From xvi. 8 onwards, as is well known, the oldest textual authorities have simply a blank. Later authorities give a shorter or longer substitute for the missing Manifestation and Charge to the twelve. The shorter follows Matthew, the longer follows Luke, with traces of acquaintance with John. Fanciful theories to explain these textual phenomena, such as accidental mutilation of the only copy, are improbable, and do not explain. If conjecture be permissible it is more likely that the original work was in two parts, after the manner of Luke-Acts, the 'former treatise' ending with the centurion's testimony, "Truly this man was a Son of God" (xv. 39). The second part continued the narrative in the form of a Preaching of Peter, perhaps ending with his coming to Rome; for the ancient literature of the church had several narratives of this type. Its disappearance will have been due to the superseding (perhaps the embodiment) of it by the work of Luke. When the primitive Markan 'former treatise' was adapted for separate use as a gospel it was quite natural that it should be supplemented (we can hardly say "completed") by the addition of the story of the Empty Sepulchre (xv. 40--xvi. 8), though this narrative is quite unknown to the primitive resurrection preaching (_cf._ 1st Cor. xv. 3-11), and one in which every character save Pilate is a complete stranger to the body of the work. The subsequent further additions of the so-called "longer" and "shorter" endings belong to the history of transcription after A.D. 140.