"THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK"

Its Author. — The testimony of the early Fathers, so far as it has reached us, unanimously ascribes the second Gospel. to St. Mark; but with equal. unanimity they connect it with the preaching of the Apostle Peter. The earliest witness is Papias, the bishop already referred to, who makes the following statement on the authority of John, a contemporary of the apostles if not the apostle of that name. " And this also the elder said: Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote accurately all. that he remembered of the things that were either said or done by Christ; but, however, not in order. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed Him; but subsequently, as I said, attached himself to Peter, who used to frame his teaching to meet the immediate wants of his hearers, but not as making a connected narrative of our Lord's discourses. So Mark committed no error in thus writing down particulars just as he remembered them; for he took heed to one thing, to omit none of the things that he had heard, and to state nothing falsely in his narrative of them."

So little doubt seems to have been entertained regarding the Petrine authorship of this Gospel. that we find Justin Martyr apparently referring to it as the Memoirs of Peter. According to Irenaeus, it was written by Mark at Rome after the death of Peter and Paul.; while Clement of Alexandria, writing about the same time, affirms, on the tradition of a long line of presbyters, that St. Mark wrote at the request of Peter's hearers at Rome, without any interference on the part of Peter himself.

Regarding the history of the Mark thus referred to, and his relations with the Apostle Peter, we derive information from Scripture which is fitted to corroborate in a great measure the ancient tradition. There can be no doubt that we are to identify him with the John Mark mentioned in Acts xii. 12, whose mother Mary was an influential member of the Church at Jerusalem — her house being the place where prayer was made for Peter by the brethren during his imprisonment, and where he himself repaired immediately after his liberation. It is an interesting conjecture that this house may have been the scene of the Last Supper and of the Pentecostal effusion of the Holy Spirit. It has also been suggested that the "young man" referred to in Mark's Gospel, in connection with the arrest in the garden, may have been none other than the author of the book, who was thus led to record an incident which to others would have appeared insignificant (xiv, 51). Mark's intimacy with Peter at a later time is evident from I Peter v. 13. From the designation which Peter there applies to him ("my son"), we may infer that he was one of that apostle's converts. It would appear that at the time the epistle was written he was residing with Peter in Babylon (which was then, and continued to be for long afterwards, a famous seat of Jewish learning); but there is reason to believe that in that passage Babylon is only another name for Rome (p. 134). Previous to his association with Peter in apostolic work abroad, Mark had accompanied Paul and Barnabas as their "minister" or assistant, but had withdrawn from the work (Acts xiii. 5, 13). After an interval of some years, he rejoined his cousin Barnabas, whose willingness to receive him again as a colleague was so displeasing to Paul that he parted company with Barnabas on this account (Acts xv. 37-39). At a later period we find him again enjoying Paul's confidence, during the imprisonment of the latter at Rome; for the apostle refers to him as cue of his "fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God," who had been a "comfort" to him (Col. iv. 10-11; Philemon ver. 24). Still later, we find Paul, in his Second Epistle to Timothy (iv. 11), requesting that evangelist to bring Mark with him, because he was "useful to him for ministering." This is the last time we hear of Mark in Scripture; but according to tradition he went again to Rome, and after the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, left that city and went to Alexandria, where he founded a famous catechetical school, and afterwards died a martyr's death.

Turning now to internal evidence, we find strong confirmation of the traditional account. The book may be described as very much an expansion or development of the brief statement made by Peter in his address to Cornelius the centurion (Acts x. 36-42). It also follows closely the line of apostolic testimony which Peter had himself marked out immediately after the Ascension (Acts i. 22). The whole tone of the book reflects Peter's energetic, impulsive, unconventional character. Its rapid transition from one incident to another— of which we have a striking illustration in the fact that the Greek word variously translated "straightway," "immediately," "forthwith," etc, occurs in it no lest than forty-one times; its practical matter-of-fact tone" illustrated by the fact that while it records eighteen miracles it contains only four parables, and twice represents the Lord and His disciples as having their hands so full of work that "they could not so much as eat bread " (iii. 20; vi. 31); its vivid description of the excitement occasioned by Christ's ministry, and of the profound impression made on those who heard and saw Him, which would be a subject congenial to Peter's enthusiastic nature (i. 27; ii. 2, 12; vi. 33, etc.); its omission of some things redounding to Peter's credit, e.g. his designation as the rock on which the Church was to be built (viii. 29, 30; cf. Matt. xvi. 16-19), and the insertion of other things fitted to humble him, such as the rebuke he received when he would have dissuaded Jesus from submitting to His appointed sufferings (vii. 33), and the warning he received by the first crowing of the cock (xiv. 30, 68-72), as well as the introduction of details which would be likely to dwell in Peter's memory (i. 36; xi. 21; xvi. 7) — all these things lend a high degree of probability to the traditional account of Peter's connection with this Gospel. As regards that part of the tradition which represents the Gospel as having been written at Rome for the Christians there, we find confirmation of it in the connection of Mark with Rome already referred to, and in his Roman name "Marcus," which gradually superseded the Hebrew "John"; in the absence of the Hebrew genealogy of our Lord; in the explanation of Jewish words, e.g. Boanerges (iii. 17), Talitha cumi(v. 41), Corban(vii. Il), Ephphatha (vii. 34), Abba (xiv. 36), and of Jewish customs, e.g. the washing of hands (vii. 3, 4) and Passover observances (xiv. 1 2; xv. 42); in the frequent use of Latin words and idioms, e.g. "legion," "centurion," "quadrantes" — the Roman equivalent to two Jewish mites — (xii. 42); and very specially in the mention of Alexander and Rufus (xv. 21), if the latter be, as seems very probable, the same person as is referred to by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans xvi. 13.

Its Date. — With regard to the date of the Gospel w« may conclude that it was written between 64 A.D. and 68 A.D. — the latter being the year of Nero's death, in whose reign Peter and Paul are believed to have suffered martyrdom.

Its Character and Contents. — If the first Gospel may be described as Messianic, the second may be fitly styled realistic, bearing traces throughout of the graphic report of an eyewitness.

It is minute and circumstantial, giving many details of person, number, place, and time that are not to be found in the other Gospels (xiii. 3; vi 7; xii. 41 i. 35). It gives a vivid description of the emotions, looks, gestures, and actions of our Lord and others (iii. 5, 34; vii. 33; viii. 33; ix. 36; x. 32, etc.) It brings out the picturesque character of many of the scenes enacted in our Lord's ministry, e.g. in the narrative of the Feeding of the five thousand (vi. 35-44) this Gospel "alone tells us of the fresh green grass on which they sat down by hundreds and by fifties j and the word used for ' companies ' means literally ' flower-beds,* as though to St. Peter those multitudes, in their festal passover attire with its many-coloured Oriental brightness of red and blue, looked like the patches of crocus and poppy and tulip and amaryllis which he had seen upon the mountain slopes." In keeping with this is the photographic character of its account of the Transfiguration¹ (ix.) and of the Storm on the Sea of Gennesaret (iv. 35-41). It also frequently reproduces the very words of Jesus (iv. 39; vi. 31; of. Matt. viii. 26) and of others (vi. 22-25), using the term "Rabbi," or teacher ("Master"), as the earlier mode of addressing Jesus, where the other evangelists prefer " Lord " (iv. 38; ix. 5; x. 51; cf. Matt. viii. 25; xvii. 4; xx. 30-33), and narrates events in the present tense as if they were just taking place (i. 40; xiv. 43).

Altogether, it is a simple, direct, forcible narrative, and gives the general outline of our Lord's ministry in a clearer form than either the Gospel of Matthew or Luke. It sets Him before us as He worked and taught in the living present, making no mention of the law, and scarcely ever quoting prophecy, but aiming simply to depict Him in that aspect of energetic and victorious strength which was fitted to impress the Roman mind, and which is foreshadowed by the opening words, " The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God."

The following are the passages peculiar to Mark's Gospel:—

The alarm of Jesus' family (iii. 21).

The seed growing secretly (iv. 36-29).

The healing of one deaf and dumb (vii. 32-37).

The gradual healing of the blind man (viii. 22-26).

The exhortation to watch (xiii. 33-37).

The flight of the young man (xiv. 51-52).

Certain details about the Lord's Resurrection (xvi. 6-11).

In this connection it may be well to recall the fact that while Mark's Gospel has a larger proportion of common matter than any of the others — amounting to no less than 93 per cent of its whole contents — this is probably due, not to its having borrowed from the others, but to its more strict adherence to the original cycle of oral teaching (pp. 8-10).

Note. — Verses 9-20 in the last chapter are absent from some ancient MSS. (see marginal note, R.V.) The verses referred to differ greatly in style and language from the rest of the book, and on this account it has been supposed that they were added by a later hand, probably within a few years after the publication of the Gospel.

1) Raffaelle is mainly indebted to this Gospel for the details of his great picture.