Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries

I was really skeptical of this whole "Bible Hoax of 1881" stuff and it seems pretty clear it is nothing more than a nonsense conspiracy theory.

But the most recent Editors of the text of the New Testament, declining to entertain so much as the possibility that certain copies of the second Gospel had experienced mutilation in very early times in respect of these Twelve concluding [pg 244] Verses, have chosen to occupy themselves rather with conjectures as to how it may have happened that S. Mark's Gospel was without a conclusion from the very first. Persuaded that no more probable account is to be given of the phenomenon than that the Evangelist himself put forth a Gospel which (for some unexplained reason) terminated abruptly at the words ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ (chap. xvi. 8),they have unhappily seen fit to illustrate the liveliness of this conviction of theirs, by presenting the world with his Gospel mutilated in this particular way. Practically, therefore, the question has been reduced to the following single issue:Whether of the two suppositions which follow is the more reasonable:First,That the Gospel according to S. Mark, as it left the hands of its inspired Author, was in this imperfect or unfinished state; ending abruptly at (what we call now) the 8th verse of the last chapter:of which solemn circumstance, at the end of eighteen centuries, Cod. B and Cod. א are the alone surviving Manuscript witnesses?... or,Secondly,That certain copies of S. Mark's Gospel having suffered mutilation in respect of their Twelve concluding Verses in the post-Apostolic age, Cod. B and Cod. א are the only examples of MSS. so mutilated which are known to exist at the present day?I. Editors who adopt the former hypothesis, are observed (a) to sever the Verses in question from their context:462(b) to introduce after ver. 8, the subscription ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΡΚΟΝ:463(c) to shut up verses 9-20 within brackets.464 Regarding them as no integral part of the Gospel465as an authentic anonymous addition to what Mark himself wrote down,466a remarkable Fragment, placed as a completion of the Gospel in very early times;467they consider themselves at liberty to go on to suggest that the Evangelist may have been interrupted in his work: at any rate, [pg 245] that something may have occurred, (as the death of S. Peter,) to cause him to leave it unfinished.468 But the most probable supposition (we are assured) is, that the last leaf of the original Gospel was torn away.469We listen with astonishment; contenting ourselves with modestly suggesting that surely it will be time to conjecture why S. Mark's Gospel was left by its Divinely inspired Author in an unfinished state, when the fact has been established that it probably was so left. In the meantime, we request to be furnished with some evidence of that fact.But not a particle of Evidence is forthcoming. It is not even pretended that any such evidence exists. Instead, we are magisterially informed by the first Biblical Critic in Europe,(I desire to speak of him with gratitude and respect, but S. Mark's Gospel is a vast deal more precious to me than Dr. Tischendorf's reputation,)that a healthy piety reclaims against the endeavours of those who are for palming off as Mark's what the Evangelist is so plainly shewn [where?] to have known nothing at all about.470 In the meanwhile, it is assumed to be a more reasonable supposition,(α) That S. Mark published an imperfect Gospel; and that the Twelve Verses with which his Gospel concludes were the fabrication of a subsequent age; than,(β) That some ancient Scribe having with design or by accident left out these Twelve concluding Verses, copies of the second Gospel so mutilated become multiplied, and in the beginning of the ivth century existed in considerable numbers.And yet it is notorious that very soon after the Apostolic age, liberties precisely of this kind were freely taken with the text of the New Testament. Origen (A.D. 185-254) complains of the licentious tampering with the Scriptures which prevailed in his day. Men add to them, (he says) or leave out,as seems good to themselves.471 Dionysius of Corinth, yet earlier, (A.D. 168-176) remarks that it was no wonder his own writings were added to and taken from, seeing that men presumed to deprave the Word of God [pg 246] in the same manner.472 Irenus, his contemporary, (living within seventy years of S. John's death,) complains of a corrupted Text.473 We are able to go back yet half a century, and the depravations of Holy Writ become avowed and flagrant.474 A competent authority has declared it no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has been ever subjected originated within a hundred years after it was composed.475 Above all, it is demonstrable that Cod. B and Cod. א abound in unwarrantable omissions very like the present;476 omissions which only do not provoke the same amount of attention because they are of less moment. One such extraordinary depravation of the Text, in which they also stand alone among MSS. and to which their patrons are observed to appeal with triumphant complacency, has been already made the subject of distinct investigation. I am much mistaken if it has not been shewn in my VIIth chapter, that the omission of the words ἐν Ἐφέσῳ from Ephes. i. 1, is just as unauthorized,quite as serious a blemish,as the suppression of S. Mark xvi. 9-20.Now, in the face of facts like these, and in the absence of any Evidence whatever to prove that S. Mark's Gospel was imperfect from the first,I submit that an hypothesis so violent and improbable, as well as so wholly uncalled for, is simply undeserving of serious attention. For,(1st.) It is plain from internal considerations that the improbability of the hypothesis is excessive; the contents of these Verses being such as to preclude the supposition that they were the work of a post-Apostolic period. The very difficulties which they present afford the strongest presumption of their genuineness. No fabricator of a supplement to S. Mark's Gospel would have ventured on introducing so many minute seeming discrepancies: and certainly [pg 247] his contemporaries would not have accepted and transmitted such an addition, if he had. It has also been shewn at great length that the Internal Evidence for the genuineness of these Verses is overwhelmingly strong.477 But,(2nd.) Even external Evidence is not wanting. It has been acutely pointed out long since, that the absence of a vast assemblage of various Readings in this place, is, in itself, a convincing argument that we have here to do with no spurious appendage to the Gospel.478 Were this a deservedly suspected passage, it must have shared the fate of all other deservedly (or undeservedly) suspected passages. It never could have come to pass that the various Readings which these Twelve Verses exhibit would be considerably fewer than those which attach to the last twelve verses of any of the other three Gospels.(3rd.) And then surely, if the original Gospel of S. Mark had been such an incomplete work as is feigned, the fact would have been notorious from the first, and must needs have become the subject of general comment.479 It may be regarded as certain that so extraordinary a circumstance would have been largely remarked upon by the Ancients, and that evidence of the fact would have survived in a hundred quarters. It is, I repeat, simply incredible that Tradition would have proved so utterly neglectful of her office as to remain quite silent on such a subject, if the facts had been such as are imagined. Either Papias, or else John the Presbyter,Justin Martyr, or Hegesippus, or one of the Seniores apud Irenum,Clemens Alexandrinus, or Tertullian, or Hippolytus,if not Origen, yet at least Eusebius,if not [pg 248] Eusebius, yet certainly Jerome,some early Writer, I say, must certainly have recorded the tradition that S. Mark's Gospel, as it came from the hands of its inspired author, was an incomplete or unfinished work. The silence of the Ancients, joined to the inherent improbability of the conjecture,(that silence so profound, this improbability so gross!)is enough, I submit, in the entire absence of Evidence on the other side, to establish the very contradictory of the alternative which recent Critics are so strenuous in recommending to our acceptance.(4th.) But on the contrary. We have indirect yet convincing testimony that the oldest copies of all did contain the Verses in question:480 while so far are any of the Writers just now enumerated from recording that these verses were absent from the early copies, that five out of those ten Fathers actually quote, or else refer to the verses in question in a way which shews that in their day they were the recognised termination of S. Mark's Gospel.481

Well, no-one's hustling you. How much time would you like to muster your sources for your claim that "All the accusations against him [Simonides] are lies. He was no forger...";

or for your claim that the Codex Sinaiticus is "not genuine";

or for your claim that "His [Burgon's] argument is that Sinaiticus was a corruption by early gnostics";

or that the R.C.C. once ruled the world "through the Holy Roman Empire";

or that Luther claimed to have read the Talmud himself (that one might conceivably be true, but when challenged you produced not a shred of evidence);

or that the Cathars were "true Christians"?