Whilst I write, _that_ “most divine explication of the chiefest articles of our Christian belief,” the Athanasian Creed,(2) is made the object of incessant assaults.(3) But then it is remembered that statements quite as “uncharitable” as any which this Creed contains are found in the 16th verse of S. Mark’s concluding chapter; are in fact the words of Him whose very Name is Love. The precious _warning clause_, I say, (miscalled “damnatory,”(4)) which an impertinent officiousness is for glossing with a rubric and weakening with an apology, proceeded from Divine lips,—at least if these concluding verses be genuine. How shall this inconvenient circumstance be more effectually dealt with than by accepting the suggestion of the most recent editors, that S. Mark’s concluding verses are an unauthorised addition to his Gospel? “If it be acknowledged that the passage has a harsh sound,” (remarks Dean Stanley,) “unlike the usual utterances of Him who came not to condemn but to save, the discoveries of later times have shewn, almost beyond doubt, that it is _not a part of S. Mark’s Gospel, but an addition by another hand_; of which the weakness in the external evidence coincides with the internal evidence in proving its later origin.”(5) Modern prejudice, then,—added to a singularly exaggerated estimate of the critical importance of the testimony of our two oldest Codices, (another of the “discoveries of later times,” concerning which I shall have more to say by-and-by,)—must explain why the opinion is even popular that the last twelve verses of S. Mark are a spurious appendix to his Gospel. Not that Biblical Critics would have us believe that the Evangelist left off at verse 8, intending that the words,—“neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid,” should be the conclusion of his Gospel. “No one can imagine,” (writes Griesbach,) “that Mark cut short the thread of his narrative at that place.”(6) It is on all hands eagerly admitted, that so abrupt a termination must be held to mark an incomplete or else an uncompleted work. How, then, in the original autograph of the Evangelist, is it supposed that the narrative proceeded? This is what no one has even ventured so much as to conjecture. It is assumed, however, that the original termination of the Gospel, whatever it may have been, has perished. We appeal, of course, to its actual termination: and,—Of what nature then, (we ask,) is the supposed necessity for regarding the last twelve verses of S. Mark’s Gospel as a spurious substitute for what the Evangelist originally wrote? What, in other words, has been the history of these modern doubts; and by what steps have they established themselves in books, and won the public ear? To explain this, shall be the object of the next ensuing chapters. CHAPTER II. THE HOSTILE VERDICT OF BIBLICAL CRITICS SHEWN TO BE QUITE OF RECENT DATE.