Characteristics of S. Mark’s Gospel

S. Mark i. 1

The authority upon which the Gospel Histories are based is a subject of special attraction and interest. This is not because it has been assailed by hostile critics, for by far the majority of Christians are ready to accept the united testimony of the early Fathers and Doctors, and the decrees of the Church assembled in Council. But most men feel that, without surrendering in any degree their deference to antiquity, they have a right to work out for themselves the arguments upon which the several Gospels were admitted into the Canon of Scripture.

Now, touching the veracity of the first and the last, there could never have been any doubt from the moment that their authorship was admitted. S. Matthew and S. John had been eye-witnesses from the beginning to the end, and they were of the number of those to whom a promise was given of supernatural direction and help in recalling forgotten facts. The other two, though written by men who were neither companions of Jesus nor heirs of the same promise, were indirectly influenced to a large extent by those who were so privileged.

S. Luke, without claiming to have witnessed our Lord’s life, tells us that he had made it a subject of deep research, and followed with careful attention what the Apostles had told him. Furthermore, he was generally believed to have written under the guidance of S. Paul, who was placed on a level of authority with the Twelve through visions and revelation.

S. Mark was even more largely influenced, and that, by the very chief of the Apostles. The tie that bound him first to S. Peter was one of spiritual sonship. Converted probably by what he heard in his mother’s house from the Apostle’s lips, he continued in after times, with certain interruptions of longer or shorter duration, to sit at his feet and receive his teaching upon Sacred History. There is an unbroken testimony from the earliest age to his having filled the office of “interpreter” to S. Peter. The expression, it is true, admits of various shades of meaning, but can hardly imply less than that he was associated with him in literary work, and became the exponent of his mind. This would supply to the Evangelist much that he missed from not being an “eye-witness and minister of the word.” This influence may be traced in the following manner. S. Mark himself, except on rare occasions, could not have been in our Lord’s company, and yet many of the scenes described in his Gospel betray the hand of an eye-witness. It will suffice to notice a few examples. There is first the oft-recurring “immediately,” 3 or one of its equivalents, bespeaking the presence of the writer. There are unimportant details which would catch at once the eye of a spectator: — The paralytic was “borne by four” men. “They took him even as he was.” “He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on the pillow.” “Neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf.” They “sit down by companies upon the green grass.” “They found the colt tied at the door without, at a place where two ways met.” “His raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them.” “He commanded that something should be given her to eat.” Added to all these are the numerous references to the expression of our Lord’s countenance upon divers occasions. Now it will be observed that some of these details belong to scenes where only the chosen Three were present; and that of these S. Peter was the source of the information admits of little doubt when other circumstances are considered. Great prominence is given throughout to his faults and failings, while much that redounds to his credit is carefully suppressed. For instance, S. Mark records our Lord’s severe rebuke, “Get thee behind Me, Satan,” but passes over the splendid eulogy that preceded: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church.” Again, it is surely not accidental that he mentions in the account of the Apostle’s denial the two warnings given by the two cockcrowings. It was an aggravation of his guilt that he should have fallen in the face of a double hindrance.

One more testimony to Petrine influence is found in the scene in the courtyard of the High Priest’s palace. All the Evangelists speak of S. Peter being with the servants; S. John adds that he warmed himself; but S. Mark and S. Luke preserve a very significant detail, the meaning of which is lost in the English version, “at the fire.” It is rather “with his face to the light.” The circumstance was well remembered by S. Peter as that which most probably led the bystanders to recognise and detect him.

All this affords convincing proof of what the Fathers have handed down, and satisfies us as to the source of the Evangelist’s authority for what he wrote.

Now it is worth while to discover the object which the writer kept mainly in view. In the mystic pages of Ezekiel there is a wonderful vision of “four living creatures,” — a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. They were interpreted in early Christian times as typical of the four Gospels, which represent the Humanity, the Royalty, the Priesthood, and the Divinity of Jesus Christ. But there has been considerable diversity in the appropriation of the several emblems — mainly, however, in respect of the first two. S. Augustine had no hesitation in assigning the Lion to S. Matthew and the man to S. Mark; but S. Jerome with a singular want of discernment adopted the reverse. Then Christian Art came in and indorsed the view of the latter. The building of the great Cathedral in the Piazza at Venice, with which S. Mark’s name is indissolubly linked, and the adoption of “the Lion of S. Mark” as its crest by the Venetian Senate, stereotyped the mistake for centuries.

We pass by the manifold marks of Royalty, which may be found in the first Gospel, and content ourselves with discovering traces of the Humanity in every part of the second. It is true that S. Mark begins with the confession that Jesus was “the son of God,” which won for his father in the faith that glorious eulogy, but it is followed by numberless incidents and expressions which show how he loved to dwell upon the Human and Personal side of His character. He notices again and again the lights and shadows that passed over His Face: — “He looked round about.” “He looked round about upon all things.” “He looked upon them with anger.” “Then Jesus, beholding him, loved him.” (There must have been something in His expression which revealed His yearning.) So, too, he records His human feelings: — “He sighed.” “He sighed deeply in His spirit.” He was “moved with compassion.” Again, is there no reference to His weariness, in the observation, “They took Him even as He was in the ship “? none to His human tenderness, in the picture of His taking the little children in His arms? It has been observed also that “His condescension to human infirmities, His coming down to meet our weakness,” is especially marked in two miracles of healing recorded by S. Mark alone.

While then in S. Matthew we bow the knee with the Eastern kings before Him Who was born “King of the Jews”; while we read the charter of our salvation in the pages of S. Luke; while we soar with S. John on his eagle wings into the very highest heaven, and realise the Pre-existence of the Word, it is to S. Mark more especially that we turn for the life of Him Who was “touched with a feeling of our infirmities,” Who, as the Perfect Man, has left us an example that we should follow His steps.

Note: Besides direct notices in the Fathers of the connection between them, we would refer to a close affinity in their conception of the universality of the message of redemption and forgiveness, and to coincidences such as are found in their accounts of the Institution of the Eucharist.

Note: John Mark was the son of one Mary, who lived at Jerusalem, and may well therefore have seen Jesus from time to time. If, moreover, S. Mark xiv. 51, 52 is an account of what happened to himself, then he certainly was an eye-witness of one of the closing scenes.

Note: evdvs is translated in the Authorised Version by a variety of English words: “forthwith,” “presently,” “anon,” “straightway,” “bye and bye,” and “immediately.” Something is certainly lost by such capricious renderings.

Note: At first sight the fact that this is common to SS. Mark and Luke weakens the argument, but it is worthy of notice that there are incidents peculiar to these two Evangelists, which are most easily explained on the supposition that they were the result of their communication with each other when together, as we find they were, from Colossians iv. 10-14, and Philemon 24. Such a detail as the mention of the blaze of the fire leading to S. Peter’s detection, if told to S. Luke by S. Mark, would be sure to impress itself on his memory.

Note: They were referred to other things also, of which there is a full account in Is. Williams on Study of the Gospels, ch. ii. Some Fathers went so far as to regard them as directly prophetical of the Evangelists; but it is safer to accept them as typical or emblematical. The Lion, as king of beasts, and as belonging to the “royal tribe of Judah” (Rev. v. 5), symbolises Christ’s Sovereignty; the ox, as the sacrificial victim, the Atoning Sacrifice made by the Great High Priest; the eagle, as flying in the heavens, the Divine Life.

Note: Venetian merchants are said to have brought S. Mark’s relics from Alexandria in 815 A. D., and his legendary history has been perpetuated in endless pictures, and not infrequently with the emblem of the Lion.

Note: The “Regal” character of the first Gospel is illustrated especially by the Genealogy through a line of kings, by the numerous parables of the “kingdom,” and by an air of authority assumed throughout by our Lord, not to name a variety of details, for which cf. Is. Williams.

Note: The words are absent from the Sinaitic MS.