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Chapter
XV.—The Gospel according to
Mark.
1. And
thus when the divine word had made its home among them,387
387 The origin of the Church at Rome is shrouded in mystery. Eusebius
gives the tradition which rules in the Catholic Church, viz.: that
Christianity was introduced into Rome by Peter, who went there during
the reign of Claudius. But this tradition is sufficiently disproved by
history. The origin of the Church was due to unknown persons, though it
is possible we may obtain a hint of them in the Andronicus and Junta
of Romans xvi. 7, who are mentioned as
apostles, and who were therefore, according to the usage of the word in
Paul’s writings, persons that introduced Christianity into a new
place—missionaries proper, who did not work on others’
ground. | the power of Simon was quenched and
immediately destroyed, together with the man himself.388
388 See chap. 12, note 9, and chap. 14, note 8. | And so greatly did the splendor of
piety illumine the minds of Peter’s hearers that they were not
satisfied with hearing once only, and were not content with the
unwritten teaching of the divine Gospel, but with all sorts of
entreaties they besought Mark,389 a follower of
Peter, and the one whose Gospel is extant, that he would leave them a
written monument of the doctrine which had been orally communicated to
them. Nor did they cease until they had prevailed with the man, and had
thus become the occasion of the written Gospel which bears the name of
Mark.390
390 That
Mark wrote the second Gospel under the influence of Peter, or as a
record of what he had heard from him, is the universal tradition of
antiquity. Papias, in the famous and much-disputed passage (quoted by
Eusebius, III. 39, below), is the first to record the tradition. Justin
Martyr refers to Mark’s Gospel under the name “Memoirs
(ἀπομνημονεύματα) of Peter” (Dial. c. Tryph. 106; the
translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Am. Ed. Vol. I. p. 252,
which refers the αὐτοῦ to
Christ, is incorrect; compare Weiss, N. T. Einleitung, p. 44,
note 4). Irenæus (Adv. Hær. III. 11. 1, quoted below,
V. 8. 2), Tertullian (Adv. Marcionem, IV. 5), and Origen (quoted
below, VI. 25) confirm the tradition, which is repeated over and over
again by the Fathers.
The question as to the
real authorship of our second Gospel, or rather as to its composition
and its relation to Matthew and Luke, is a very difficult one. The
relationship of the three synoptical Gospels was first discussed by
Augustine (De Consensu Evangelistarum), who defended the
traditional order, but made Mark dependent upon Matthew. This view
prevailed until the beginning of the present century, when the problem
was attacked anew, and since then it has been the crux of the literary
criticism of the Bible. The three have been held to be dependent upon
each other, and every possible order has found its advocates; a common
source has been assumed for the three: the Hebrew Matthew, the
Gospel according to the Hebrews (see Bk. III. chap. 25, note
24), our canonical Gospel of Mark, or an original Mark, resembling the
present one; a number of fragmentary documents have been assumed; while
others, finally, have admitted only oral tradition as the basis.
According to Baur’s tendency theory, Matthew (polemically
Jewish-Christian) came first, followed by an original Luke (polemically
Pauline-Christian), then by our Mark, which was based upon both and
written in the interest of neutrality, and lastly by our present Luke,
designed as a final irenicum. This view now finds few advocates. The
whole matter is still unsettled, but criticism seems to be gradually
converging toward a common ground type (or rather two independent
types) for all three while at the same time maintaining the relative
independence of the three, one toward the other. What these ground
types were, is a matter of still sharper dispute, although criticism is
gradually drawing their larger features with more and more certainty
and clearness. (The latest discussion upon the subject by Handmann,
das Hebräer-Evangelium, makes the two types the
“Ur-Marcus” and the Gospel of the Hebrews.) That in the
last analysis, however, some space must still be left for floating
tradition, or for documents irreducible to the one or two types, seems
absolutely certain. For further information as to the state of
discussion upon this intricate problem, see among recent works,
especially Weiss, Einleitung, p. 473 sqq., Holtzmann,
Einleitung, p. 328 sqq., and Schaff, Ch. Hist. I. 575
sqq., where the literature down to 1882 is given with great fullness.
Conservative opinion puts the composition of all the synoptic Gospels
before the destruction of Jerusalem (for the date of Luke, see III. 4,
note 12); but the critical school, while throwing the original type
back of that date, considers the composition of our present Gospels to
have been the gradual work of years, assuming that they were not
finally crystallized into the form in which we have them before the
second century. |
2. And they say that Peter when
he had learned, through a revelation of the Spirit, of that which had
been done, was pleased with the zeal of the men, and that the work
obtained the sanction of his authority for the purpose of being used in
the churches.391
391 This
mention of the “pleasure” of Peter, and the
“authority” given by him to the work of Mark, contradicts
the account of Clement to which Eusebius here appeals as his authority.
In Bk. VI. chap. 14 he quotes from the Hypotyposes of Clement, a
passage which must be identical with the one referred to in this place,
for it is from the same work and the general account is the same; but
there Clement says expressly, “which when Peter understood he
neither directly hindered nor encouraged it.” | Clement in the eighth book of his
Hypotyposes gives this account, and with him agrees the bishop of
Hierapolis named Papias.392
392 The
passage from Papias is quoted below in Bk. III. chap. 39. Papias is a
witness to the general fact that Mark wrote down what he had heard from
Peter, but not (so far as he is extant) to the details of the account
as given by Eusebius. Upon Papias himself, see Bk. III. chap.
39. | And Peter makes
mention of Mark in his first epistle which they say that he wrote in
Rome itself, as is indicated by him, when he calls the city, by a
figure, Babylon, as he does in the following words: “The church
that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so
doth Marcus my son.”393
393 1 Pet. v. 13. Commentators are
divided as to the place in which Peter wrote this epistle (compare
Schaff’s Church Hist. I. p. 744 sqq.). The interpretation
given by Eusebius is the patristic and Roman Catholic opinion, and is
maintained by many Protestant commentators. But on the other hand the
literal use of the word “Babylon” is defended by a great
number of the leading scholars of the present day. Compare Weiss, N.
T. Einleitung, p. 433, note 1. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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