THE LAST TWELVE VERSES

OF THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO

S. MARK

ON the next page is exhibited an exact Fac-simile, obtained by Photography, of fol. 28 b of the Codex Sinaiticus at S. Petersburg, (Tischendorf’s א): shewing the abrupt termination of S. Mark’s Gospel at the words ΕΦΟΒΟΥΝΤΟ ΓΑΡ (chap. xvi. 8), as explained at p. 70, and pp. 86-8. The original Photograph, which is here reproduced on a diminished scale, measures in height full fourteen inches and one-eighth; in breadth, full thirteen inches. It was procured for me through the friendly and zealous offices of the English Chaplain at S. Petersburg, the Rev. A. S. Thompson, B.D.; by favour of the Keeper of the Imperial Library, who has my hearty thanks for his liberality and consideration.

It will be perceived that the text begins at S. Mark xvi. 2, and ends with the first words of S. Luke i. 18.

Up to this hour, every endeavour to obtain a Photograph of the corresponding page of the Codex Vaticanus, B, (Nº. 1209, in the Vatican,) has proved unavailing. If the present Vindication of the genuineness of Twelve Verses of the everlasting Gospel should have the good fortune to approve itself to his Holiness, Pope Pius IX., let me be permitted in this unadorned and unusual manner,—(to which I would fain add some circumstance of respectful ceremony if I knew how,)—very humbly to entreat his Holiness to allow me to possess a Photograph, corresponding in size with the original, of the page of Codex B (it is numbered fol. 1303,) which exhibits the abrupt termination of the Gospel according to S. Mark.

J. W. B.

Oriel College, Oxford,

June 14, 1871.