According to the dates now commonly assigned to these Gospels Mark was composed before the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 7o but not before A.D. 6o, Luke and Matthew after the fall but not later than A.D. 80. But if Harnack is right in the view he still (1928) holds with conviction that the Acts of the Apostles was completed before the death of Paul, then Luke's Gospel would fall early in the '6os and Mark's would be earlier still. And if Streeter's theory referred to in the foregoing paragraph proved to be correct, the occasion for Luke's collecting of the earliest draft of his Gospel would be found in his visit to Caesarea about A.D. 43.
According to a tradition which has very early authority Mark acted as attendant to Peter and also as his interpreter; and much if not all of his material was derived from the accounts which Peter was in the habit of giving of the life and death and resurrec tion of Jesus. His Gospel was probably written at Rome and primarily for the benefit of Gentile Christians. Taking Mark as a witness to the interest of such an audience we should infer that it was strongly directed to Jesus as a healer, as one who had power over demons, power from which it could be concluded that He had overcome the prince of the demons; to Jesus as a teacher who neglected no opportunity of teaching, and was eagerly lis tened to whether by the crowds or by the inner circle of disciples; to Jesus as the embodiment of a Gospel, great and good news, the acceptance of which or of whom transformed life by setting it in the key of faith in God and assured hope of His Kingdom; to Jesus as standing to God in the relation of Son to the Father, and prescribing the destiny of men in terms of their relation to Him self. (The opinion that Mark bears evidence of having been influenced by Pauline thought and teaching has been shown to be groundless, M. Werner, 1923.) The Gospel of Matthew, written primarily for such Christians as like himself were of Jewish origin, reflects something of their national consciousness and particularly their interest in Jesus as the Messiah of the Jews. Long before his time pious research and even pious imagination had been at work on the Old Testament collecting all the phrases which bore or could be made to bear on the figure and the experiences of the Messiah. And Matthew's delight is to discover either in the Old Testament itself or in some such collection language which illustrates and confirms the belief that in Jesus had been found the Hope of Israel. It is natural
that he should conceive of the teaching of Jesus as a new law, and bring out the contrast between the new law and the old ; that his interest in this aspect of the teaching should lead him to group into connected instructions utterances which properly belonged to various occasions; that modifications which he introduces should be suggested by his interest in the Church's task of evangelization or by the internal problems of the Church itself ; that on occasion he has modified a narrative in order to adjust it to a prophecy. His outlook on the future is sombre ; he elaborates the eschatological element in the teaching of Jesus, to whose Person an increasing majesty is attached, even as His function as Judge is emphasized. "Matthew conceives Christianity as the fulfilment of Judaism ;" the divine Lawgiver who has fully revealed the word of God is the Jesus whom the Jews rejected and crucified. He cometh quickly to judgment.
The interests reflected in Luke's Gospels are less those of his audience or of the school to which he belongs than his own per sonal ones. He is a Gentile, free from all trace of Jewish nation alism, interested in men as men, in the perennial problem of rich and poor, emphasizing at once the drastic demands of the Gospel and the universality of the appeal made by Jesus, His personal contacts with individual men and women, the occasions of social intercourse, and the infinite graciousness and tenderness of the Master. "If Matthew is the Gospel of judgment, Luke is the Gospel of mercy. If there is something of pessimism in Matthew, Luke is full of hope." The influence of these several interests by which the Evangel ists were moved is seen alike in their selection of material and in their handling of it, oftentimes in quite subtle modulations of their sources. And it is this rather than any special dogmatic purpose, still less any "deliberate falsification or conscious idealization" which accounts for the differences between the Gospels, and ex plains how it is that though we have three portraits distinguishable from one another we feel them all to be portraits of the same Person.