MARK, THE GOSPEL OF. Papias makes the follow ing statement about the work of Mark : " And this also the elder said : Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately all that he remembered of the things that were either said or done by Christ, but not in their order. For neither did he hear the Lord, nor did he follow Him; but subsequently he attended Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but had uo idea of making a connected narrative of the words of the Lord. So Mark, in thus writing down things just as he remembered them, made no mis take, for he made it his one care to omit none of the things that he heard, and to make no false statement in his record of them." According to this statement, the Apostle Peter was Mark's chief authority; and Justin Martyr even seems to refer to the Gospel of Mark as the Memoirs of Peter. We may, as A. S. Peake says, trust the statement of Papias " to the extent of recognising that reminiscences of Peter do lie behind the Second Gospel. Peter's prominence in it is not to be accounted for simply by the fact that he was the most important member of the apostolic band, for some of the incidents are too trivial to have found their way into a story of Christ's ministry had it not been for the personal interest which they had for Peter." But Mark does not merely reproduce the preaching of Peter. He " has so arranged his material as to reproduce some of the main lines of the historical development." The Gospel of Mark, though it is placed second in order in the New Testa ment, is really the earliest of the Gospels. In approxi mately its present form and compass it lay before the compilers of the First and Third Gospels, and was freely used by them. For discourses and sayings of Jesus they used, in addition, another, more primitive, source, the Logic. " With the exception of three or four incidents the whole matter of St. Mark's Gospel is to be found either in both or in one at least of the other evangelists. And the order in which his incidents are arranged is always attested by one or by the other. It is clear that they were anxious to lose nothing of his work which they could find room to embody; but, on the other hand, they must have recognised in it a serious deficiency, which they on their part were in a position to supply " (J. Armitage Robinson). One of the omissions in the earliest gospel was an account of the birth of Jesus. The pur pose of the Gospel of Mark would seem to be to record simply the main events in the public life of Jesus, his deeds rather than his words. " It omits the longer dis courses, with the exception of certain parables and the great declaration on the End. It leaves even the Sermon on the Mount without report. It gives few parables— only four of the parables proper, together with three of the minor or germ parables. It deals with the acts of Jesus rather than his words. It has many more miracles than parables—no less than eighteen. Most of these are miracles of healing, and most belong to the period before the Transfiguration " (S. D. F. Salmond). All this is
natural enough in the earliest gospel. More importance would be attached to traditions about the birth of Jesus later. What impressed people at first was the fact that Jesus demonstrated the truth of his teaching by curing people of their ailments, intellectual and physical. In the Gospel of Mark great emphasis is laid on the fact that he " cast out devils " (evil thoughts. etc.). In metaphorical language, it is said that " unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, ' Thou art the Son of God.' " The author or the reputed author of the Gospel would seem to have been the person who is described at one time as Mark or Marcus (Acts xv. 39; Col. iv. 10; II. Tim. iv. 11: Philem. 24; I. Pet. v. 13), at another as John (Acts xiii. 5. 131, of another as "John whose surname was Mark " (Acts xii. 25), and again as " John, who was called Mark " (Acts xv. 37). It is thought that he may have been identical with the young man who on the night on which Jesus was betrayed followed him, " having a linen cloth cast about him, over his naked body " (Mark xiv. 51, 52). The writer of the Gospel may have used Aramaic Sources. but the language in which he wrote his own work would seem to have been Greek from the beginning. The style is not that of a translator. The author wrote for Western readers. This is clear from the fact that he carefully interprets Aramaic terms (iii. 17, v. 41, vii. 11, 34, x. 40, xiv. 30. xv. 34), and explains Jewish customs, localities, etc. (vii. 3. 4, 32, xii. 42, xiii. 3, xv. 42). The last few verses of the Gospel (xvi. 9-20) are not part of the original work. An Armenian manuscript, discovered in recent years, speaks of the section as being " of the presbyter Allston." By Ariston seems to be meant Aristion, who, according to Papias, was one of the disciples of the Lord. The Sinaitic MS. and the Sinaitic Syriac VS. close the Gospel with vs. S. So also does the Vatican MS.. though in this case a blank space is left. It is true that the majority of MSS. have the verses, but the authorities for their omission are supported by the language of the passage which " is very different from that of the rest of the Gospel " (Currie Martin), and by the fact that the ninth verse does not connect well with the eighth. It is possible that the original conclusion of the Gospel of Mark is to be found in the last chapter of the Gospel according to John. It should be added that in some MSS. and VSS. the Gospel has in place of xvi. 9-20 a shorter conclusion. But it is clear from the style that this again is not original. See Allan Menzies, The Earliest Gospel, 1901; S. D. F. Salmond, St. Mark in the " Century Bible "; J. Armitage Robinson, The Study of the Gospels, 1903; Oscar Holtzmann, The Life of Jesus, 1904; G. Currie Martin; Arthur S. Peake, Intr.; C. F. Nolloth, The Person of Our Lord and Recent Thought, 1908; F. C. Conybeare, N.T. Grit.