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255 726 810 etc., are supposed to betray the secondary character of Mark. But it is entirely to misunder- stand these to speak of them as ‘unimportant, prosaic, unsuitable, and trifling’ (S$. Davidson, Intr. to NT, i. 494).
Opinion, however, has gone more and more in the other direction. ‘The independence and priority of Mk have been accepted by some (e.g. Ritschl) who originally held the other view; and scholars of different tendencies (Weisse, Wilke, Lachmann, Reuss, ‘Thiersch, Ewald, Volkmar, Holtzmann, Schenkel, Weizsacker, Weiss, Meyer, ete., and most English authorities) have been led, though not always in the same way, to the common con- clusion that Mk is the most primitive of the Gospels. It is also very generally held that our second Gospel, or a source corresponding substan- tially to it, forms the basis of the first and third Gospels.
Many considerations, not a few of them of great force, support this conclusion. The peculiar fresh- ness and realism of the second Gospel, the vivid- ness of its descriptions, its liveliness even in dialogue, its precision and circumstantiality in its notices of time, place, custom, situation, and the like, and the simple objectivity of its narrative, are not consistent with the idea that it is the laboured work of an epitomizer (as Augustine supposed), or of a compiler who produces his com- position by selecting, curtailing, and combining. These are characteristics that speak of originality and priority. Nor is it easy to understand why a writer should have set himself to the task of constructing out of two larger Gospels, which nevertheless were neither of them very large, a smaller Gospel, following much the same plan, and having very little new matter by which to justify itself.
Further, if Mark had Mt and Lk before him, the use he has made of them is strange. His selec- tion of matter is puzzling. An epitomist or a constructor of abstracts is expected to cultivate brevity. But Mk does not. always do that. In many cases where he reports the same incidents as Mt or Lk his narrative gets enrichments peculiar to itself. Sometimes, too, we should have to suppose him preferring the fuller version of Lk to the briefer version of Mt. And why should he omit such passages as Mt 9°78! 1272 ete., or 142532 17°37, where Peter is introduced, and so much of the richest matter of Lk, while he takes over short and less significant sections, such as 6! 15, cf. Lk 9°; 6% etc., cf. Lk 910 etc. ; 941, cf. Lk 949 00 etc. ἢ
It is to be noted, also, that Mk preserves his distinctive character all through, and does not owe anything that is peculiar either to Mt or to Lk. Nor do the cases in which Mk is held to give the clearest evidence of dependence on the other Synoptists stand the test of a careful examination. Much is made, e.g., of Mk’s tendency to adopt at points a copious narration and a twofold method of expression. This is explained by supposing him to have borrowed now from the one and now from the other. But it is found that these ways of writing are not confined to passages which might be regarded as extracts, but are generally characteristic of Mk. Not a few cases of agree- ment with Mt or with Lk, again, are thought to be best explained as the results of the carrying out of Mk’s purpose to omit the longer discourses. But there are cases (e.g. 65 9) where Mk quotes Lk without the occasion created by a discourse ; and there are paragraphs, such as those where the Sermon on the Mount (131 ete.) and certain parables (486 ete.) might come in, where the selec- tion of verses cannot be explained by the mere wish to pass over these discourses. In short, the pro-
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cedure which Mk must be supposed to have followed in these passages and in great parts of his narrative becomes incredible. He is made to leap from Mt to Lk and from Lk to Mt, taking a verse now from one and now from the other, and mixing up his borrowings in a way that can only discredit the hypothesis.
xi. PURPOSE.—The second Gospel gives no such declaration of its aim and intention as is found in the third and the fourth (Lk 1, Jn 3051), But that its object was a simple, practical one, appears to be borne on its face. More subtle meanings, however, have been read into its story. That it was composed with a specifically dogmatic purpose, and that in the choice and presentation of its material it was ruled by that purpose throughout, was the contention of Baur and his school. ‘The Tiibingen critics dealt with it as a Tendency- writing constructed with the view of mediating between two antagonistic parties in the Church, and effecting their reconciliation. In harmony with their idea of the rise of the Catholic Church and the relation of the NT writings to that event, they explained the second Gospel as a neutral com- position, prepared on the principle of taking over from Mt nothing that would offend Gentile or Pauline Christians, and from Lk nothing that would offend Jewish or Petrine Christians (so, too, Schwegler, Késtlin, etc.). Even the choice of the name given to the professed author was supposed to point to this, Mark being associated in the earliest literature both with Peter and with Paul. The same general idea was put by Hilgenfeld in the particular form of a purpose to mediate between the Jewish-Christian Matthew and the Pauline Luke.