But the most recent Editors of the text of the New Testament, declining to entertain so much as the _possibility_ that certain copies of the second Gospel _had experienced mutilation in very early times_ in respect of these Twelve concluding Verses, have chosen to occupy themselves rather with conjectures as to how it may have happened that S. Mark’s Gospel _was without a conclusion from the very first_. Persuaded that no more probable account is to be given of the phenomenon than that _the Evangelist himself put forth a Gospel which_ (for some unexplained reason) _terminated abruptly at the words_ ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ (chap. xvi. 8),—they have unhappily seen fit to illustrate the liveliness of this conviction of theirs, by presenting the world with his Gospel mutilated in this particular way. Practically, therefore, the question has been reduced to the following single issue:—Whether of the two suppositions which follow is the more reasonable: _First_,—That the Gospel according to S. Mark, as it left the hands of its inspired Author, _was in this imperfect or unfinished state_; ending abruptly at (what we call now) the 8th verse of the last chapter:—of which solemn circumstance, at the end of eighteen centuries, Cod. B and Cod. א are the alone surviving Manuscript witnesses?... or, _Secondly_,—That certain copies of S. Mark’s Gospel _having suffered mutilation_ in respect of their Twelve concluding Verses in the post-Apostolic age, Cod. B and Cod. א are the only examples of MSS. so mutilated which are known to exist at the present day? I. Editors who adopt the former hypothesis, are observed (_a_) to sever the Verses in question from their context:(462)—(_b_) to introduce after ver. 8, the subscription “ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΡΚΟΝ:”(463)—(_c_) to shut up verses 9-20 within brackets.(464) Regarding them as “no integral part of the Gospel”(465)—“as an authentic anonymous addition to what Mark himself wrote down,”(466)—a “remarkable Fragment,” “placed as a completion of the Gospel in very early times;”(467)—they consider themselves at liberty to go on to suggest that “the Evangelist may have been interrupted in his work:” at any rate, that “something may have occurred, (as the death of S. Peter,) to cause him to leave it unfinished.”(468) But “the most probable supposition” (we are assured) “is, that _the last leaf of the original Gospel was torn away_.”(469) We listen with astonishment; contenting ourselves with modestly suggesting that surely it will be time to conjecture _why_ S. Mark’s Gospel was left by its Divinely inspired Author in an unfinished state, when the fact has been established that it probably _was_ so left. In the meantime, we request to be furnished with some evidence of _that fact_.