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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Mark 16
Verse Commentaries:
Chapter Level Commentary:
Mar_16:8. After ἐξελθ . Elz. has ταχύ , in opposition to decisive evidence, from Mat_28:8.
Mar_16:9. ἀφʼ ἧς ] Lachm. has παρʼ ἧς , following C D L 33. Rightly; ἀφʼ is from Luk_8:2.
Mar_16:14. After ἐγηγερμ . A C* X Δ , min. Syr. p. Ar. p. Erp. Arm. have ἐκ νεκρῶν , which Lachm. has adopted. A mechanical addition.
Mar_16:17-18. The omission of καιναῖς , as well as the addition of καὶ ἐν ταῖς χερσίν before ὄφεις , is too feebly attested. The latter is an exegetical addition, which, when adopted, absorbed the preceding καιναῖς .
Instead of βλάψῃ Elz. has βλάψει , in opposition to decisive evidence.
Mar_16:19. After κύριος read, with Lachm. and Tisch., Ἰησοῦς , which is found in C* K L Δ , min. most of the vss. and Ir. As an addition in the way of gloss, there would be absolutely no motive for it. On the other hand, possibly on occasion of the abbreviation ΚΣ ., ΙΣ ., it dropped out the more easily, as the expression ὁ κύριος Ἰησοῦς is infrequent in the Gospels.
The entire section from Mar_16:9-20 is a non-genuine conclusion of the Gospel, not composed by Mark. The external grounds for this view are: (1) The section is wanting in B à , Arm. mss. Ar. vat. and in cod. K of the It. (in Tisch.), which has another short apocryphal conclusion (comp. subsequently the passage in L), and is designated in 137, 138 with an asterisk. (2) Euseb. ad Marin, qu. 1 (in Mai, Script, vet. nov. coll. I. p. 61 f.), declares that σχεδὸν ἐν ἅπασι τοῖς ἀντιγράφοις the Gospel closes with ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ . Comp. qu. 3, p. 72, where he names the manuscripts which contain the section only τινα τῶν ἀντιγράφων . The same authority in Victor Ant. ed. Matth. II. p. 208, states that Mark has not related any appearance of the risen Lord that occurred to the disciples. (3) Jerome, ad Hedib. qu. 3; Gregor. Nyss. orat. 2 de resurr. Chr.; Vict. Ant. ed. Matth. II. p. 120; Sever. Ant. in Montfauc. Bibl. Coisl. p. 74, and the Scholia in several codd. in Scholz and Tisch., attest that the passage was wanting in very many manuscripts (Jerome: “omnibus Graeciae libris paene”). (4) According to Syr. Philox. in the margin, and according to L, several codd. had an entirely different ending[179] of the Gospel. (5) Justin Martyr and Clem. Al. do not indicate any use made by them of the section (how precarious is the resemblance of Justin, Apol. I. 45 with Mar_16:20!); and Eusebius has his Canons only as far as Mar_16:8, as, indeed, also in codd. A U and many min, the numbers really reach only thus far,[180] while certainly in C E H K M V they are carried on to the very end. These external reasons are the less to be rejected, seeing that it is not a question of a single word or of a single passage of the context, but of an entire section so essential and important, the omission of which, moreover, deprives the whole Gospel of completeness; and seeing that the way in which the passage gradually passed over into the greater part of the codd. is sufficiently explained from Euseb. ad Marin. qu. 1, p. 62 ( ἄλλος δέ τις οὐδʼ ὁτιοῦν τολμῶν ἀθετεῖν τῶν ὁπωσοῦν ἐν τῇ τῶν εὐαγγελίων γραφῇ φερομένων , διπλῆν εἶναί φησι τὴν ἀνάγνωσιν , ὡς καὶ ἐν ἑτέροις πολλοῖς , ἑκατέραν τε παραδεκτέαν ὑπάρχειν , τῷ μὴ μᾶλλον ταύτην ἐκείνης , ἢ ἐκείνην ταύτης , παρὰ τοῖς πιστοῖς καὶ εὐλαβέσιν ἐγκρίνεσθαι ). See Credner, Einl. I. p. 107. And when Euthymius Zigabenus, II. p. 183, designates those who condemn the section as τινὲς τῶν ἐξηγητῶν , not, however, himself contradicting them, the less importance is to be attached to this after the far older testimonies of Eusebius, and others, from which is apparent not the exegetical, but the critical point of view of the condemnation. Moreover, this external evidence against the genuineness finds in the section itself an internal confirmation, since with Mar_16:9 there suddenly sets in a process of excerpt-making in contrast with the previous character of the narration, while the entire section in general contains none of Mark’s peculiarities (no εὐθέως , no ΠΆΛΙΝ , etc.,—and what a brevity, devoid of vividness and clearness on the part of the compiler!); in individual expressions it is quite at variance with the sharply defned manner throughout of Mark (see the notes on the passages in detail, and Zeller in the theol. Jahrb. 1843, p. 450); it does not, moreover, presuppose what has been previously related (see especially Mar_16:9 : ἀφʼ ἧς ἐκβεβλ . ἑπτὰ δαιμ ., and the want of any account of the meeting in Galilee that was promised at Mar_16:7), and has even apocryphal disfigurements (Mar_16:18 : ὄφεις … βλάψῃ ).
If, in accordance with all this, the section before us is decidedly to be declared spurious, it is at the same time evident that the Gospel is without any conclusion: for the announcement of Mar_16:7, and the last words ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ themselves, decisively show that Mark did not intend to conclude his treatise with these words. But whether Mark himself left the Gospel unfinished, or whether the conclusion has been lost, cannot be ascertained, and all conjectures on this subject are arbitrary. In the latter case the lost concluding section may have been similar to the concluding section of Matthew (namely, Mat_28:9-10, and Mat_28:16-20), but must, nevertheless, after Mar_16:8 have contained some incident, by means of which the angelic announcement of Mar_16:6 f. was still, even in spite of the women’s silence in Mar_16:8, conveyed to the disciples. Just as little with reference to the apocryphal fragment[181] itself, Mar_16:9-20,—which already in very early times (although not by Mark himself, in opposition to Michaelis, Hug, Guericke, Ebrard, and others) was incorporated with the Gospel as a conclusion (even Syr. has it; and Iren. Haer. iii. 10. 6 quotes Mar_16:19, and Hippol. Mar_16:17-18),—is there anything more definite to be established than that it was composed independently of our Gospel, in which case the point remains withal undecided whether the author was a Jewish or a Gentile Christian (Credner), as indeed at least πρώτῃ σαββάτων , Mar_16:9 (in opposition to Credner), might be used by one who had been a Jew and had become conversant with Hellenic life.
Against the genuineness the following have declared themselves: Michaelis (Auferstehungsgesch. p. 179 ff.; Einl. p. 1059 f.), Thies, Bolten, Griesbach, Gratz, Bertholdt, Rosenmüller, Schulthess in Tzschirner’s Anal. III. 3; Schulz, Fritzsche, Schott (Isag. p. 94 ff., contrary to his Opusc. II. p. 129 ff.), Paulus (exeget. Handb.), Credner, Wieseler (Commentat. num. loci Marc. xvi. 9–20 et Joh. xxi. genuini sint, etc., Gott. 1839), Neudecker, Tischendorf, Ritschl, Ewald, Reuss, Anger, Zeller, Hitzig (who, however, regards Luke as the author), Schenkel, Weiss, Holtzmann, Keim, and various others, including Hofmann (Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 4). In favour of the genuineness: Richard Simon (hist. crit. p. 114 f.), Mill, Wolf, Bengel, Matthaei, Eichhorn, Storr, Kuinoel, Hug, Feilmoser, Vater, Saunier, Scholz, Rinck (Lucubr. crit. p. 311 ff.), de Wette, Schwarz, Guericke, Olshausen, Ebrard, Lange, Bleek, Bisping, Schleiermacher also, and various others.[182] Lachmann, too, has adopted the section, as according to his critical principles it was necessary to do, since it is found in most of the uncials (only B à have it not), Vulg. It. Syr., etc. We may add that he did not regard it as genuine (see Stud. u. Krit. 1830, p. 843).
[179] Namely: πάντα δὲ τὰ παρηγγελμένα τοῖς περὶ τὸν Πέτρον συντόμως ἐξήγγειλαν · μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀπὸ ἀνατολῆς καὶ ἄχρι δύσεως ἐξαπέστειλε διʼ αὐτῶν τὸ ἱερὸν καὶ ἄφθαρτον κἡρυγμα τῆς αἰωνίου σωτηρίας . After that L goes on: ἔστην δὲ καὶ ταῦτα φερόμενα μετὰ τὸ ἐφοβοῦντο γὰρ · ἀναστάς δὲ κ . τ . λ .
[180] Vv. 15–18 occur in the Evang. Nicod. 14, in Thilo, p. 618; Tischendorf, p. 242 f. They might therefore have already appeared in the Acts of Pilate, which composition, as is well known, is worked up in the Gospel of Nicodemus. Ritschl, in the theol. Jahrb. 1851, p. 527, would infer this from Tertullian, Apol. 21. But scarcely with warrant, for Tertullian, l.c., where there is contained an excerpt from the Acts of Pilate, is founded upon the tradition in the Acts of the Apostles, foreign to the Synoptics, regarding the forty days.
[181] That it is a fragment, which originally stood in connection with matter preceding, is plain from the fact that in ver. 9 the subject, ὁ Ἰησοῦς , is not named.
[182] Köstlin, p. 378 ff., ascribes the section to the alleged second manipulator of the Gospel. Lange conjectures (see his L. J. I. p. 166) that an incomplete work of Mark reached the Christian public earlier than that which was subsequently completed. According to Hilgenfeld, the section is not without a genuine groundwork, but the primitive form can no longer be ascertained; the evangelist appears “to have become unfaithful to his chief guide Matthew, in order to finish well by means of an older representation.”