iii. A further observation is to be noted, which not only confirms the above, but serves to determine the place where the excision was made to have been at the very _end_ of the Gospel. The last of the four lines of the sixth and last column of St. Mark (the second column of leaf 29 _r__o_) contains only the five letters { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} ([{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}]{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}), and has the rest of the space (more than half the width of the column) filled up with a minute and elaborate ornament executed with the pen in ink and vermilion, the like of which is nowhere else found in the MS., or in the New Testament part of B, such spaces being invariably left unfilled(629). And not only so, but underneath, the usual "arabesque" above the subscription, marking the conclusion of the text, has its horizontal arm extended all the way across the width of the column,--and not, as always elsewhere, but halfway or less(630). It seems hardly possible to regard these carefully executed works of the pen of the _diorthota_ otherwise than as precautions to guard against the possible restoration, by a subsequent reviser, of a portion of text deliberately omitted by him (the _diorthota_) from _the end_ of the Gospel. They are evidence therefore that he knew of a conclusion to the Gospel which he designedly expunged, and endeavoured to make it difficult for any one else to reinsert.
We have, therefore, good reason to believe that the disputed Twelve Verses were not only in an exemplar known to the scribe of B, but also in the exemplar used by the scribe of { ~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~}; and that their omission (or, more properly, disappearance) from these two MSS. is due to one and the same person--the scribe, namely, who wrote B and who revised { ~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~},--or rather, perhaps, to an editor by whose directions he acted.