2. Whether certain ancient Critics, because it was acceptable to them, were not found to promote this mistake,—it is useless to inquire. That there may have arisen some old harmonizer of the Gospels, who, (in the words of Eusebius,) was disposed to “regard what followed as superfluous from its seeming inconsistency with the testimony of the other Evangelists;”(456)—and that in this way the error became propagated;—is likely enough. But an error it most certainly was: and to that _error_, the _accident_ described in the last preceding paragraph _would have_ very materially conduced, and it may have very easily done so. 3. I request however that it may be observed that the “accident” is not _needed_ in order to account for the “error.” The mere presence of ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ at ver. 8, so near the end of the Gospel, would be quite enough to occasion it. And we have seen that in very ancient times the word ΤΕΛΟΣ frequently _did_ occur in an altogether exceptional manner in that very place. Moreover, we have ascertained that its meaning was _not understood_ by the transcribers of ancient MSS. 4. And will any one venture to maintain that it is to him a thing incredible that an intelligent copyist of the iiird century, because he read the words ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ at S. Mark xvi. 8, can have been beguiled thereby into the supposition that those words indicated “the End” of _S. Mark’s Gospel_?—Shall I be told that, even if _one_ can have so entirely overlooked the meaning of the liturgical sign as to suffer it to insinuate itself into his text,(457) it is nevertheless so improbable as to pass all credence that _another_ can have supposed that it designated _the termination of the Gospel_ of the second Evangelist?—For all reply, I take leave to point out that Scholz, and Tischendorf, and Tregelles, and Mai and the rest of the Critics have, _one and all, without exception, misunderstood the same word occurring in the same place, and in precisely the same way_. Yes. The forgotten inadvertence of a solitary Scribe in the _second_ or _third_ century has been, _in the nineteenth_, deliberately reproduced, adopted, and stereotyped by every Critic and every Editor of the New Testament in turn.