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on people and on disciples by His wonderful works (02 215 78. 6[0.}.
Yet this is not due to any neglect of His true humanity. It is a remarkable fact that, while this Gospel depicts the Jesus of history so pre- eminently in His power, it records with literal faithfulness things which might seem so far to limit that power. It tells us how the unclean spirits first resisted (174); and how He could ‘do no mighty work’ in Nazareth (6°). It describes with precise and vivid circumstance those miracles which were wrought not instantaneously and by word, but with comparative slowness and by the use of means (78148 82-6), ΤΌ is also rich in touches which speak to the identity of Christ’s human nature with ours in feeling and in the experience of infirmity, revealing Him not only in His com- passion (6% 82), His love (1074), His majesty and serenity (45749 92-9 ete.), but in His sense of hunger (112), His need of rest (4%), His anger and dis- pleasure (3° 104), His sighing (7 815), His wonder (65), His grief (3°), His longing for solitude (1% 630-32 etc.).
The peculiar place which the disciples have in this Gospel has also been noticed. They have a large place in all the Gospels, and much of each of the Gospels is given to the description of how the apos- tles were taught and trained by their Lord. But Mark appears to dwell with a special interest on all that belongs to the disciples—their intercourse with Christ, the way in which they became first attached to Him, the deepening of that attachment, the choice of Twelve trom among them, the experience of the elect three, the things said and done by Christ with a particular reference to His immediate followers. So much is this the case that some would speak of it as distinctively the ‘ Disciple Gos- pel’ (Weiss).
It has also been claimed for Mark that his is the chronological Gospel. But this is true only in a very qualified sense. His narrative is no more a history than are those of the companion Gospels, nor does it give events in strict chronological succes- sion. ‘There is at the same time a difference be- tween Mark and his comrades in this respect as in others. Mark observes a certain order of a large kind in his report of Christ’s teaching and in his account of His ministry. While he omits much, he gives what he includes in a certain connexion and sequence. The order which he exhibits, how- ever, seems to be that in which facts came to him in the communications of his chief informant rather than that of actual occurrence. He does not follow the method of grouping words and events to the extent seen in Matthew, nor does he attempt the literary arrangement of the matter, as we observe it so far in Luke. It is by taking Mark’s narrative, however, as the framework and adding to it from the other Gospels that we appear to come nearest the actual succession of events. His narrative, though not strictly chronological and by no means devoid of dislocations, is more continuous than those of the other Synoptists.
vii. HISTORICAL ATTESTATION.—The historical testimony to the early circulation and acceptance of this Gospel is sufficient. It is seantier, however, at the earliest point than might have been expected. There is scarcely any mention of the second Gospel in the Apostolic Fathers. In Clement of Rome there is one saying which looks like a reminiscence of Mk 42-2 (1 Cor. 23), but it may come from another source. ‘There are also two quotations (1 Cor. 15. 46) which are much in Mark’s style. But they are scarcely suflicient to establish the fact of Clement’s acquaintance with this Gospel (cf. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, pt. i. in loc.). Nor is there anything in Ignatius, Polycarp, or Barnabas to point certainly to the existence of the written
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Gospel, although some find references to Mk 16!4 in Barnabas, ὁ. xv. 9, and to Mark 985 in Polycarp,
Philipp. v. Much the same is the case with the Didaché, the Epistle to Diognetus, the Martyrium Polyearpi, the so-called Second Clement. Nor is there any quotation from this Gospel, or reminis- cence of it, in the fragments of Papias, although there is much about Mark and his writing (Euseb. HE iii. 39, etc.).
It is perhaps somewhat different with Hermas, in whom we have one or two sayings which reniind us of expressions peculiar to this Gospel. ‘Thus ἔνοχος ἔσῃ τῆς ἁμαρτίας in Mand. ii. 2 recalls Mk 3%; and the sentence τοιοῦτοι οὖν δυσκόλως εἰσελεύσονται εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ . . . τοῖς τοιούτοις δύσκολόν ἐστιν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ εἰσελθεῖν points to the form in which Christ’s declaratior on riches appears in Mk (10%-24) as distinguished from Mt and Lk. In Justin Martyr, again, there are several passages which have been thought to indicate an acquaintance with the second Gospel, e.g. Dial. 88 and Apol. i. ο. 16, as compared with Mk 63 12%; Dial. 106; also Apol. i. ce. 39, 45, 49, 50, and Dial. 32 as recalling perhaps Mk 161”, The most relevant of these are Dial. 88, where we have the phrase τέκτονος νομιζομένου applied to Christ, as Mark alone of the evangelists designates Him so; and Dial. 106, where mention is made of certain ἀπομνημονεύματα Or Memoirs appar- ently of Peter, and the words Boavepyés, ὅ ἐστιν viol βροντῆς are given. ‘These words occur in Mk alone of the Canonical Gospels, and there seems little reason for supposing (e.g. with Har- nack, Bruchstiicke ἃ. Εν. d. Petrus, Ὁ. 37, ete.) that they are taken from the Apocryphal Gospel of Peter rather than from Mark.