into the wilderness.’ His first appearance in the synagogue of Capernaum is so remarkable that people say to each other: “ What is this? A newteaching! With authority commandeth He even unclean spirits, and they obey Him.”* Early the following morning He makes what has the aspect of an unaccountable and undignified flight from Capernaum.* By-and-by, when He is fully engrossed in His teaching and healing ministries, His relatives come to rescue Him from His enthusiasm, deeming Him beside Himself.‘ On the day of the parable-discourse from the boat He makes another flight, He saying to the disciples : Let us go over to the other side; they promptly obeying orders suddenly given and carrying Him off from the crowd, even as He was. Towards the end, on the ascent to Jerusalem, Jesus goes before the disciples, and His manner is such that those who follow are amazed. When He sends for the colt on which He rides into the Holy City, He bids the two disciples promise to the owner that the colt will be re- turned when He has had His use of it.’
2. The realism of Mark makes for its historicity. It is a guarantee of first-hand reports, such 36 one might expect from Peter. Peter reverences his risen Lord as much as Luke or any other man. But he is one of the men who have been with Jesus, and he speaks from indelible impressions made on his eye and ear, while Luke reports at secord-hand from written accounts for the most part. The same realism is a strong argument in favour of Mark’s priority. It speaks +> an early date before the feeling of de- corum had become controlling as it is seen to be in Luke’s Gospel. Mark is the archaic Gospel, written under the inspiration not of prophecy like Matthew, or of present reverence like Luke, but of fondly cherished past memories. In it we get nearest to the true human personality of Jesus in all its originality and power, and as coloured by the time and the place. And the character of Jesus loses nothing by the realistic presentation. Nothing is told that needed to be hid. The homeliest facts reported by the evangelist only increase our interest and our admiration. One who desires to see the Jesus of history truly should con well the pages of Mark first, then pass on to Matthew and Luke.
3. By comparison with the companion Gospels Mark lacks a conspicuous didactic aim. The purpose of the writer seems to be
1 Chap. 1. 12. 2'Chap. 1.27. 3 Chap. i. 35-38. 4 Chap. iii. 21. > Chap. iv. 35. 5 Chap. x. 32. 7, Chap. xi. 3. 8 Vide Holtzmann, Hand-Commentar, p. 7.
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