Irenaeus explicitly quotes Mark 16:19 in Book 3 of
Against Heresies (in
chapter 10, paragraph 5), stating, “Also, towards the conclusion of his Gospel, Mark says:
‘So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God.’”
1868
https://books.google.com/books?id=S8YUAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA287
This portion of
Against Heresies in extant only in Latin (as “
In fine autem euangelii ait Marcus: Et quidem Dominus Iesus, postquam locutus est eis, receptus est in caelos, et sedet ad dexteram Dei.”
Dr. Craig Evans, in 2013, claimed (in the
Holman Apologetics Commentary) that “it is far from certain that Irenaeus, writing c. 180, was acquainted with Mark’s so-called Longer Ending,” apparently imagining that the Latin translator of
Against Heresies “may have incorporated this verse from much later manuscripts.” Dr. Evans is wrong. In real life, not only is there no evidence that the Latin translation of Book 3 has been interpolated at this point, but there is clear evidence against the idea. Irenaeus’ use of Mark 16:19 in Book 3 of
Against Heresies is mentioned in Greek in a marginal notation that appears in several copies of the Gospel of Mark, including GA 1582,
72, and the recently catalogued 2954.
Page-views of GA 1582 and GA
72 are online. GA 1582 is a core representative of family 1 (which would be better-named “family 1582”), a small cluster of MSS which can be traced back an ancestor-MS made in the 400s. The margin-note says, “Irenaeus, who lived near the time of the apostles, cites this from Mark in the third book of his work
Against Heresies.” (In Greek: Ειρηναιος ο των αποστόλων πλησίον εν τω προς τας αιρέσεις Τριτωι λόγωι τουτο ανήνεγκεν το ρητον ως Μάρκω ειρημένον.) Thus there should be no doubt that the Greek text of
Against Heresies Book 3 known to the creator of this margin-note contained the reference to Mark 16:19. Dr. Craig Evans is invited to retract his statement.
The copy of Mark used by Irenaeus in Lyon, had it survived, would have been older than Codex Vaticanus by a minimum of 125 years. In addition, Irenaeus was familiar with the text of Mark used in three locales – Asia Minor, Lyons, and Rome (the city where the Gospel of Mark was composed); yet, although he comments on a textual variant in Revelation 13:18 (in
Against Heresies Book 5, ch. 29-30) - a passage from a book written a few decades before Irenaeus was born - he never expresses any doubt whatsoever about Mark 16:19. It may be safely concluded that Irenaeus knew of no other form of the Gospel of Mark except one that contained Mark 1:1-16:20.