t written by S. Mark himself?" Why, there is _not one_ of them who says
so: while some of them say the direct reverse. But let us go on. It is, I
suppose, because there are Twelve Verses to be demolished that the list is
further eked out with the names of (8) Ammonius, (9) Epiphanius, and (10)
Caesarius,--to say nothing of (11) the anonymous authors of Catenae, and (12)
"later writers, especially Greeks."

I. I shall examine these witnesses one by one: but it will be convenient
in the first instance to call attention to the evidence borne by,

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

This illustrious Father is represented as expressing himself as follows in
his second "Homily on the Resurrection;"(69)--"In the more accurate copies,
the Gospel according to Mark has its end at 'for they were afraid.' In
some copies, however, this also is added,--'Now when He was risen early the
first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He
had cast seven devils.' "

That this testimony should have been so often appealed to as proceeding
from Gregory of Nyssa,(70) is little to the credit of modern scholarship.
One would have supposed that the gravity of the subject,--the importance of
the issue,--the sacredness of Scripture, down to its minutest jot and
tittle,--would have ensured extraordinary caution, and induced every fresh
assailant of so considerable a portion of the Gospel to be very sure of
his ground before reiterating what his predecessors had delivered. And yet
it is evident that not one of the recent writers on the subject can have
investigated this matter for himself. It is only due to their known
ability to presume that had they taken ever so little pains with the
foregoing quotation, they would have found out their mistake.

(1.) For, in the first place, the second "Homily on the Resurrection"
printed in the iiird volume of the works of Gregory of Nyssa, (and which
supplies the critics with their quotation,) is, as every one may see who
will take the trouble to compare them, _word for word the same Homily_
which Combefis in his "Novum Auctarium," and Gallandius in his
"Bibliotheca Patrum" printed as the work of Hesychius, and vindicated to
that Father, respectively in 1648 and 1776.(71) Now, if a critic chooses
to risk his own reputation by maintaining that the Homily in question is
indeed by Gregory of Nyssa, and is not by Hesychius,--well and good. But
since the Homily can have had but one author, it is surely hig