sympathy with the well-known character of Peter. Peter was “a man of observation and action rather than of reflection ; im- pulsive and impetuous. ‘When we assume,” says Dr. Mori- son, ‘‘that Mark drew directly from the discoursings of St. Peter, then we understand how it comes to pass that it is in his pages that we have the most particular account of that lament- able denial of his Lord of which the apostle was guilty. On no other person’s memory would the minute particulars of the prediction, and of its unanticipated fulfilment, be so indelibly engraven. It is also noteworthy that, while the very severe rebuke which our Lord administered to St. Peter in the neigh- borhood of Caesarea Philippi is faithfully and circumstantially recorded in Mark’s pages, the splendid eulogium and distin- guishing blessing, which had been previously pronounced, are, as it were, modestly passed by. Doubtless the great apostle would not be guilty of making frequent or egotistic references to such marks of distinction ” (‘‘ Commentary on Mark ”).
Unlike the other gospels, Mark’s narrative is not subordinated to the working out of any one idea. Matthew’s memoirs turn on the relation of Christ to the law and the prophets. He throws a bridge from the old economy to the new. His is the Gospel as related to the past, the Gospel of Christianity regarded as the fulfilment of Judaism. Luke exhibits Jesus as a Saviour, and . expounds the freeness and universality of the Gospel, and the sacredness of humanity. John wrote that men might believe that Jesus is the Christ, and might have life in him. While Matthew and Luke deal with his offices, John deals with his person. John carries forward the piers of Matthew’s bridge toward that perfected heavenly economy of which his Apoca- lypse reveals glimpses. In Matthew Jesus is the Messiah ; in John, the ternal Word. In Matthew he is the fulfiller of the law ; in John he foreshadows the grander and richer economy of the Spirit.
Mark, on the other hand, is a chronicler rather than a his- torian. His narrative is the record of an observer, dealing with the facts of Christ’s life without reference to any domi- nant conception of his person or office. Christ’s portrait is drawn “in the clearness of his present energy ;” not as the