Commentators usually regard Mark iv. 1–34 as a composite structure based upon a pre-Markan complex, possibly a parable-source. Mark is said to have expanded this source, chiefly by the insertion of extra-traditional material at vv. 11f. and 21–5. Smaller additions and emendations of a more specifically editorial nature are also thought to occur in passages like iv. I a, 10, 13b, 33 and 34.

I will not repeat the technical description of the two Coptic codices now at the University of Mississippi, since that was done two years ago in Oslo by my colleague, Professor William Willis, and summarized in the Journal of Biblical Literature (LXXVIII, part I, March 1959, 15 f.) by Professor Bruce Metzger of the Princeton Theological Seminary. I am interested only in their content and significance.

Although many studies have been published of the history and influence of Codex Bezae, textual critics have hitherto overlooked the contribution which it made to one of the most noteworthy of the earlier English versions of the Bible. This was the sixteenth-century translation prepared by a group of English exiles who had fled to the Continent in order to escape the persecution of Queen Mary Tudor, sometimes referred to as ‘Bloody’ Mary.

The authorship and date of the Book of Revelation have been the subject of much scholarly debate. Additional information from recently published Coptic Gnostic texts will contribute to the final resolution of the debate.

The Gnostic Apocrphon of John, used by Irenaeus as a source in his Adv. Haer., has been known since 1896.