44, and yet seems to
have written soon after the death of Chrysostom, which took place A.D.
407), may be assigned to the first half of the vth century,--suppose A.D.
425-450. And in citing him I shall always refer to the best (and most
easily accessible) edition of his work,--that of Cramer (1840) in the first
volume of his "Catenae."

But a far graver charge is behind. From the confident air in which
Victor's authority is appealed to by those who deem the last twelve verses
of S. Mark's Gospel spurious, it would of course be inferred that his
evidence is hostile to the verses in question; whereas his evidence to
their genuineness is the most emphatic and extraordinary on record. Dr.
Tregelles asserts that "his _testimony_ to the absence of these twelve
verses from some or many copies, stands in contrast to his own _opinion_
on the subject." But Victor delivers _no_ "opinion:" and his "testimony"
is the direct reverse of what Dr. Tregelles asserts it to be. This learned
and respected critic has strangely misapprehended the evidence.(106)

I must needs be brief in this place. I shall therefore confine myself to
those facts concerning "Victor of Antioch," or rather concerning his work,
which are necessary for the purpose in hand.(107)

Now, his Commentary on S. Mark's Gospel,--as all must see who will be at
the pains to examine it,--is to a great extent a compilation. The same
thing may be said, no doubt, to some extent, of almost every ancient
Commentary in existence. But I mean, concerning this particular work, that
it proves to have been the author's plan not so much to give the general
results of his acquaintance with the writings of Origen, Apollinarius,
Theodorus of Mopsuestia, Eusebius, and Chrysostom; as, with or without
acknowledgment, to transcribe largely (but with great license) from one or
other of these writers. Thus, the whole of his note on S. Mark xv. 38, 39,
is taken, without any hint that it is not original, (much of it, _word for
word_,) from Chrysostom's 88th Homily on S. Matthew's Gospel.(108) The
same is to be said of the first twelve lines of his note on S. Mark xvi.
9. On the other hand, the latter half of the note last mentioned professes
to give the substance of what _Eusebius_ had written on the same subject.
It is in fact an extract from those very "Quaestiones ad Marinum"
concerning which so much has been offered already. All this, though it
does not sensibly detract from the interest or the