THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
mind contained anything that transcended Judaism, the Jewish-Christian community must study the mind of Jesus. Hence the tendency to assemble the saving words was instinctive.
This is the situation that explains the first published Gospel. Up to a short time ago this Gospel was confidently called the Logia, the name being taken from Papias' account of Matthew's work. ^o many difficulties have besieged this fragment and the utterances of Papias are so 5. Papias confused that in the last few years an and the increasing number of scholars have "Logia." either put it to one side or cashiered it. In place of the " Logia " they would put "Q" {Quelle, "source "). They assume, wliat must be conceded, that the Agrapha or extracanonical sayings of Jesus can not materially help and that the only other Gospel which might have helped (the Gospel according to the Hebrews) has practically perished. So, the interpreter of the origin and relations of the Gospels is shut up to the Gospels as they are. Hence as a measurable quantity the investigator must seek the literary source (Q) of that text of the saving words which underlies our Svnoptists. But Papias can not yet be wholly abandoned : the best possible must be made of his statement. It may be supposed that Matthew assembled and published a collection of the saving words. This edition of the Logia may have had a slight thread of narrative in it, but the narrative could not have been primary. The motive was to state the law of the new life and hope as Jewish Christians sought to live it. This could be done only by making clear to Christians the mind of Jesus. The cause of publication is utterly unlike that given by the Fathers, namely that St. Matthew was about to leave the Holy Land (Eusebius, Hist, eccl, III., xxiv.6). The true explanation has already been given. The new community publishes its law, the ground and obligation of its corporate existence and aim. The place of publication, if any credit is due to Papias, must have been Jerusalem. The causes and motives of gospelbuilding were necessarily strongest and clearest at the center of Christian life. The congregation of Jerusalem was the mother church of the new religion. Matthew, by assembling and publishing the Logia, gave to that great congregation a deeper understanding of itself and a clearer conception of its calling. The date of publication can not be determined. But it may well have been between the death of James (62?) and the flight of the church of Jerusalem to Pella (67?).
But the strongest motives for gospel-building were found not inside, but outside Palestine. The converts from Judaism were, in terms of religion, rich before they came to Christ (Rom. ix. 4-5). The converts from heathendom, on the contrary, being polytheists, were paupers (I Cor. xii. 2; Eph. ii. 11). Jewish Christians inheriting 6. The Mis- a complete equipment of religion and sionary discipline, came slowly into the con- Stimulus, scious recognition of governmental needs. Gentile Christians were outposts of Christ, besieged by a vast heathen world. As a result, Gentile Christianity very soon felt a
compelling need for clear knowledge of the Savior (Luke i. 4). The period when the Gospels appeared is a distinct epoch in the history of the Church (68?-95?). The Christian communities were rapidly becoming self-conscious; Judaism pressed upon them from the one side, from the other the Roman empire. The persecutions under Nero and under Domitian forced them into close coherence. The Christian community, under pressure, needed to know the reason for its being. A clear and continuous view of Christ became a necessity. The publication of the Gospels corresponds in part to that need in the life of nations which leads to the writing of histories and still more closely to those crises in the existence of great communities which bring about the publication and codification of law. Mark begins the series. The priority of Mark is a strong probability. The evidence is not merely the lively coloring which is said to indicate the eyewitness. That might be otherwise explained, e.g., as due to the temperament and ability of the reporter. Nor is the primary evidence found in Mark's possession of inside knowledge, which might in fact be secondary. The primary evidence is found, first, in the literary relationship 7. Mark's between the Synoptics. Practically Gospel. the entire text of Mark is found in Matthew and Luke. The theory broached long ago by Augustine that Mark is an epitomator becomes, in the light of the mental and literary conditions of the Apostolic Age, a sheer impossibility. The only alternative seems to be the use of Mark by Luke and Matthew. Secondly, the primary evidence is found in the way the story fits into the times and in its contrast at this point with Matthew and Luke. Mark gives the picture of Christ in his time and place. Jesus' primary question is his relation to the popular Messianism of Galilee. He is the Messiah, yet he avoids Messianic titles. At a very early day he adopts a policy of silence regarding his claims (Mark i. 34), and consistently pursues it to its end. His primary relations are with the crowd. He walks across Palestine a man of his time in the fullest sense of the word, whereas in Matthew and Luke other and later motives come into the portrait. The literary and historical arguments together give a very strong probability of priority. The story of Mark is characterized by fine narrative qualities. The story is not delayed by the massing of Logia as in Matthew, nor is its continuity ever threatened as in Luke by detailed accounts of Jesus' relations with all sorts and conditions of people. The story goes steadily forward and is a narrative of noble simplicity and movement befitting its supreme object. There is no reason for doubting the tradition that it was published in Rome. Mark satisfied the Gentile Christians' craving for an enkindling story of the Savior's life. It was probably published in the years immediately following the Neronian persecution (66-68?). As with the Logia, so with Mark, its publication was in close connection with the intense life of a great congregation. To the Roman Church, as to the Church of Jerusalem, pressure and persecution had given superior coherence and deepened its conscious needs. In the Gospel of Mark it