(_a_) One, “Marinus,” is introduced _quoting this part of S. Mark’s Gospel without suspicion_, and enquiring, How its opening statement is to be reconciled with S. Matth. xxviii. 1? Eusebius, in reply, points out that a man whose only object was to get rid of the difficulty, might adopt the expedient of saying that this last section of S. Mark’s Gospel “is _not found in all the copies_:” (μὴ ἐν ἁπᾶσι φέρεσθαι.) Declining, however, to act thus presumptuously in respect of anything claiming to be a part of Evangelical Scripture, (οὐδ᾽ ὁτιοῦν τολμῶν ἀθετεῖν τῶν ὁπωσοῦν ἐν τῇ τῶν εὐαγγελίων γραφῇ φερομένων,)—_he adopts the hypothesis that the text is genuine_. Καὶ δὴ τοῦδε τοῦ μέρους συγχωρουμένου εἶναι ἀληθοῦς, he begins: and he enters at once without hesitation on an elaborate discussion to shew _how the two places may be reconciled_.(486) What there is in this to countenance the notion that in the opinion of Eusebius “the Gospel according to S. Mark originally terminated at the 8th verse of the last chapter,”—I profess myself unable to discover. I draw from his words the precisely opposite inference. It is not even clear to me that the Verses in dispute were absent from the copy which Eusebius habitually employed. He certainly quotes one of those verses once and again.(487) On the other hand, the express statement of Victor of Antioch [A.D. 450?] _that he knew of the mutilation, but had ascertained by Critical research the genuineness of this Section of Scripture, and had adopted the Text of the authentic _“Palestinian”_ Copy_,(488)—is more than enough to outweigh the faint presumption created (as some might think) by the words of Eusebius, that his own copy was without it. And yet, as already stated, there is nothing whatever to shew that Eusebius himself deliberately rejected the last Twelve Verses of S. Mark’s Gospel. Still less does that Father anywhere say, or even hint, that in his judgment the original Text of S. Mark was without them. If he may be judged by his words, _he accepted them as genuine_: for (what is at least certain) he argues upon their contents at great length, and apparently without misgiving.