MARK, GOSPEL OF (ante), was received in the earliest times by the Christian churches as canonical, and as the work of Mark, under the guidance af the apostle Peter. The first written declaration to the effect, n'ow extant, is recorded by Eusebius as quoted by Papias from John the prcsbyter, who probably was contemporary with John the apostle. " Mark having become Peter's interpreter wrote accurately all that he remembered, but did not record the words and deeds of Christ in orde,r; for he was neither a hearer nor a follower of our Lord, but afterwards, as I said, became a follower of Peter, who used to adapt his instruction to the requirements of bis hearers, but not its making a con nected arrangement of our Lord's discourses; Mark, therefore, committed no error iu writing down particulars as he remembered them, for lie made one thing his object--to omit nothing of what he heard and to make no erroneous statement." Without com mitting ourselves to all the details of this statement, two facts we may consider as estab lished by it: first, that Mark's gospel was in general use among the churches at the close of the 1st c.; and second, that in writing it Ile was in a greater or less degree under Peter's guidance, so that the second gospel may be regarded as having received his sanction to the same extent, at least, that the third was approved by Paul. While nearly all the facts which it records are given also in one or more of the other gospels, Mark's shorter gospel abounds in word-painting and precise descriptions which imply that at some stage of the narrative an eye-witness bad furnished the writer with particulars which otherwise he could not have known. In one instance, while Matthew says Jesus " stretched forth his hand towards his disciples," Mark's description is, "Looking around on the circle of those who were seated about him." Where Matthew says, " turned and said unto Peter," Mark's amnia- is, " Whea he Jit.,1 turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter." In the account which three evangelists give of the rich young man who came to Jesus, only Mark adds, "Jesus looking earnestly on him loved him." In narrating the healing of the withered hand on the Sabbath day, while Luke says, "Looking around on them all," Mark says, "Looking around on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts." :Matthew describes the demoniacs of Gadara
as "exceeding fierce, so that no man could pass by the way:" Luke says of one of them that " often thnes the spirit had caught him, and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters, and he brake the bands and was driven by the demon into the wilderness." Mark's account is the most picturesque of all, "No man could bind him, no, not with chains; because that Ile had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked as,under by him, and the fetters broken in pieces; neither was any man strong enough to restrain him; and always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones." Matthew and John were eye-witnesses. and had personal knowledge iu other ways, of what they narrate; Luke's narrative in sorne parts gives information that he had probably obtained from Mary and from his torical records; and when Mark relates so many particulars which imply the presence of an eye-witness froin the beginning, the testimony of the early church is confirmed that that eye witness was Peter. In two instances, the probability rises almost to cer tainty: while Matthew gives Peter's confession ill full, "Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God," followed by the benediction which it drew from Jesus, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, who is in heaven," and by the remarkable promises as well as stern rebuke to which we can here only refer, Mark gives the confession only in the briefest form, " Thou art the Christ," and, omitting all intimation of benediction and promises, records the rebuke in its full force. Again, while the other gospels all speak in general terms of the cock-crowing in connection with Peter's denial, Mark specifies the crowing twice, both in the Savior's prediction and in the progress of the denial itself. In both these instances we seem warranted in saying that it was Peter, who dictated in the narrative these striking discriminations against himself.