wanting indications that, occasionally, ΤΕΛΟΣ (or ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ) was written in the margin of Copies of the Gospels at an exceedingly remote epoch. One memorable example of this practice is supplied by the Codex Bezæ (D): where in S. Mark xiv. 41, instead of ἀπέχει ἦλθεν ἡ ὤρα,—we meet with the unintelligible ΑΠΕΧΕΙ ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ ΚΑΙ Η ΩΡΑ. Now, nothing else has here happened but that a marginal note, designed originally to indicate the end (ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ) of the lesson for the third day of the iind week of the Carnival, has lost its way from the end of ver. 42, and got thrust into the text of ver. 41,—to the manifest destruction of the sense.(418) I find D’s error here is shared (_a_) by the Peshito Syriac, (_b_) by the old Latin, and (_c_) by the Philoxenian: venerable partners in error, truly! for the first two probably carry back this false reading to _the second century of our æra_; and so, furnish one more remarkable proof, to be added to the fifteen (or rather the forty) already enumerated (pp. 217-23), that the lessons of the Eastern Church were settled at a period long anterior to the date of the oldest MS. of the Gospels extant. VII. Returning then to the problem before us, I venture to suggest as follows:—What if, at a very remote period, this same isolated liturgical note (ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ) occurring at S. Mark xvi. 8, (which _is_ “the end” of _the Church-lection_ for the iind Sunday after Easter,) should have unhappily suggested to some copyist,—καλλιγραφίας _quam vel Criticæ Sacræ vel rerum Liturgicarum peritior_,—the notion that the entire “_Gospel according to S. Mark_,” came to an end at verse 8?... I see no more probable account of the matter, I say, than this:—That the mutilation of the last chapter of S. Mark has resulted from the fact, that some very ancient scribe _misapprehended the import of the solitary liturgical note_ ΤΕΛΟΣ (or ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ) which he found at the close of verse 8. True, that he will have probably beheld, further on, several additional στίχοι. But if he did, how could he acknowledge the fact more loyally than by leaving (as the author of Cod. B is observed to have done) one entire column blank, before proceeding with S. Luke? He hesitated, all the same, _to transcribe_ any further, having before him, (as he thought,) an assurance that “THE END” had been reached at ver. 8.