From Anointing to Arrest. Some Observations on the Composition of Mark... 11 annexes, ## (1) and (6), found for (a) in Mark 14:6b-8 and in 14:24b for (c), using 89 + 23 = 112 s., supplement the sayings in the class ‘incipit aliter’, a much larger body with a size of 500 s., to 500 + 112 = 612 or 4 x 153 s. 8.1.2 The function of 153 s. as a basic factor is also evident in another way. As Chart 1 indicates, the size of Jesus’ words in the first few paragraphs of our section (Mark 14:1-16) amounts to 250 s. The closing scene, v. 43-52, where Judas is again among the main actors, supplements these 250 s. with 56 s. (in Mark 14:48b-49), resulting in 306 s. for the two outer scenes, which we shall call, for a moment, parts I and IV. In the middle sections, v. 17-25 and v. 26-42, or II and III, the size of Jesus’ words - as one infers more easily from Chart 2 - is 105 + 85 + 85 + 184 or 190 + 269 = 459 s. Clearly, the outer and inner sections share the aliquot part of 153 s.: in I and IV the D(iscourse) of Jesus uses 306 = 2 x 153 s., in II and III the size is 459 = 3 x 153 s. In a formula, with y representing 153 s., 5y is distributed as 2y + 3y. The choice of this basic factor was certainly well considered and possibly full of meaning to the scholar who shaped the text of this section of Mark 14. And because to the ancient mind the number 153 is an equilateral triangle with a side of seventeen units, the use of seventeen syllables as an aliquot part, as described in our § 7.2, is probably a direct and self-evident consequence of this choice. 8.2 As noted before, the Amen-sayings with their annexes use 265, that is 5 x 53 syllables. These are distributed over the four Amen-sayings in an obviously deliberate way. In (a) plus annex and (b) the count is (89 + 46) + 24 = 159 s. that is 3 x 53 s.; for (c) plus annex and (d) we find (23 + 51) + 32 = 106 s., which is 2 x 53 s. In other words, 5 x 53 is divided, for all to see, in (3 x 53) + (2 x 53) - quite similar to what was found in § 8.1 for the use of the basic factor 153, 2y + 3y = 5y. So we come to a conclusion concerning the inherent logic, or part of it, of the design that our Chart 1 reflects. It is as simple as this: the sum-total of 765, or 5 x 153 s., is equal to 5 x 53 s. (in the Amen-sayings, including the annexes) plus 5 x 100 = 500 s. in the other class of Jesus’ sayings. 8.3 Before the main break in the narrative at Mark 14:31/32, where the Gethsemane episode starts, Jesus speaks one more time: saying # 7 out of a series of fourteen. Like the Amen-sayings, and unlike the other sayings, it is a prophecy, and here, in Mark 14:27b-28, the size of his words is 53 s. (see above, § 7.2 under ς’: a quotation of 19 s. framed by 34 s. results in a pronouncement of 53 s.). In the context of the Amen-sayings, carefully phrased and arranged as (3 + 2) x 53 s., this also would seem to be conscious and deliberate, and one wonders: are we supposed to add this unit of 53 s. to the five times 53 s., and consequently, to think of six times 53, which is 318?