28 Joost Smit Sibinga Mark 14:48-49a: 12 + « 21 + 25 = 58 49b: 10 » = 10 50-52: 11 + 32 + 15 = 58 | 126 syllables The balance is achieved with perfect precision and both N(arrative) and D(iscourse) contribute to it. It seems the spoken part of the text and the narrative were written the way we read them now in one and the same act - not an act of ‘piecing together’ materials from different sources, but a conscious, careful, patient and rather sophisticated literary process at the hand of an accomplished author. One is tempted to quote Philo: οὐδὲν ... λεχθὲν παρέργως εὑρήσεις, ‘you will find that nothing is said in a careless, off-hand way’.53 Anyway, the symmetrical arrangement of the context of the final phrase of Jesus’ last words spoken in public, concerning the fulfilment of ‘the scriptures’ would seem to add to its weight and significance. 14.1 The reader has already noticed that our analysis of Mark’s story of the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane did not start from the story’s inadequacies or complexities as perceived by modern scholars54 or from a supposed ability on our part to distinguish in a valid way between earlier and later elements of the text. Nor did we pay attention to historical considerations concerning what may or may not have happened at this particular occasion.55 Rather, we have assumed (a) that the modern critical edition we are using offers a text close to the archetypus of the available textual tradition; (b) that, as we have it, this narrative did in its own way make sense and still has a certain logic and consistency of its 53 Legum Allegoriae III.147; see C.F.D. Moule, ‘Fulfilment-words in the New Testament. Use and Abuse’ (1968) in idem, Essays in New Testament Interpretation, Cambridge &c.: U.P., 1982, p. 33. 54 See, e.g., G. Schneider, ‘Die Verhaftung Jesu. Traditionsgeschichte von Mk 14,43-52’, ZNW 63 (1972) 188-209, reprinted in: idem, Jesusüberlieferung & Christologie (NovTS 67), Leiden: Brill, 1992, p. 237-257, see p. 239-241: ‘Einwände gegen die Einheitlichkeit des 43-52 Gesamttextes Mk 14 ’. 55 R. Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1921, p. 162-163 (and ²1931, p. 289-290) stated that Mark 14:44-45, being ‘legendarisch gefärbt’ was no part of Mark’s source and that v. 48-49, also inspired by ‘Ge- meindeapologetik und -dogmatik’, must have replaced something original. His statements are still echoed in recent literature. See, e.g., D. Dormeyer, ‘Joh18.1-14 Par. Mk 14:43-53’ (above, note 40) p. 228 (earlier, Dormeyer attributed eleven small segments of the text of Mark 14:43-52 to three different stages of its (pre)history: Die Passion Jesu als Verhal- tensmodell (NtlAbh, NF, 11), Münster: Aschendorf, 1974, p. 145) and A. Yarbro Collins, Mark. A Commentary (above, note 13), p. 686-687. M. Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums, Tübingen: Mohr, ³1959 [= ²1933], p. 205-206, studied the passage from the point of view of its ‘Geschichtlichkeit’ and concluded - with many others - that it originated with the eyewitness who figures in Mark 14:51-52.