Mark 4:8

8. ἄλλα ([687][688][689][690] 33) rather than ἄλλο ([691][692][693][694]).

[687] Codex Sinaiticus. 4th cent. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the Monastery of St Katharine on Mount Sinai. Now at St Petersburg. The whole Gospel, ending at Mark 16:8. Photographic facsimile, 1911.

[688] Codex Vaticanus. 4th cent., but perhaps a little later than א. In the Vatican Library almost since its foundation by Pope Nicolas V., and one of its greatest treasures. The whole Gospel, ending at Mark 16:8. Photographic facsimile, 1889.

[689] Codex Ephraemi. 5th cent. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out, and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it; but a great deal of the original writing has been recovered; of Mark we have Mark 1:17 to Mark 6:31; Mark 8:5 to Mark 12:29; Mark 13:19 to Mark 16:20. In the National Library at Paris.

[690] Codex Regius. 8th cent. An important witness. At Paris. Contains Mark 1:1 to Mark 10:15; Mark 10:30 to Mark 15:1; Mark 15:20 to Mark 16:20, but the shorter ending is inserted between Mark 16:8 and Mark 16:9, showing that the scribe preferred it to the longer one.

[691] Codex Alexandrinus. 5th cent. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to King Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. The whole Gospel. Photographic facsimile, 1879.

[692] Codex Bezae. 6th cent. Has a Latin translation (d) side by side with the Greek text, and the two do not quite always agree. Presented by Beza to the University Library of Cambridge in 1581. Remarkable for its frequent divergences from other texts. Contains Mark, except Mark 16:15-20, which has been added by a later hand. Photographic facsimile, 1899.

[693] Codex Sangallensis. 9th or 10th cent. Contains the Gospels nearly complete, with an interlinear Latin translation. The text of Mark is specially good, agreeing often with CL. At St Gall.
[694] Codex Petropolitanus. 9th cent. Gospels almost complete. Mark 16:18-20 is in a later hand.

8. τὴν γῆν τὴν καλήν. All three have the double art., which emphasizes the adj. (Mark 3:29); Lk. has ἀγαθήν, which is stronger than καλήν. Only twice, and then of persons, does Mk use ἀγαθός, Mark 10:17-18; in Mark 3:4 we should read ἀγαθοποιῆσαι. Mt. and Lk. have ἀγαθός often; it means what is good in its results, while καλός is what is good as an object of contemplation.

ἐδίδου … ἔφερεν. The change from aorists to imperfects is accurate. The mistake of taking ἀναβαίνοντα with καρπόν (fruit does not spring up) produced the false reading αὐξανόμενον, which is followed in A.V. On the participles see Mark 1:15.

εἰς τριάκοντα. The texts are so tangled that it is impossible to determine what word should precede the numeral in each case; but we must have the same word in each case. An estimate of the evidence which gives a change of word (εἰς … ἐν … ἐν) is intolerable. When we have decided for εις … εις … εις, or for εν … εν … εν, we have then to choose between εἰς and εἷς, or between ἐν and ἕν. If εις is preferred, εἰς “up to” is better than εἷς. If εν is preferred, ἕν is better than ἐν. In any case, after three groups of failures in the neut. sing., we have three groups of successes, the gender of which depends on the reading adopted. A hundredfold is not an imaginary increase; cf. Genesis 26:12. Herodotus (i. 193) speaks of even threehundredfold.