The arrangement of the narrative, especially of our Lord's earlier GaliliBan ministry, agrees- with Luke in opposition to that of Matthew, which appears rather to have been according to similarity of subject than order of time.
According to Norton (Genuineness of Gospels), there are not more than twenty-four verses in Mark to which parallels, more or less exact, do not exist in the other Synoptists. The same painstaking investigator informs us that, while the general coincidences between Mark and one of the other two amount to thirteen fourteenths of the whole Gospel, the verbal coincidences are one sixth, and of these four fifths in ]Mark occur in the re- cital of the words of our Lord and others; and only one fifth in the narrative portion, which, roughly speakuig, forms one half of his Gospel.
Additions peculiar to Mark are, " the Sabbath made for man" (ii, 27) ; our Lord's friends seeking to lay hold on him (iii, 21) ; many particulars in the miracles of the Gadarene diemoniac (v, 1-20) ; Jairus's daughter, and the woman with issue of blood (v, 22-43) ; the stilling of the tempest (iv, 35-41), and the lunatic child (ix, 14-29); the salting with fire (ix, 49) ; that "the com- mon people heard him gladly" (xii, 37) ; the command to watch (xiii, 33-37) ; the young man with the linen cloth about his body (xiv, 51) ; the want of agreement between the testimony of the false witnesses (xiv, 59) ; Pilate's investigation of the reality of Christ's death (xv, 44), and the difficult}' felt by the women as to the rolling away the stone (xvi, 3, 4). Mark has also pre- served several words and phrases, and entire sayings of our Lord, M'hich merit close attention (i, 15; iv, 13; vi, 31,34; vii, 8; viii, 38; ix, 12, 39; x, 21, 24, 30; xi, 17 ; xiii, 32; xiv, 18-37; xvi, 7 [15-18]).
The hypothesis which best meets all these facts is, that while the matter common to all three evangelists, or to two of them, is derived from the oral teaching of the apostles, which tliey had puqiosely reduced to a common form, our evangelist writes as an independent witness to the truth, and not as a compiler ; and the
tradition that the Gospel was written under the sanc- tion of Peter, and its matter in some degree derived from him, is made probable by the evident traces of an eye-witness in many of the narratives. The omission and abridgment of our Lord's discourses, and the sparing use of O.-T. quotations, might be accounted for by the special destination of the Gospel, if we had siu-er data for ascertaining it ; since it was for Gentiles, with whom illustrations from the O. T. would have less weight, and the purpose of the writer was to present a clear and vivid picture of the acts of our Lord's human life, rather than a full record of his divine doctrine. We may thankfully own that, with little that is in substance pe- culiar to himself, the evangelist does occupy for us a distinct position, and supply a definite want, in virtue of these traits.
IV. Cltaraderistics. — Though this Gospel has little historical matter which is not shared with some other, it would be a great error to suppose that the voice of Mark could have been silenced without injury to the divine harmony. The minute painting of the scenes in which the Lord took part, the fresh and lively mode of the narration, the very absence of the precious discourses of Jesus, which, inter[)osed between his deeds, would have delayed the action, all give to this Gospel a char- acter of its own. It is the history of the war of Jesus against sin and evil in the world during the time that he dwelt as a Man among men. Our Lord is presented to us, not as in Matthew, as the Messiah, the Son of David and Abraham, the theocratic King of the chosen people ; nor, as in Luke, as the universal Saviour of our fallen humanity ; but as the incarnate and wonder- working Son of God, for whose emblem the early Church justly selected "the lion of the tribe of Judah." His record is emphatically " the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mark i, 1), living and working among men, and developing his mission more in acts than by words. The limits of his narrative and its general char- acter can hardly be better stated than in the A/ords of his apostolic teacher. Acts x, 36-42. Commencing with the Baptist preaching in the wilderness, and announcing the " Mightier One" who was at hand, he tells us how, at his baptism, " God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power," and declared him to be his " beloved Son :" gathering up the temptation into the pregnant fact, " He was with the wild beasts ;" thus setting the Son of God before us as the Lord of nature, in whom the original grant to man of dominion over the lower creation was fulfilled (Maurice, Unity of the N. T. p. 226 ; Bengel, ad loc. ; Wilberforce, Doctrine of Incar- nation, p. 89, 90). As we advance, we find him detail- ing every exercise of our Lord's power over man and nature distinctly and minutely — not merely chronicling the incidents, as is ISIatthew's way, but surrounding them with all the circumstances that made them im- pressive to the bystanders, and making us feel how deep that impression was; how great the awe and wonder with which his might}' works and preaching were re- garded, not only by the crowd (i, 22, 27; ii, 12; vi, 2), but by the disciples themselves (iv, 41 ; vi, 51 ; x, 24, 26, 32) ; how the crowds thronged and pressed upon him (iii, 10 ; v, 21, 31 ; vi, 33 ; viii, 1), so that there was scarce room to stand or sit (ii, 2 ; iii, 32 ; iv, V), or leis- ure even to eat (iii, 20; vi, 31) ; how his fame spread the more he sought to conceal it (i, 45 ; iii, 7 ; v, 20 ; vii, 36, 37) ; and how, in consequence, the people crowded about him, bringing their sick (i, 32-34; iii, 10); and "whithersoever he entered into villages, or cities, or countr}', they laid the sick in the streets, and besought that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment : and as many as touched were made perfectly whole" (vi, 56) ; how the unclean spirits, seeing him, at once fell down before him and acknowledged liis jiower, crying, "Thou art the Son of God" (i, 23-26; iii, 11); how, again, in Peter's words, " He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devO, for God was with him."