Tatian, Justin's pupil, affords evidence that Mk. was received in his time (o. 170 a.d. ) as one of the four Gospel narratives pre-eminently above, and
122 MARK, GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
MARK, GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
on a cUfterent platform from, all others. His Diu- tessaron is now known to be a harmony of our four Gospels, and probably it Avas not the first of its kind.
Irenaeus is the first explicitly to expound the doctrine of the necessity of a fourfold Gospel [iSwKev rjfMv TeTpdfiop(pov to evayyeXi.ot', iii. 11. 8). As the world has four quarters, and as the Church is spread over the whole world, and as the pillar and ground of the Church is the Gospel and the Spirit of life, so it is right that there should be four Gospels. Irenaeus finds other equally fanciful reasons for a fourfold Gospel, and identifies our Evangelists with the fourfold appearance of the cherubim, St. Mark being the eagle (see § iii. 1 below). Tliis reasoning, however eri'oneous, shows that our four Go.spels liad a position entirely by themselves in Irena^us' estimation ; and Dr. Taylor conjectures that he borrowed the idea from Hernias (Witness of Hennas, §1). In an earlier passage (iii. 1. 1) Irenaeus says that Mark was Peter's disciple and interpreter (epfxTjvevT-qs, as Papias), and that he handed on to us in writing the things preached by Peter, after the departure of Peter and Paul. In iii. 10. 6 (where the Greek is want- ing), Irenaeus calls Mark ' interpres et sectator Petri.'
TertuUian (adv. Marc. iv. 5, Migne, P. L. ii. 396) gives similar witness ('. . . licet et Marcus quod edidit, Petri affirmetur, cujus interpres Marcus').
The Muratorian fragment (c. A.D. 170? or perhaps a little later) begins in tlie middle of a sentence thus : ' . . . quibus tamen interfuit, et ita posuit. Tertium Evangelii librum secundum Lucan . . . Quarti evangeliorum Johannes ex discipulis. . . .' Thus the writer had been speaking of two Gospels, which were neither Luke nor John. It is gener- ally recognized that the opening words of the fragment refer to Mk. rather than to Mt., and that the latter had come first, as in Irenaeus ; but there is some difference of opinion as to their meaning. Swete, Lightfoot, and Chase interpret them to mean that Mark was present at some discourses of Peter ; he reported Peter's teaching as far as he had the opportunity. The first word ' quibus ' may be the second half of ' aliquibus ' some; Chase (Hastings' DB iii. 24) takes 'quibus tamen ' as the equivalent of an original oh 5i — for the fragment is a Latin translation from Greek. Zahn (Einleit. ii. 200 f.) thinks that the author of tlie fragment had quoted Papias as saying that Mark was not a hearer of our Lord, and then qualified Papias' assertion by saying that Mark had been present at some of our Lord's discourses. Compare this with the idea of some later writers (e.g. Epiphanius, Hcer. xx. 4, Ii. 6) that Mark was one of the Seventy (Seventy-two) Disciples ; and with the modern opinion that the young man of Mk 14'^ Avas the Evangelist. But, as Swete shows (St. Mark, p. xxxiii), this is against the words that follow about Luke : ' Neither did he [Luke] him- self see the Lord in the flesh.'
Clement of Alexandria (Hypotyp., ap. Euseb. HE vi. 14) says that while Peter was preaching the gospel at Rome, many of those present begged Mark to write down what was said. Peter neither forbade nor urged it. There is a story similar to this told in tlie Mui-atorian fragment about John. In HE ii. 15, Eusebius says, on the authority of Clement and Papias, that Peter confirmed the writing ; but the passage afterwards quoted by Eusebius from Papias does not bear out this detail. Origen (quoted by Euseb. HE vi. 25) says that Mark composed the Gospel at Peter's instruction (d;s Ilerpo? v(pTiyr;(raTo), being acknowledged as his son(l P513).
It is unnecessary to quote later writers, Avho could scarcely have other means of information
than we have ; but we may notice that Eusebius (HE ii. 16) makes Mark go to Egypt and found the Church at Alexandria after he had written his Gospel, and says (ib. 24) that Annianus succeeded him as bishop there in the eighth year of Nero, a statement which Jerome improves upon by saying that St. Mark died then (de Vir. Rlustr. §8). It is also desirable to quote Augustine, as his opinion has had such weight in the Church. He says (de Co)isensu E vangelistarum, i. 3, aliter i. 6) that of the four Evangelists, Matthew wrote first, then Mark, and that Mark was, as it were, Matthew's follower and abbre viator (' Marcus eum subsecutus tanquam pedissequus et breviator ejus videtur '). Seldom has one short sentence had such an unfortunate effect in distorting a judg- ment on a literary work ; and largely in conse- quence of it Mk. has been generally neglected. The Second Gospel seems hai'dly to have engaged the attention of commentators ; and the writer known as Victor of Antioch (quoted by Swete, St. Mark, p. xxxiv) in the 5tli cent, (or later), says that he had not been able to find a single author who had exj^ounded it.