.^RY OF PMKCero BS 3585" PRACTICAL COMMENTARY GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. V BY JAMES MORISON, D.D., AUTHOR OF Commenluiy on the Gospel according to St. Matlheiv" etc. SEVENTH EDITION. iJFonuou : HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCXCII. Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works* Frome. anc London CONTENTS. Prefatory Note PAGfl ix — xi Introduction. (Pages xiii. to lxxx.) § 1. Gospel and Gospels xiii § 2. Title of St. Mark's Gospel, xiii § 3. The Name ' Mark ' xv § 4. St. Mark the Evangelist tiie 'John Mark' of the Acts of the Apostles ....... xv § 5. Covert Eeference to the Evangelist in the body of the Gospel xvii § 6. The Relation of the Apostle Peter to the Gospel: Patristic Evidence. (Pages xix. to xxxiv.) (1.) Testimony of Jerome xx (2.) Testimony of Epiphanius ...... xx (3.) Testimony of Eusebius xxi (4.) Testimony of Origen xxi (5.) Testimony of Tertullian xxii (6.) Testimony of Clemens of Alexandria .... xxii (7.) Testimony of Irenasus xxiv (8.) Testimony of Justin Martyr xxvi (9.) Testimony of Papias xxviii § 7. Relation of the Gospel to the Apostle Peter : in- ternal Evidence ..... xxxiv. — xxxviii VI CONTENTS. PAGB § 8. The Inner Kelation of the Gospel to the Synoptic Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke. (Pages xxxviii. to lxi.) Augustine's theory xxxviii Griesbach's theory xli Dr. Henry Owen xlv The Tubingen School xlv Ewald's theory xlvii Gaussen's solution xlviii The Eichhorn theory 1 The ' Mark-hypothesis ' liv General observations on the problem .... lvii Giest-ler's hypothesis lx § 9. Date of the Gospel. (Pages lxi. to lxvi.) Common view lx Patrizi, Storr, Berks . . . • . . . . . lxiii "Volkmar .......... lxiv Tubingen School lxiv Data for approximative date lxvi § 10. The Place of the Gospel's Publication and the Lan- guage in which it was originally written . lxvii. — lxix § 11. The Plan, Aim, and Style of the Gosfel . . lxix. — Ixxii § 12. Integrity of the Gospel Ixxii § 13. The Topical Position of St. Mark's Gospel in the group of Gospels Ixxiii § 14. The Contents of the Gospel .... lxxiv. — lxxx Exposition of the Gospel 1-470 Index to the Exposition . .... 471-481 PREFATORY NOTE. The following Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Mark, though latently complementive of the author's Com- mentary on the Gospel according to St. Matthew, is yet entirely 'self contained.' There are, indeed, occasional references to some fuller discussions or expositions in the Commentary on St. Matthew ; but the thread of continuous exposition in St. Mark is never suspended or broken off. The author conceives that he was not entitled to postulate the reader's possession of the earlier volume ; and he imagines that it would have been a blunder in the structure of his present work, had it imposed, even on those readers who possess the companion volume, the irksome task of turning to it, and turning it up, ere they could ascertain his opinion on any particular passage in St. Mark. In thus endeavouring to avoid a ' rock ' on which many had struck, the author was not unmindful that there was a little malstrom-like ' Charybdis ' on the other side of 1 Scylla,' no less dangerous to navigators. Hence he has been on his guard not to allow any of the materials which have done duty in the Commentary on St. Matthew to float silently away into the whirlpool of circulatory repetition, in order to do double service in expounding the coincident representations in St. Mark. He hopes that whatever else his readers may miss in the present volume, they will find X PREFATORY NOTE. throughout fresh veins of representation and illustration, the result of fresh labour and research. In St. Mark's Gospel, moreover, there is a pervading peculiarity of phraseology, (inartificial indeed, yet idiosyn- cratic,) which to the lover of delicate tints and flickers of presentation affords a continual incentive to fresh investi- gation. Hence, in truth, much of the charm, as also much of the difficulty, in expounding St. Mark. The charm is intensified if the conviction can be substantiated, (as it undoubtedly can, provided the sum of the existing evidence be impartially weighed,) that St. Peter's teaching within the circle of the early catechumens was the chief fountain- head from which St. Mark drew the substance and even the minutiae of his Gospel. The flicker of St. Peter's subjective conceptions is thus passing before us as we read. It is a fact fitted to stimulate. We feel as if we should not like to let slip any of that subtle essence, or quint- essence, of mind which made the primary observations of the chief of the Lord's personal attendants distinctive as well as distinct, and his subsequent reminiscences and representations invariably vivid and frequently picturesque. Whether attributable to St. Peter's tenacity of memory, or to that unique element in his dialect which made his manner of speech, like that of every other original mind, peculiarly his own, or whether merely attributable to the reproductive idiosyncrasy of the writer, ' vexed expressions ' abound in St. Mark, and give ample scope for patient, yet exciting, research. There are ' vexed ' questions in addition, belonging to the departmenf of Introduction, as distinguished from Expo- sition. In \\n rticular, there is the question of the genetic PREFATORY NOTE. XI inter-relationship of the three Synoptic Gospels, a subject around which a peculiarly thorny and ' vexatious ' thicket, or rather forest, of literature has, during the past eighty or ninety years, been growing up. Into this forest the expositor is invited to enter, the moment he passes from one to another of the synoptic narratives. In this new edition of his Commentary the author has, with as much care as was possible to him, revised the whole contents ; and he hopes that it may prove a help to students, preachers, Sunday school teachers, and other lovers of Bible exegesis. He may add that he has taken counsel throughout of the English Bevised version ; but he has been gratified to observe that a very large proportion of the Revisionists' emendations had been anticipated in the author's previous editions. Florentine B\nk Hohsf.. OI.ASdOW. INTRODUCTION GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. § 1. Gospel and Gospels. It is a matter of interest and significance that, in the biblical records, we have not only gospel but Gospels. We have gospel, running like a golden thread through the whole Bible, connecting history, precept, proverb, prophecy, and binding the entire constituents of ' the volume of the Book ' into unity. We should certainly have had no Bible at all, had there been no gospel. But in particular portions of the progressive revelation the golden gospel line becomes doubled as it were, or trebled, or multi- plied in some still higher ratio. The whole texture of certain paragraphs or larger sections gleams and glows with gospel. Such are the Messianic Psalms. Such is the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. And such, of course, are the four Gospels of the New Testament. The gospel is so efflorescent in these Gospels that the lovers of the Bible have, from a very early period of the Christian era, agreed to call them, ' par excellence,' the Gospels. § 2. Title of St. Mark's Gospel. The Gospel ascribed to St. Mark was neither by himself, nor by the subsequent compilers of the New Testament canon, designated the Gospel ■ of ' Marie. The word gospel was not specifically em- XIV INTU0DDCT10N. ployed, in the time of the evangelists, to denote a particular "kind of book or biography. It had a more generic import. It meant good neivs ; and just because it had that meaning, it was specially applied by Christians to the best of all good neivs, the news regarding Jesus Christ as the Divine Saviour of sinners. Hence the united compositions of the four evangelists were often, in the post-apostolic ages, called collectively the Gospel.1 And each evangelical record in particular was the gospel ' according to ' the particular evangelist who compiled it. The gospel in each case was one, ' the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God ' (Mark i. 1) ; but it was that one gospel under the peculiar phase of a particular biographical presentation. Hence the phrase ' according to.' It is not, as some critics have contended, precisely equivalent to ' of,' for the gospel was not re- garded as an emanation from the mind of the writer.2 It was not, in its essence, the product of any human compiler or composer ; but, as delivered by the evangelists, it assumed in its form as dis- tinguished from its essence, a peculiar phase in harmony with the size, shape, and symmetry of ' the earthen vessels ' in which it was 'handed out,' that it might be ' handed on.' In the great majority of manuscripts, inclusive of the Alexan- drine, the title of the Gospel according to St. Mark is either sub- stantially, or entirely, the same as in our common English version. In the Syriac Philoxenian version the word hoiy is introduced before the word Gospel, and the phrase according to is merged: the Holy Gospel of Mark. In the Syriac Peshito version there was an attempt, though not remarkably felicitous, to do more justice to the idea suggested by the preposition : the Holy Gospel, the Announce- ment of Mark the Evangelist. It is noteworthy that in the two most venerable manuscripts ex- tant, the Sinaitic and the Vatican, the title is fragmentary. It is simply According to Mark ; it being assumed apparently that the entire fasciculus of the compilations of the four evangefists was but one manifold Gospel. 1 See, for instance, Tertullian De Baptixmo, c. 15 ; and compare Ircnasus, Adv. Hesreses, iii. 11, and Origen's Comment, in Joannem, vol. iv., p. 98, cd. Delarue (/ecu rb aX-qdCos did reacrdpew &» icrriv evayye\iov). See also Griesbach's Commentarius Criticus, Particula ii. , p. 202. 2 See Introduction to the Gospel according to Matthew, § 4. THE NAME 'MARK'.' XV § 3. The Name 'Mark.' Marcus or Mare: was a Latin name, and became a common Latin prcenomen, as, for instance, ' Marcus ' Tullins Cicero. The diminu- tive Marcellus was a surname of the Claudian family. A dis- tinguished member of that family, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, defeated Hannibal at Nola. Cicero has an oration ' Pro Marco Marcello.' The evangelist Mark however was, notwithstanding his Latin name, a Jew. His entire Gospel bewrays his nationality, and breathes the spirit of an Israelite who, though delivered from Jewish narrowness and bigotry, was still ' an Israelite indeed.' In the letter too, as well as the spirit of his composition, the mark of a Jewish mind is indelibly impressed.1 The reason why the evangelist either assumed, or got imposed on him, his Latin name is now unknown ; probably he found it con- venient, when out in the wide world, to wear a Gentile name. It might be even to himself, as well as to his friends, and to all with whom he had to do, a significant badge, indicating that he was now a Christian cosmopolite. Perhaps it was for a similar reason that Saul of Tarsus, after he got rid of the spiritual fetters which the Palestinian Jews were per- petually imposing on him, and had got fairly under weigh in the career of his Gentile apostolate, called himself Paul, a word signifi- cant in Latin, and honourable in the estimation of all who could enumerate the most illustrious of the Roman families. Marcus or Mark may have been at first a mere surname added to the original Jewish name of the evangelist ; and then by and by it may, from casual or conventional circumstances, have acquired such a peculiar emphasis as at length to supersede and finally extinguish its Hebrew forerunner. (See next Section.) § 4. St. Mark, the Evangelist, the John Mark of the Acts of the Apostles. Grotius2 was of opinion that the evangelist was not 'John, whose surname was Mark,' the son of that Mary of Jerusalem to whose 1 See, for instance, the construction in chap. i. 7, vii. 25. 2 Proamium in Mar cum. XVI INTRODUCTION. house Peter betook himself, on the night when he was so marvel- lously liberated from prison. (Acts xii. 12.) The distinguished critic was 'moved,' he says, to this opinion, partly by the fact that ' the ancients ' never call our evangelist John, and partly by the fact that they never speak of him as the travelling companion of Barnabas and Paul, but invariably as the attendant and interpreter of Peter. Calov in Germany, though always differing, as much as he ever could, from the great Dutchman, agreed with him in this opinion ; ! as did Cave 2 in England, and Cotelier in France,3 and some other able men, such as a-Lapide and Tillemont. Petter4 hesitated a little, but on the whole swung in the opposite direction. In more modern times the same opinion has been occasionally re- vived, as by Schleusner, Kienlen, Da Costa, and Patrizi in his great work De Evangeliis.5 But there is no good reason for calling in question the unanimous tradition of ' the ancients,' that Mark the evangelist was ' John whose surname was Mark.' De Wette unites the voices of all the Christian ages when he says, " The Mark to whom ecclesiastical tradition ascribes the " second Gospel is undoubtedly the John, or John Mark, of the Acts "of the Apostles."6 Dr. Davidson, though not believing that the second Gospel was really the composition of Mark, says : " It is pro- "bable that the Mark, to whom the second Gospel is commonly " assigned, is the same who is called John (Acts xiii. 5, 13) and "John Mark (Acts xii. 12, 25 ; xv. 37)." 7 True, ' the ancients,' of whom Grotius speaks, uniformly call him Mark, not John. But naturally so, for there were many con- spicuous Johns in the early Christian circles. In the New Testa- ment writings the tendency of the surname to displace the original Hebrew name is noteworthy. In Acts xii. 12, the first passage in which the bearer of the names is expressly referred to, he is called 'John, whose surname was Mark'; and in the 25th verse this double appellation is repeated. In the succeeding chapter, ver. 5 and 1 Biblia Illustrate,, in loc. 2 Scriptorum Ecc. Historia Literaria, vol. i., 24. 3 Constitutiones Apostolorurn, ii. 57, note 36. 4 The author of the largest Commentary on Mark, in two volumes folio, 1661. 6 Lib. i., cap. ii., Quaestio 1. See also the first Appendix to his Comment 'arium in Marcum. e Lchrbach des N. T., § 99. i Introduction to N. T., vol. ii., p. 76, ed. 1808. WAS SI. MARK THE JOHN MARK OF ' THE ACTS ' ? xvii 13, he is referred to under his original Hebrew name exclusively, John. Then in chap. xv. 37 he is once more called 'John, whoso surname was Mark.' But in the 39th verse of the same chapter he is called simply Mark. And this is the only name that is given him in the remaining passages of the New Testament : Col. iv. 10 ; 2 Tim. iv. 11 ; Philem. 24 ; and 1 Pet. v. 13. The remark of Jerome on the third of these passages is equally applicable to the rest, ' I think that the Mark here mentioned is the author of the Gospel.' 1 As to the fact that ' the ancients,' when referring to St. Mark as the writer of the second Gospel, signalize exclusively his ministerial relation to the apostle Peter, as distinguished from his correspond- ing relation to Barnabas and Paul, nothing was more natural. He was for a season, indeed, the companion of Barnabas and Paul. See Acts xii. 25, xiii. 5. But he got wearied of that re- lationship, or of the work which it entailed, and returned to his mother's house. (Acts xiii. 13.) Some of ' the ancients ' use strong- language in reference to this retreat, and ascribe to him a kind of spiritual ' poltroonery.' 2 Moreover, when Barnabas and Paul were subsequently arranging for another joint tour, Mark was ready to join them ; but Paul objected, while Barnabas insisted, " and the contention was so sharp between them that they departed " asunder one from the other ; and so Barnabas took Mark, and " sailed unto Cyprus, and Paul chose Silas and departed." (Acts xv. 36-40.) As was to be expected however of good men and true, this ' coolness,' as Grotius calls it, at once between Paul and Barna- bas and between Paul and Mark, passed away, so that Mark was restored to intimate and confidential relations to the apostle. In the Epistle to Philemon (ver. 24) the apostle names Mark as one of his ' fellow-labourers.' In Col. iv. 10 he says, " Mark, sister's son " to Barnabas, — touching whom ye received commandments ; if he " come unto you, receive him, — saluteth you." And then in 2 Tim. iv. 11 the apostle says again, when now near the very close of his 1 " Marcum ponit, quern puto Evangelii conditorem." — Comment, in Pldle- monem, in loc. " Es ist boebst wabrscbeinlicb," says Micbaelis, " dass Marcus " der Evangelist, der Sobn Petri, uud der Gefahrte Pauli, erne Person gewesen " ist." — Einleitung in N. B., p. 1051, 4tb ed. ' Henco tbe remarkable expression of Hippolytus, in the recently recovered Philosophumcna, vii. 18, Ma/wcoy 6 koXoPoSsxktuXos. See also tbe Prologue in tbe Codex Amiatinus, 'amputasse sibi post fidern pollicem dicitur.' Consult Tie- gellcs' Canon Muratorianus, p. 75. c XV111 INTRODUCTION. terrestrial career, " Take Mark, and bring him with thee, for he is " profitable to me for the ministry." Still, as neither Panl nor Barnabas was able to supply, at first hand, the full historic details that were essential to a biographical Gospel, it is not to be wondered at that Mark, having either a pur- pose, or an instinct, leading him in the direction of an evangelist, should attach himself to Peter, and derive from him the informa- tion which he has embodied in his Gospel. And it is still less to be wondered at that 'the ancients,' who spoke of him, and felt interested in him, solely on account of his Gospel, should bring exclusively into view, so far as his authorship was concerned, his ministerial relation to Peter. It is certain moreover that St. Peter was, from a very early period, on terms of the greatest intimacy with Mark and his mother. See Acts xii. 11-17. Not unlikely it might be by his preaching on the day of Pentecost, or subsequently, that both the lady and ber son became acquainted with the true career and character of the Saviour. And it is probably for this reason that we are to account for the peculiarly endearing manner in which St. Peter refers to the evangelist, at the conclusion of his First Epistle, " The church " that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you ; and " so doth Mark my son." There is no reason for doubting that it is our Mark, and Paul's Mark, who is thus so affectionately men- tioned. But there is less than none for imagining, with Heumann l and Credner,2 or half imagining, with Pott,3 that he was Peter's literal son. § 5. Covert reference to the Evangelist in the body of the Gospel. It is probable that the evangelist makes a covert reference to himself in the body of his Gospel. His whole narrative indeed, like that of St. Matthew, is remark- ably impersonal. Both the writers retire behind their themes, and shut themselves out of view. They are so absorbed ' objectively ' in their narrations, that they become ' subjectively ' oblivious of themselves. 1 Nothigcr Anhang zur Erkldrung Marci, pp. 736, 737. He rejoices over the imagination, as over a brilliant discovery. 2 Einleitung in das N. T., §§ 48, 237. s Annotationes in 1 Pet. v. 13. COVERT REFERENCE TO THE EVANGELIST. XIX Nevertheless it is in the highest degree probable that St. Matthew refers to himself by name in the 9th verse of the 11th chapter of his Gospel, and to his home in the 10th verse. It is almost certain too that St. John refers to himself, as one of the two disciples spoken of in the 1st chapter of his Gospel, ver. 35-38. It is certain that it is of himself that he speaks in chap. xiii. 23, xix. 26, as ' the disciple whom Jesns loved.' We believe that it is, in like manner, to himself that St. Mark refers when, in chap. xiv. 51, 52, he makes mention of 'a yonng man ' who had been aroused out of bed by the uproar connected with the conveyance of Jesus from Gethsemane to the residence of the high priest. Full of youthful impetuosity, he had rushed, it seems, out of the house with only ' a linen sheet thrown around him,' to see what the disturbance was about. The incident was so trifling, intrinsically, that we can scarcely conceive of it being recorded by the evangelist unless he had some private reason for its insertion. But if it touched the vital turning point of his spiritual career we can at once understand why he should delight to link it on, and thus in a modest and covert way to attach his own personal and spiritual history to the great events he was recording. It is worthy of being noted, in addition, that it is not likely that he should have learned the unimportant incident from either Peter or any other of the apostles, for in the immediately preceding verse he states that ' they had all forsaken ' the Lord ' and fled.' 1 § 6. The Relation of the Apostle Peter to the Gospel: Patristic Evidence. It was the almost unanimous conviction of ' the fathers ' that the apostle Peter's oral discourses were the special source, or wcll- 1 See Commentary, in loc. *' Why was a circumstance apparently so trifling," asks Greswell, " and certainly so irrelevant, inserted in the midst of so grave an " account ? If the young man was the writer of the account, and an eye-witness "of the transaction at the time ; partly implicated himself in the danger of our " Saviour ; mistaken for a follower or disciple, when not really such ; afterwards " converted to the faith ; and finally St. Mark the evangelist ; I think he might " naturally look upon this as the most interesting circumstance of his life ; and "its introduction into the rest of the account, under such circumstances, be- " comes anything but foreign or irrelevant." — Dissertations on the Harmony oj the Gospels, vol. i., p. 100, ed. 1837. XX INTRODUCTION. spring, from which St. Mark drew the information which is com- municated in his Gospel. Not that we need to suppose that he learned nothing from others. He would have ample opportunities in his mother's house and else- where for getting information from the other apostles and their coadjutors, companions, and acquaintances. The little paragraph too regarding himself (§5) would of course be contributed directly by himself to himself. But still it was the current report and belief of antiquity that he drew upon St. Peter in particular for the great body of the facts which he records. (1) Jerome, who flourished toward the close of the fourth cen- tury and the beginning of the fifth, says in his Catalogue of Illustrious Men : " Mark, disciple and interpreter of Peter, wrote a " brief Gospel, at the request of the brethren in Rome, in accord- " ance with what he had heard related by Peter. This Gospel, when "read over to Peter, was approved of, and published by his " authority, to be read in the churches." l Putting no stress upon minutiae of details in this statement, and bearing in mind that a fact when got hold of was liable, in the course of manipulation and transmission, to be unduly stretched and inconsiderately applied ; still it is evident that Jerome had got handed down from the ' fathers ' who preceded him, that Mark was indebted, for the con- tents of his Gospel, to the communications of Peter. In his Letter to Hedibia he tersely represents St. Peter as the narrator, and St. Mark as the writer, of the Gospel.2 (2) Stepping back from Jerome, we come to Epiphanius, who flourished just a little earlier. He says : "But immediately after " Matthew, Mark, having become an attendant of the holy Peter in "Rome, had committed to him the taslc of setting forth tiie Gospel. " Having completed his work he was sent by the holy Peter into " the country of the Egyptians." 3 The dependence of the evan- 1 " Marcus, diScipulus et interpres Petri, juxta quod Petrum referentem " audierat, rogatus Romae a fratribus, breve scripsit Evangelium. Quod cum " Petrus audisset, probavit, et ecclesiis legendum sua authoritate edidit." — De Viris Illustribus, cap. viii. 2 "Marcum; cuj us Evangelium, Petro narrante, et illo scribente, compositum est." (Cap. xi.) 8 Ef't?<)s Se ,ue7a rbv M.ar6a1ov olkoKovOos yevo/nevos 6 MdpKos tu> aytq) Tl^rpif) iv "Pu)fj.r], eTrirptirerai to evay-^ eXiov eKdeadai. k.t.X. — Hceresis, 41, p. 428. THE RELATION Ov ST. PETER TO THE GOSPEL. XXI gelist on the apostle is the substrate, and indeed the sum and substance, of this statement. (3) Eusebius preceded Epiphanins, and flourished toward the close of the third century and the beginning of the fourth. He says, in his Evangelical Demonstration, that though the apostle Peter " did not undertake, in consequence of excess of diffidence,1 "to write a Gospel, yet it had all along been currently reported " that Mark, who had become his familiar acquaintance and attend- " ant, made memoirs of his discourses concerning the doings of " Jesus." 2 The distinguished ' father ' then proceeds, after some other details, to take notice of the fact that there is in Mark's Gospel a minute and particular account of St. Peter's lamentable denial of his Lord. After which account he adds : " It is Mark "indeed who writes these things. But it is Peter who testifies them "concerning himself; for all the contents of Marie's Gospel are re- " yarded as memoirs of Peter's discourses."5 We need not press the remark regarding Peter's ' excess of modesty.' It was probably .suggested to Eusebius by the representations of Clemens of Alexan- dria,4 and may have been a subjective conjecture rather than a historical fact. But it is obvious that he got handed down to him as a fact that Mark, in the representations of his Gospel, is to a large extent but the echo of the narrations of Peter. (4) Origen flourished before Eusebius, in the early part of the third century. In his Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew he mentions that there were four unchallenged and un- challengeable Gospels received throughout the universal church. " The second of them," he says, " is that according to Mark, who " composed it under the guidance of Peter, who therefore, in his " Catholic Epistle, acknowledged the evangelist as his son, saying, " The co-elect in Babylon saluteth you, and Marie my son." 5 We 1 Si ev\a(3elas virepfioX-qv. * Tovtov MapKoj yvwpipos kcu tpoirrjTris yeyovtbs airop.vqpovedo-ai Xtyerat ras rod Hirpov irepl tuv irpa^ewv rod Irjaov SiaXe'feis. — Demonstratio Evanyelica, lib. hi., c. 5, p. 120. 3 MtxpK'os pkv ravra yp'\ reus aTro/jLvrj/xovev^afftv clvtov yey evri/itvov /cat tovto, /xera rod. k. t. \. — § 106, Migne's ed. 2 Credibility of the Gospel History, v. ii., chap. x. : Works, vol. ii., p. 121, ed. 1788. 3 Lehrbuch des N. T., § 66. 4 Das nachapostolische Zeitalter. vol. i., p. 221. 8 Genuineness of the Gospels, vc!. i., p. 131. • Dissertation on the Origin and Connection of the Gospels, p. Ixxii. XXVU1 INTRODUCTION. Tertullian, Irengeus, and Papias, the interpreter, that is, the translator of Peter. It is an ingenious theory. But we cannot accept it, for this, were there no other reason, that the Gospel, if really Peter's, could never have got to be universally ascribed to Mark. The great name of Peter would never have been eclipsed, and indeed annihilated, behind the name of Mark, if Mark did nothing more than merely translate the apostle's Gospel into Greek. The exceptional representation of Justin is no evidence to the contrary ; neither is the somewhat analogous representation of Jerome, in the first chapter of his Catalogue of Illustrious Men, in which he says of Peter, " But the Gospel according to Mark, who " was his disciple and interpreter, is also spoken of as his." l These statements are obviously to be explained as free and easy applica- tions of the principle, that the cause of the cause is the cause of the caused. St. Peter's relation to the Gospel was something like that of a literary grandfather. Hilgenfeld's theory is, up to a certain point, in accordance with Smith's. He supposes that Justin had no knowledge of our canonical Mark, but quoted from a real Gospel of Peter, which was, says he, "if you will, the original Mark," only "richer." The canonical Mark, as he conceives, was but an epitome or abstract (Auszug).2 But is it not ' passing strange ' that the entire Christian community should so prefer the impoverished epitome, that they allowed it, without a single word of remonstrance or of murmur, or even of remark, on the part of any of the churches or any of the disputatious fathers, not merely to supersede the ' rich ' apostolic original, but also to become its burial place and the everlasting Lethe of its existence ? It looks like a ' miracle ' in the history of the church. (9) We go farther back still than to Justin Martyr. We go to Papias, who flourished in the earliest part of the second century. He was, says Irenasus,3 the companion of Polycarp,4 one of the disciples of John the Apostle. He was himself the disciple of 1 " Sed et Evangelium juxta Marcum, qui auditor ejus et interpres fuit, " hujus dicitur." 2 Kritische Untersuchungen iiber die Evangelien JustitCs pp. 278, 279. See also his Markus-Evangelium, pp. 93-117. 3 See Eusebius's Eccles. Hist , iii. 39. 4 Ilo\vi, aicpip&s iypatj/ev, ov fi'evroi rd£ei ra virb rod x/>"""W ?) ^ex&evra. 7) vpaxdevra' ovre yap iJKovcre rod Kvpiov, o&re irapTiKoXovdvcrei' airy, varepov oi, us 'i. 374. 3 " Marcum nimia parabolum Matthaei cap. 13 copia quasi obrutum, Lucob INNER RELATION TO THE OTHER SYNOPTICS. xliii Enough ! As a theory of genetic relationship, this hypothesis is, to the last degree, unlikely. Certainly, it entirely fails to give a sufficient reason for its hop-ancl-skip principle of transition from the one Gospel to the other. It also equally fails to account for those peculiarities of incident, discourse, and remark, which are found in St. Mark alone. Griesbach says that these occupy in all only about twenty-four verses.1 But this is utterly unreal, when we add the copious circumstantialities, which besprinkle the Gospel through- out, to the sections which deal with scenes that have no parallels in either St. Matthew or St. Luke." The theory likewise fails to account for those characteristic touches of description, which impart vividness, by single flashes, to the scenes depicted, and suggest that the evangelist must be drawing on the reports of some eye-witness, who had the tact of felicitously seizing, in what he saw and heard, points of irradiation and salient items of detail. Then too it entirely fails to account for the thorough homogeneousness, all through the Gospel, of the evangelist's style of composition, — simple, artless, and homely though that style confessedly is.3 If he had been borrowing his materiel, alternately, from the writings of St. Matthew and St. Luke, one would have expected, as the un- avoidable result of his double dependence, to find, in alternative sequence, a certain reflection, distinct or dim, — a ' nuancirung ' at least, — of the two different styles, to which the pendulum of his attention successively turned. But there is no such alternation of reflection or shade. And thus the theory again breaks down ; as it also conspicuously does, when one attempts, in consistency with " se adjunxisse comitem vidimus. Verumtainen cum Matthaeum potissimum " sibi elegisset, ad cujus ductum memorabilia Christi scripto cousignaret, jam " ad Matthaeum suum redit." — p. 375. 1 " Marcus totum libellum suum, si viginti et quatuor circiter commata, quae " de sua penu addidit, excipias, e Matthaei et Lucae commeutariis compilavit." — p. 369, also p. 380. 2 See the detailed evidence in Willes's Specimen Hermeneuticum de iis, qua ab uno Marco sunt narrata, aut copiosius et explicative ab eo, quam a cceteris Evangelistis, exposita. There is a summary in pp. 188-192. See also August Knobel de Evangelii Marti Origine, pp. 29-56. 8 " Of all the New Testament writers," says Michaelis, " none appear to " have given themselves less concern, than Mark, concerning elegance of " diction and purity of Greek." (Untcr alien Schriftstellern des N. T. schcint keiner um die Zicrde der Rede, und vm die Eeinigkeit des Oriechischen weniger bckiimmert geioesen zu stilt, als Marcus.) — Einleitung, § 147, p. 1076. xliv INTRODUCTION. it, to account for the many minute diversities which, amid the multitudes of minute coincidences, mottle the representations of St. Mark, and stamp them with a phase that is entirely his own. The theory is certainly untenable. But as it is positive on the one hand, and completely removed from the region of mystical haze on the other ; as it happily stirred the stagnant waters of criticism, and disturbed the old, shallow, self-arrogating hypothesis of St. Mark's exclusive dependence on St. Matthew ; as it was wrought out moreover, and propounded, by an author renowned for ability, learning, critical acumen, and independence of judgment ; it was, although amid much contention and opposition, exten- sively espoused. Saunier, in particular, elaborately defended it in a special treatise on The Sources of Marie's Gospel.1 Sieffert too defended it ; though he tried to reconcile it with the testimony of Papias regarding the relationship of the Gospel to the teachings of the apostle Peter.2 Fritzsche also espoused it zealously, and made it the basis of his Commentary on Mark, — a commentary re- markable alike for scholarly ability and for critical tyranny of tone. It was asserted moreover in the most positive manner imaginable by Evanson, in his Dissonance of the Four generally received Evan- gelists? It is contended for by Dr. Davidson ; only he postulates, in addition, that the unknown evangelist must have made use of " the primitive Mark, or Petrine Gospel, referred to by Papias." 4 Strauss too accepted it with eagerness as demonstrated.5 He found it to be subservient to his own ulterior critical aim, — for it is obvious that there could be no place for the mythical theory of the Gospel- History, if St. Mark's Gospel- Writing rested directly on the authority of an actual eye-and-ear- witness, such as the apostle Peter. Strauss therefore, in his later work, persists in his ad- herence to the theory of Griesbach.6 Gfrorer also, as might be expected from his kinship of spirit to that of Strauss, accepts it, 1 Ueber die Quellen des Evangeliums des Marcus. (1825.) 2 Prolusio, qua diuersce recentiorum criticorum sententics de fontibus Evangelii St. Hard antiquissimce traditionis eccksiasticce ope conciliantur (1829). See also his subsequent Ablwndlung ilber den Ursprung des ersten kanonischen Evangeliums (1832), p. 178. The former work is little known even in Germany. 3 He represents Mark's narrative as "compiled entirely of passages copied, " often literally, either from the Gospel called Matthew's, or Luke's "—p. 212 of let ed. (1792), or p. 275 of 2nd ed. (1805.) * Introduction, vol. ii., p-p. 90-103. * " 1st zur Evidenz erhoben." — LebenJcsu, vol. i., § 12, p. 65, ed. 1835. 6 LebenJesufiir das dcutsche Yolk (18G1), p. 8G. INNER RELATION TO THE OTHER SYNOPTICS. xlv and " holds it for an established fact, that St. Mark not only had " the two other synoptic Gospels lying open before him, but trans- " cribed them." l The underlying principle of the theory, viz. that St. Mark made use of the Gospels of both St. Matthew and St. Luke, had been, at an earlier period, ably and reverently advocated by Dr. Henry Owen, in his Observations on the Four Gospels (1764) .3 It was accepted as a ' very probable ' hypothesis by Harwood ; 3 and it has been contended for, or maintained, by many critics since, in- clusive of Neudecker,4 de Wette,5 and Bleek.6 It is also main- tained, under a certain developed phase, by Ferdinand C. Banr,7 Schwegler,8 Kostlin,9 and the other adherents of the Tubingen school. De "Wette gives effect to his opinion on the subject, by arranging his Handbook-Exposition of the Gospels thus : (1) Matthew, (2) Luke, (3) Mark, (4) John. Kostlin, in like manner, in his treatise on the Origin and Composition of the Synoptic Gospels^ divides his woi'k into three books or sections, arranged thus : (1) the Gospel according to Matthew, (2) the Gospel according to Luke, (3) the Gospel according to Mark. Although he holds that there was an original Mark, anterior to both St. Matthew and St. Luke, yet he maintains that the canonical Mark was subsequent to these other synoptics, and dug out of their materials. In addition to the general notion that St. Mark made use of the Gospels of both St. Matthew and St. Luke, the critics of the 1 " Markus die beiden Auderen nicht nur vor sicb gehabt, sondern ausge- " scbrieben hat. Dass Lezteres wirklich der Fall sey, balte Icb wenigstens fur " eine ausgemacbte Thatsacbe." — Geschichte des Urchristenthums, Band iv., Kap. 9, p. 123. 2 See, in particular, pp. 62-75. 3 Introduction to the Study and Knowledge of the New Testament, vol. i., cbap. iv., § 3, p. 135. i Lchrbuch der hislorisch-kritischen Einleitung, § 32, p. 232. * Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung, § 94. • EinUitung in das N. T, p. 243. See also bis Beitrage zur Evangelicn-Kritik, pp. 72-75. 7 Das Markusevangelium, and Kritischc Uutcnuchunjen iiber die kanonischen Evangelien, pp. 548-561. • 8 Das Nachapostolische Zcitaltcr, pp. 456-475. 9 Der Ursprung und die Komposition der Synoptischen Evangelien, pp. 310-385. xlvi INTRODUCTION. Tubingen school, — such as F. C. Baur, Schwegler, Kostlin, already referred to, — attribute to the evangelist a particular doctrinal aim or 'tendency,' having a particular relation to the parties that were co-existing, at the time of the composition of the Gospel, within the circle of the churches. St. Matthew is regarded as having had an Old Testament ' tendency,' on the side of the Judaic party. St. Luke in his ' tendency ' is regarded as having been anti-Judaic and Pauline. And St. Mark, coming after both as is assumed, and mediating as it were between them, is looked upon as meeting a more matured condition of the divergent parties,1 when their wisest leaders were wishful to shake hands and agree. His Gospel is therefore ' neutral ' and ' irenic' 2 ' It is the pro- duct,' says Kostlin, ' of the idea of catholicity.' 3 It may, on all hands, be admitted that there is a certain generic element of truth in the representations of the school that sur- rounded F. C. Baur. St. Mark's Gospel is undoubtedly 'neutral.' It is 'colourless,' in relation to all grave party questions within the circle of the early churches. It is eminently 'catholic' It is ' irenic' It is also, at the same time, as Hilgenfeld represents !t, 4'Petrinic,' though not in any one-sided, or obtrusive, or sectarian, or anti- Pauline sense. It is ' Pauline ' too, as Michelsen contends,5 but in no anti-Petrine spirit. It is thoroughly un- sectarian. All this may be admitted, and should be admitted. It is patent, lying on the surface of the Gospel. It wells up from its heart. Nevertheless, there is not so much as one straw of evidence that the Gospel of Mark occupied a position of mediation, or iren c neutrality, in relation to the other two synoptic Gospels. It is in the mere wantonness of a creative imagination that its penman is depicted as warily steering his critical bark between some Scylla in St. Matthew's representations and some Charybdis in St Luke's. There is no Scylla in the representations of St. Matthew. It must be invented, if suspected. There is no Charybdis in the 1 Schwegler, Das Nachapostolische Zeitalter, p. 456. 2 Ibid., pp. 474-481. See a shadow of the Tubingen idea cast before, in Owen's Observations, pp. 50, 51. 3 Der Ursprung, p. 373. 4 Die Evangelien, pp. 125-144. 5 Ret Evangelie van Markus, Inleiding, p. 4. " Our Mark," was written, he says, "door een christen uit de joden, doch niettemin een hevig aanhanger van " Paulus." INNER RELATION TO THE OTHER SYNOPTICS. xlvii representations of St. Luke. Neither is there any indication in St. Mark of wary steering, or of some latent aim of destination kept, like sealed orders, under lock and key. There is, in all the Gospels, perfect transparency and simplicity, ' the simplicity that is in Christ.' It is not needful to mine into profound depths, or to climb into giddy heights, in search of ' tendency.' No intricate involution, baffling to ordinary eyes, need be suspected. No divin- ing power is required. There may have been, to a certain inci- dental degree, a desire, as Mill conjectured, to correct apocryphal or erroneous representations,1 that were getting afloat over society. But doubtless the one dominant and overmastering aim would just be that of all the apostles of our Lord, and of all, in all ages, who have imbibed aught of the apostolic spirit ; to tell, for the sake of sinful and suffering humanity, the unvarnished but vivifying story of the life-and-death-work of Christ the Saviour. In other words, and in popular phraseology, the aim would be to unfurl the banner of ' the gospel.' The peculiar Tubingen theory has been repudiated and opposed by the illustrious Heinrich Ewald, in terms of the most stinging severity. The school from which it emanates is denounced by him as 'mischievous ' and 'false.' 2 But in his own theory of the inter- relationship of Mark to the other Gospels he formed, as is his wont, such peculiarly vivid conceptions that, to himself, they have started out from the canvas of his imagination, with all the self- evidencing or self-asserting authority of objective historical facts. He postulates a considerable variety of documents or books, now lost, but more or less incorporated in our existing Gospels. The respective peculiarities of these books are, he conceives, clearly discernible, in the particoloured texture of the synoptic Gospels. And hence, in the first edition of his Translation of the First Three Gospels, the edition of 1850, the respective portions which, as he conceives, had been derived from these prior works, are actually represented to the eye by being printed in nine varieties of type. He holds, moreover, that there have been three distinct editions of Mark, — Mark a, Mark b, Mark c, — the second much altered from the first, though appearing only about a year later, and the third (which appeared in the second century) still further altered and impoverished.3 In the second edi ion, as he supposes, there were 1 Prole.fjomena, § 111. * Die drei erstcn Evangclien u. d. Apostclgcschichte 0.871-72), pp. 2, 3. 8 Die drei ersten Evv., pp. 77-174. xlviii INTRODUCTION. numerous interpolations introduced from two still earlier evan- gelical documents, the oldest Gospel (now lost, — the Gospel that was used, he is convinced, by the apostle Paul), l and the Lord's Words or the " Spruchsammhbrig " (also now lost). In direct opposition, however, to the hypothesis of the Tubingen school and of Griesbach, Ewald maintains strongly that the Gospel of Mark was not only a thoroughly ' original ' work, but antece- dent in date to the Gospels of both Matthew and Luke, and was used by these evangelists in the composition of their respective books. The entire theory of the distinguished author is emphatically his own. No other independent mind could be expected to accept it. Geniuses, who wander in orbits of infinite conjecture, differ from each other, like planet from planet, not only in bulk, substantiality, and the hue and intensity of their lustre, but also in their paths. But how then are we to account for the remarkable coincidences that characterize the synoptic Gospels ? Whence the whole para- graphs of coincident phraseology ? Whence the coincidences in detached and minute phrases, as for instance in Matthew xii. 13, Mark iii. 5, Luke vi. 10 ? Whence the coincidences too in the order or arrangement of the evangelical materials ? Eichhorn, for instance, gives a tabulated list of 44 sections, which are parallel or coincident in the three synoptic Gospels. In all these sections, with the single exception of the 38th, the ' order ' of Mark and Luke is identical ; and, from the 20th onward, the order in the three evangelists, with the single exception already specified, is one and the same. Whence such coincidences ? It is not enough to refer the whole matter, with Gaussen 2 and others of the same school, to the sovereignty of Divine inspiration and dictation. God indeed ' hath spoken once ' and again and again. (Ps. lxii. 11; Heb. i. 1.) He still speaks. His very works are words. He spoke and speaks through the evangelists. Like the prophets of the older dispensation, ' they spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghosb' (2 Pet. i. 21). Doubtless the omnipresent Spirit is brooding and breathing everywhere ; and He 'blows where He listeth ' (John iii. 8). This is not a worn-out antiquated idea. It is a perennial truth, just as really a dictate of 1 Die drei ersten Evv., p. 62 3 Theopncmtie, chap, i., § 4. INNER RELATION TO THE OTHER SYNOPTICS. xllX deep philosophy as it is a doctrine of simple and biblical theology. If so, we shall not be astray in our thoughts if we believe that the Living Spirit of Christianity was ' blowing ' 1860 years ago, along the plains and around the hills of Galilee and Judasa. His influence, without stint, must undoubtedly have descended on the Christ (John iii. 34), and would be ' poured out ' plenarily on His chosen representatives and commissioners. (Acts ii. 17, 18.) It actuated the apostles and evangelists, but always, let it be borne in mind, in perfect accordance with the divinely constituted laws that, in the sphere of free human agency, regulate idiosyncratic observation of phenomena, colligation of facts, collation of particulars, logical classification, rhetorical combination, and literary representation. (1 Cor. xiv. 32.) We return then to our inquiry. There must be 'a sufficient reason ' to account for the literary coincidences of the Gospels. Le Clerc threw out the conjecture that the three synoptic evan- gelists may have derived their materials in common from the same sources, the written Memoirs or Memorials of eye-ana } -ear-witnesses.1 Priestley reproduced the conjecture.2 Koppe too reproduced it in part, contending in the Dissertation to which we have already referred 3 that St. Mark, so far from being a mere abbreviator of St. Matthew, never saw St. Matthew's Gospel. The coincidences between the two are, he conjectures, to be accounted for on the principle that they both drew from the same fountains, whether oral or written. Michaelis came to be of the same opinion sub- stantially ; only he gave emphasis to the conviction that it was ' written Reports ' (schriftlir.he Nachrichten) of which the three evangelists made use. "None of the three evangelists," he says, "seems to have read the Gospels of the other two."4 Sender, though like ' a rolling stone ' in his opinions, gave for a season more 1 " . . . quidni enim credanius, tria hffic evangelia partim petita esse ex " similibus aut iisdem fontibus, hoc est, e conimentariis eorum, qui varios "Christi sermoues audiverant, aut actorum ejus testes fuerant, eaque, ne ob- " livioni traderentur, illieo scriptis maudarant." — Historia Ecclesiastica (1716), p. 429. 2 He speaks of the Gospels as " originally written in detached parts. Some of "these," he adds, "might have been committed to writing by the apostles " themselves, and some by their auditors, corrected by themselves." — Observa- tions on the Harmony of the Gospels (1781)), pxJ. 72, 73. 3 Page xl. * Einlcitung, § 129, p. 929 1 .NTRODUCTION. definite shape to the conjecture, by saying that it was probable that all the three synoptic evangelists used various original Aramaic documents.1 Lessing became more definite still, and conjectured that the basis of the three synoptic Gospels was the Aramaic Gospel spoken of by the fathers as the Gospel according to the Hebrews, or, what was identical as he contends, the Gospel oj the twelve apostles? Niemeyer took up the conjecture and elabor- ated it, maintaining that the divergences of the existing Gospels are to be traced to different recensions of the primitive Aramaic Gospel.3 And then the hypothesis, thus amplified, got into the hands of Eichhorn, who, with a consummate genius in the direction of in- genuity, elaborated it to its culminating point, during the process of a long series of years. He was able, he conceived, to reproduce the original document, or Urevangelium, so far at least as its essen- tial contents are concerned. It consisted, he supposed, of the sum of those forty-four 4 sections of the history of our Lord, to which we have already made reference,5 and which, in their substance, are common to all the three synoptic Gospels. The additional sections of the history, which are found coincidently, not in all, but only in pairs of the Gospels, as (1) in St. Matthew and St. Mark, (2) in St. Mark and St. Luke, and (3) in St. Matthew and St. Luke, were documentary Additions or Supplements, incorporated in the par- ticular copies or recensions which had come into the hands of the respective pairs of evangelists. The sections again, which are peculiar to each of the evangelists, were apparently either peculiar- ities in his particular recension, or contributions from private sources of his own. Eichhorn is not quite positive about them.6 But he is quite positive about the actual existence of the Aramaic TJrevan- 1 See his notes to his Townson's Abhandlungen iiber die vier Evangelien, vol. i., pp. 146, 221, 290. 2 " Matthasus, Marcus, Luoas sincl nichts als verschiedene und nicht ver- " schiedene Uebersetzungen der sogenannten hebraiscben Urkunde des Mat- "thffius, die jeder machte so gut er konnte." — Neue Hypothese iiber die Evangel- isten bios als menschliche Geschichtschreiber betrachtet (1778), § 50. 3 Conjecturce ad illustrandum plurimorum N. T. Scriptorum silentium de primordiis vita Jesu Christi (1790), pp. 8-10. 4 Forty-tion in his first draft. 5 Page xlviii. 6 As to Mark, he says : " Diese Stiicke verrathen vielmehr einen eigen gestimm- " ten Concipienten, von dem wir so7ist weiter nichts besitzen. Ob nun dieser Con- " cipient Markus selbst sey, oder eine von ihm verschiedene Person, muss man unent- "schieden lassen." — Einleitung, § 89, vol. i., p. 390. INNER RELATION TO THE OTHER SYNOPTICS. li< gelium, with different sets of additions or interpolations in different copies : such as Copy A, containing additions ultimately incorporated in St. Matthew ; Copy B, containing additions ultimately incorporated' in St. Luke ; Copy C, combining both A and B and translated by St. Mark ; Copy J), which, when combined with B, formed the basis of St. Luke's Gospel, while as combined with A it formed the basis of the text of St. Matthew.1 He also became positive, in the ultimate form of his theory, that, in addition to the Aramaic additions in the various codices referred to, there had got into circulation early Greek translations of Copies A and _D. Hence, as he concludes, the coincidences on the one hand, and the variations on the other, of our canonical Gospels. All the coinci- dences are to be accounted for by the common possession of identical documents. The majority of the most important variations are to be attributed to the possession of one or more peculiar documents on the part of each particular evangelist. We have referred to the ultimate form of Eichhorn's hypothesis. Intermediate between that form and its original draft, Dr. Marsh's Dissertation on the Origin and Composition of our Three First Canonical Gospels (1801) came in. Equal to Eichhorn in zeal, and possessed of an ingenuity which, if not so inventive, was yet as keen in its edge and more critically consistent in its application, Dr. Marsh supplied several of the steps, by means of which Eichhorn at last mounted to the pinnacle and consummation of his theory. The phase of the theory, as it left the hands of Dr. Marsh, may be learned from his own deliberate deliverance : " St. Matthew, St. " Mark, and St. Luke, all three, used copies of the common Hebrew " document ' N,' the materials of which St. Matthew, who wrote in " Hebrew, retained in the language in which he found them, but St. " Mark and St. Luke translated them into Greek. They had no •' knowledge of each other's Gospels ; but St. Mark and St. Luke, " besides their copies of the Hebrew document ' N,' used a Greek " translation of it, which had been made before any of the additions " ' a,' ' B; ' y,' ' A,' ' B,' ' T ' had been inserted. Lastly, as the " Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke contain Greek translations of " Hebrew materials, which were incorporated into St. Matthew's " Hebrew Gospel, the person who translated St. Matthew's Hebrew " Gospel into Greek frequently derived assistance from the Gospel 1 Einleitung, § 84, pp. 372-375. lii INTRODUCTION. " of St. Mark, where St. Mark had matter in common with St. " Matthew ; and in those places, bnt in those places only, where " St. Mark had no matter in common with St. Matthew, he had " frequently recourse to St. Luke's Gospel." l But the theory culminated, as we have intimated, in the hands of Eichhorn. It thenceforward became arrested. Though somewhat simplified by Gratz,2 and defended, with reservations that turned longingly to the future for light, by Bertholdt,3 it ceased to undergo development. It ceased by and by to live ; and now, in Germany, it is nothing more than a memory. "No wonder. For it is, as a developed hypothesis of the genetic relationship of the Gospels, very far indeed from being satisfactory, and especially in its most developed or culminated form. It is, in the first place, too artificial by far. In the second place, it is a mere pile of conjectures, with no unchallengeable basis in historic fact. The postulated documents are never referred to by 'the ancients.' No trace of their existence is found, except in the theory. In the third place, it is unnaturally complicated, bristling cumbrously with its tabulated codices. And then, in the fourth place, it is essentially only a transition theory, that was destined in its very nature to be left behind, ' high and dry,' in the rapid succession of hypotheses. It proceeds on the assumption that the synoptic evangelists were dependent, for their materials, on ivritten docu- ments. And this assumption, by removing the canonical biographers of our Lord to a distance from the fountains of primary knowledge, leads, by a short route, to the surmise that the Gospels attributed to them were not their own compositions, but supposititious pro- ducts of a later age. This surmise has been actually evolved, and is at present quite a postulate with a certain circle of theorists., It is claimed by F. C. Baur, and the adherents of his school, as the legitimate finding of distinctively historical criticism. The claim, however, cannot be conceded. It is at variance with real history. It makes it impossible to find a sufficient reason, or an adequate cause, for the actual form which was assumed by post- apostolic Christian literature. That literature, amid many glaring excrescences and a strange combination of crudities and scnilitics, 1 Dissertation, chap, xv., p. 195. 3 Neuer Versuch die Entstehung der drey ersten EcangcUen zu erkldren (1812). See iu particular §§ 26, 27. 5 Kiv',;aur.'j, % 3Vj, vol. iii., pp. 1249, 1250- INNER RELATION TO THE OTHER SYNOPTICS. liii together with other imperfections, is pervaded by a spirit of rever- ence for our existing Gospels, and is frequently saturated with the expressed juices, not only of their general essence, but of their particular contents. It demands therefore, as the indispensable condition of its existence, the pre-existence of the Gospels as we have them. In another respect, too, is the theory on which we are remarking unhistorical and unphilosophical. It leaves unaccounted for the unanimity of the Christian churches of the second century in re- gard to the great outstanding Christological phenomena which con- stitute the essence of the Gospels. For, while there were manifold diversities of speculation in reference to the interpretation of these phenomena, there was remarkable unity, attested even by the vagaries of heretics and the objections of heathens, in reference to the actual occurrence of the works and words ascribed to our Lord. Indeed, the theory leaves unaccounted for the deeply imbedded unanimity in Christological essentials that underlies all the varied developments of Christian life, Christian speculation, and Christian organization, in all the succeeding centuries. The peculiarities of the present century demand, as part of their sufficient reason, the antecedent peculiarities of the century that preceded. The peculiar- ities of that preceding century demand for their adequate cause the presence of the antecedent peculiarities of the century that went before. And so the regress continues, until we arrive at the peculiarities of the second century, which demand a sufficient reason for themselves in something that is comprehensive of the antecedent peculiarities of the first. But that sufficient reason can never be found, if the facts that are embodied in the existing Gospels be ignored. And when we get into the sphere of these facts, it would be utterly unaccountable if the Matthew of the first century, who had the full use of his own eyes and ears, and the Mark of that same century, who had the privilege of being associ- ated with probably all the apostles, and certainly with St. Peter, on terms of intimacy, were yet dependent for their narrations on some prior Gospel and connected Supplements, out of, which they had painfully to weave the texture of their immortal compositions. The actual coincidences of the synoptics must be sought for in some other cause than in the common possession of an Aramaic Urevangelium, now lost. What then is this cause ? Many of late have looked, or are still liv tNTRODUCTION. looking for it, in Mark's own Gospel. They suppose that that Gospel has been, either in its present or in some prior form, the original, or archetype, out of which the Gospels of both Matthew and Luke were developed. This Mark-hypothesis was Storr's theory. He handled it reve- rently, but immaturely.1 It slumbered in its immaturity for long after the decease of Storr. But in the year 1838 it woke up in full maturity, and, — strange to say, — in two independent forms. In that year Wilke published his Urevangelist,2 and maintained, in an elaborate induction of particulars, and by most vigorous if not rigorous processes of argumentation, that our canonical Mark was the original evangelist, from the fountain of whose narrative both St. Matthew and St. Luke drew almost all their waters. He held however that St. Luke was anterior to St. Matthew, so that St. Matthew had not only the fountain of St. Mark from which to draw, but also the intermediate cistern of Luke. Weisse again, in the same year, published his still more elaborate Gospel History, critically and philosophically handled? in which, with still more comprehensive sweep of minutely detailed criticism, he contended, as zealously as Wilke, for the priority of St. Mark's Gospel, as we have it, to both St. Matthew's and St. Luke's, main- taining at the same time, just as Wilke does, that the compilers of these latter Gospels drew from the storehouse of the former. But, in contrariety to the simpler theory of Wilke, he maintained that both St. Matthew and St. Luke availed themselves, in addition, of the Aramaic Oracles ascribed by Papias to Matthew, the Spruch- sammlung of which we have spoken in our notice of the hypothesis of Ewald. He contended, moreover, that St. Matthew and St. Luke wrote quite independently of one another, so that neither of the two made use of the other's cistern. In a subsequent publication, the author, influenced by the representations and reasonings of Ewald, so far modified his theory, retrogressively, as to hold that St. Mark's Gospel, as we now have it, is not so full or rich as it was at 1 Ueber den Ziveck der evavgelischen Geschichte und der Briefe Johannis (1786), pp. 274 ft'. See also his Prolusio de fonte cvangeliorum Matthcei et Luccc (1794) in Velthusen, Kuinol, and Euperti's Comnientt. Theoll., vol. iii.; likewise his Opuscula Academica, vol. iii., p. 66. 2 Der Urevangelist, oder exegetisch kritische Untersuchung iiber das Venoandt- schaftsverhaltniss der drei ersten Evangelien. 3 Die evangelische Geschichte kritisch und philosophisch bearbeitct. (Zwci Bande.) INNER RELATION TO THE OTHER SYNOPTICS. lv the time when St. Matthew and St. Luke unitedly drew from, its wellspring.1 Thiersch, in the main, has followed in the wake of Wilke and Weisse, of Wilke in particular.2 So, in a sense, has Smith of Jordanhill ; but independently, and by means of self originated research. He supposes, as we have already noted,3 that St. Mark's Gospel is merely St. Maries trans- lation of St. Peter s original Aramaic Gospel. He holds that it was the Aramaic original, which both St. Matthew and St. Luke made use of ; St. Matthew first, and then St. Luke, who had in his hands not merely St. Peter's original document, but also our present canonical Gospel according to St. Matthew, or St. Matthew's Greek translation of his own prior Aramaic Gospel. Holtzmann4 too supposes that all the three synoptics are com- positions at second hand. At the basis of them all is an original Mark, or Urmarcus, of which however very special advantage was taken by the canonical Mark, and hence the transmission of the name ; while the canonical Matthew and Luke had the advan- tage of using another important evangelical document, a Greek version of the Oracles which, in its original Aramaic form, was ascribed by Papias to the apostle Matthew. This Collection of the Oracles of the Lord constituted, says Holtzmann, the original Matthew, or Urmatthaus, and was freely used by both the canonical Matthew and the canonical Luke, but to a greater extent by the latter than by the forcner.5 The canonical Mark had not, it seems, the advantage of being acquainted with the work, and hence that comparative paucity of the words of the Saviour which is charac- teristic of his Gospel. More recent investigators are still out at sea, and refuse to follow in the wake of either Wilke, Weisse, or Holtzmann. Klostermann,6 for example, abjures the idea of an original Mark now lost. He believes that the canonical Mark is the Mark of 1 Die Evangelienfrage in ihrem gegenwdrtigen Stadium (185G), pp. 156 if. 2 Die Kirche im apostolisclten Zeitalter und die Entstehung der neutestament- lichen Schriften (1858), p. 102. 3 Pages xxvii., xxxi. 4 Die Synoptischen Evangelicn, ihr Ursprung und geschichtlicher Character (1S63). * Die Synoptischen Evangelien, pp. 128, 162, etc. * Das Markusevangclium nach seinem Quellenwcrthi fur die evangelische Geschichtc (1S67). 1 VI INTRODUCTION. Papias. But he maintains its dependent or secondary relationship to St. Matthew. In this last particular he treads in the footsteps of Augustine in ancient times, as also of Hilgenfeld in modern times, who, in a long series of consecutive treatises, maintains that St. Mark made use of St. Matthew, while he still more emphatically and per- sistently maintains, in opposition to Griesbach and F. C. Baur, that he did not make use of St. Luke. Volkmar too, like Klostermann, though belonging to a totally different school, abandons the idea of an original or chrysalis Mark ; though he holds that it is not unlikely that the canonical Mark made use of the canonical Luke, while it is certain, he sup- poses, that he made use of four of Paul's epistles, as also of ' the bitterly anti-Pauline Apocatypse.' 1 Michelsen of Holland, on the other hand, contends confidently for a succession of Marks. He is certain indeed that both St. Matthew and St. Luke had before them the two editions. St. Matthew however, as he conceives, more frequently followed Mark the First, while St. Luke in general gave the preference to Mark the Second.2 Scholten followed Michelsen, and is equally positive that there was an original Mark, the precursor of the canonical. Indeed it must have been, as he represents it, of a very humble chrysalis character. It was, however, one of the chief sources of Matthew. But then, be it remembered, there were three successive Matthews : Matthew the First (i.e. the Oracles) ; Matthew the Second (drawn from Mark the First, and the Oracles, and another original Gospel now lost) ; and Matthew the Third, or our canonical Gospel according to Matthew (containing, in addition to the three constituent elements specified, some pieces or patches of anecdote unknown to Luke).3 A far more reverent spirit is that of Dr. Bernhard Weiss, who has devoted himself to the study of this question for a long series of years, and published in 1872 an elaborate work on Mark.4 1 Die Evangelien, oder Marcus und die Synopsis der kanonischen und ausser- kanonischen Evangelien, nach dem dltcsten Text, mit historisch-exegctischen Com- mentar (1870), p. 646. 2 Het Evangelic van Markus. (1867.) 3 Het Oudste Evangelie, critisch onderzoek naar de samenstelling, de onderlinge verhouding, de historische ivaarde en den oorsprong der evangelien naar Matthcus en Marcus (1868), pp. 70-72, etc. 4 Das Marcusevangelium und seine synoptischen Parallelen. (1872.) INNER RELATION TO THE OTHER SYNOPTICS. lvii He has, however, a complicated theory of his own. He turns back to the testimony of ' the fathers,' and believes, in accordance with the general tradition, that St. Mark's Gospel was inspired by the direct teaching of the apostle Peter. So far good. But running, too artificially as we conceive, in the groove of the Mark-hypothesis, he also believes that the Gospel, as thus inspired by the chief of the original apostles, ' lies at the basis ' of the other two synoptic Gospels, and gave rise to 'their entire inner economy.' But he believes, still further, that the problem of the inter-relationship of the three Gospels can never be solved, unless we postulate, with Holtzmann, that there was a still earlier apostolic document, which was made use of by all the three evangelists, viz. a Greek transla- tion of that original Aramaic writing of Matthew which is spoken of by Papias, the Oracles of the Lord. It was because this was largely absorbed in the first canonical Gospel, that occasion was given to the name, the Gospel according to ' St. Matthew.' This earliest of all the evangelical documents is, as Weiss holds, 'the missing link,' after which the hands of Lessing, Eichhorn, Marsh, and their followers, were anxiously groping, but which, unhappily for the success of their critical researches, eluded their grasp. We cannot say that we are satisfied with the ' Mark-hypothesis ' in any of its forms, or with any of the other hypotheses which we have passed under review. They are all too artificial, and most of them too subtle. The problem is in some respects insoluble. A witness in a court of law, if he has a long story to tell twice, will produce a minglement of coincidences and variations, which postulate, as their factors, conditions which it might baffle the most judicial and judicious to unravel and enumerate. Even the same author, if not trusting to a stereotypical memory, will be, perhaps unconsciously, the subject of different factors of representation, when, at different times and in different circum stances, he presents the story of his experience or information. Witness, for example, the apostle Paul's accounts of his ' apprehen- sion ' by the Saviour on the road to Damascus, as given, the one to the people of Jerusalem while he stood on the stair of the castle Antonia (recorded in Acts xxii.), and the other in the presence of King Agrippa at Coesarea (recorded in Acts xxvi.). Compare, more- over, both of these accounts with that of Luke in the ninth chapter of the Acts, an account no doubt furnished to the faithful historian lviii INTRODUCTION. from the mouth of the apostle himself. The factors that influenced l'hetorical or literary representation were, of necessity, peculiar in each case, and produced the noteworthy variations which occur in each of the accounts. But certain of the factors were uniform throughout, and hence are to he accounted for not only the essential harmony of the accounts, but also the coincidences in particular items of the phraseology. Yet who could now reproduce the sum total of the factors ? And how exceedingly cumbrous, artificial, absurd, and comical, it would be to proceed on the assumption that, to explain the coincidences and variations, a complex series of prior documents or Urdocumente must be postulated, out of one or more of which something must have been derived to all the representa- tions, while the variations are to be accounted for on the assump- tion that document A was not followed in the one case, while document B was substituted in its place, and document C was over- laid while document B was being used. The factors of rhetorical or literary representation, that produce coincidences and sometimes even lengthened harmonies or identities, are not always or necessarily documentary. Especially was this the case in an age when the facilities for actual penmanship were comparatively few and rare, and among a peojue who did not enjoy the advantage of being trained to the use of 'letters.' Take the old English and Scottish ballads for example. It was long ere some of them, at least, were committed to writing. Bard handed them down to bard ; and when the bards died out, amateurs of less practised memories kept hold of them, often with remarkable tenacity as regards essence and substance, though not with uniform identity as regards every word, line, rhyme, or verse. It is suggestive to take note, moreover, of the peculiarities or idiosyncrasies of story tellers. Some cannot repeat the same story twice in identical terms. Others cannot repeat the same story at all except in identical terms ; even when it is given by them at second hand, the identical terms of the first narrator are, in the salient points at least, faithfully reproduced. A third class of story tellers swing alternately toward either pole of peculiarity. It is the same with preachers of the gospel. While some seldom, if ever, repeat themselves in phraseology, others, except when iu special circumstances, slide insensibly, and as it were inevitably, into repetition. In ' free ' or ' extemporary ' prayer too there is, with some, a continual up-welling of originality, while with others there is but INNER RELATION TO THE OTHER SYNOPTICS. lix little that is really ' extemporary ' and ' free,' beyond a certain limited latitude in adjustment. There are in their memory actual forms or formularies of adoration and petitions, which are repeated and re-repeated with precision. These phenomena of retentiveness or adhesiveness of memory are quite common, and would be far more so, when writing was cumbrous on the one hand and a rare accomplishment on the other ; and when, besides, there was but a slender apprehension and appreciation of the charm of phraseological variety. The phraseological coincidences therefore of the synoptic evan- gelists do not demand, for their explication, the hypothesis of some oi'iginal document or documents possessed in common by them all. It is admitted, indeed, on all hands that, at a very early period, there were other documents in existence besides our extant Gospels. St. Luke, in his Introduction, makes express mention of them. "Many" says he, "have taken in hand to set forth in order an " account of those things that have been accomplished among us " (i. 1). It is most reasonable to suppose that there might have been, and indeed must have been, soon after the Saviour's decease, if not in some instances even before it, various epistolary or anecdotical and semi-biographical accounts of His marvellous career, circulating in those spheres of society which had felt the thrill of His words and works. But we have no reason to suppose that St. Matthew, for instance, would be much dependent on such writings for the materials of his Gospel. He had been, himself, an eye-and-ear- witness of the works and words. And he was living in the closest intimacy with those who could assist his memory, or furnish him with information on facts beyond the sphere of his personal cognisance. St. Mark too, we have found reason to believe,1 could not be, to a very large degree, dependent on such partial and casual memoirs, records, or reports. He drew fresh from the fountain of one who had enjoyed peculiarly favourable opportunities of acting as a privileged eye-and-ear- witness. We may presume therefore that both St. Matthew and St. Mark trusted much to memory, the one to his own, the other to the memory of the apostle Peter. But still we need not imagine that St. Matthew trusted ex- clusively to his own recollections, as distinguished from the re- collections of his brethren in the apostleship ; or that St. Mark 1 See pages xix.--xxxvii. Ix INTRODUCTION. trusted wholly to the memory of St. Peter. Such an idea of the state of the case would be an unnatural narrowing and limiting of the factors of literary reproduction and representation. Doubtless, the first apostolic narrations of the gospel would be oral. Herder was right in giving emphasis to this idea.1 The apostles and their helpers went about preaching the gospel by word of mouth. They proclaimed it as 'from the house-tops.' And when they passed beyond the little circles of those who had known by personal observation, or popular hearsay, the particulars of the Saviour's extraordinary career, they would be called upon, by such as became disciples or catechumens, to tell in detail the story of the unique and marvellous Life. As happens however in all such cases, those who, like Peter, could report their observations and express their conceptions with facility and force, would give literary shape to the story. The others, who had in their nature more of the faculty of reproduc- tion or representation, and less of the power of primary or original presentation, would follow in the footsteps of their leaders. Not slavishly however, we may suppose. All the eye-and-ear-witnesses would, we may presume, contribute somewhat to the grand result. But as apostle listened to apostle, narrating to the assembled dis- ciples what their Lord had done and said and suffered, the specific forms of ' setting ' the scenes, and even in many cases of ' putting ' the minute details of the scenes, would, when vivid or striking, be appreciated, remembered, by and by reproduced, and at length re- gularly, and with only partial and occasional variations, repeated. The narratives would gradually run into moulds which would, in course of time, become stereotypical. This is, in substance, Gieseler's hypothesis, to account at once for the coincidences and for the variations of the sjmoptic Gospels.2 It no doubt contains in itself a large proportion of the realities of the case. But we see no good reason for isolating the indubitable factors it embraces from other possibilities and probabilities. Some of the ' numerous ' memoirs, narratives, or reports, which were lying before St. Luke (i. 1), or which were circulating in other circles, may have been known to St. Matthew and St. Mark, and may have had an influence on their minds and pens. These very 1 See especially his Uegel der Zusammenstimmung unsrer Evangelien, aus ihrer Entetehung and Ordnung (1797), at the beginning. 2 Historisch-kritischer Versuch iiber die Entstehung und die frilhesten Schichsale der schriftlichen Evangelien (1818). DATE OF THE GOSPEL. !xi documents may indeed have been second-hand reflections, and thus more or less correctly taken literary photographs of the very re- hearsals which the apostles, inclusive of St. Matthew himself and of St. Peter in particular, had been accustomed to make in the meetings of the catechumens. Most piobably all of them would be of this description. And if so, it is no violent stretch of imagination to suppose that they might, in their distinctive individualities, have contributed their appreciable, though now indeterminable, quota of influence in giving shape and fixity to certain moulds of presenta- tion and certain methods of arrangement. A Higher Hand than that of man is always operative in human history, though it does not do everything, or supersede the unfet- tered activity of human hands, and heads, and hearts. Indeed, if there was a special Divine manifestation in Him who was Himself the Living Word, it is reasonable to suppose that there would be a correlative Divine manifestation in the written word. To fulfil the ends contemplated in the appearance of the Impersonated Word, the mirror of the impersonal word was required, in which, not His flitting shadow alone, but the fixed photograph of His glory, might from age to age be contemplated. We have the mirror. We have the fixed photograph. Indeed we have synoptic photographs ; and others besides. Their variety is beautiful. Their unembarrassed harmony is perfect. The hands of the human artists had not a little to do in the matter of arrangement and adjustment. But for the ' speaking- likenesses ' or 'express images,' which come out in their pages, we are indebted to the irradiation of that very Light from heaven which is ' the true Light that lighted ' the evan- gelists, and that still, though in a secondary way, ' lighteth every man that cometh into the world.' § 9. Date of the Gospel. It is not possible, at present, to determine the particular year of the publication of the Gospel before us. Not even is it possible to deter- mine the decade of years, within which the publication must have taken place. All is mere conjecture regarding years and decades. Of conjecture, however, there has been no lack. The majority of conjecturists have taken their cue from the state- ment of Irenseus, which has been already, in a former section of this Introduction} passed under review. This early father says, 1 Pages xxiv. — xx\i. lxii INTRODUCTION. according to the currently received text of his Worh against Heresies, that "after the departure of Peter and Paul, Mark, the dis- " ciple and interpreter of Peter, even he, delivered to us in writing "the things which were preached by Peter." On the assumption that the word ' departure ' refers to the decease of the apostles named, the publication of the Gospel has been connected with the date of Peter's martyrdom. The tragical event, (with which the martyrdom of Paul is, according to the current ecclesiastical tradi- tion, supposed to have been either precisely1 or very nearly coincident,) is generally or rather indeed unanimously assigned to the seventh decade of the first Christian century. The narrative concerning Paul in the Acts of the Apostles brings down the progress of events to the two years during which he dwelt, as a prisoner at large, 'in his own hired house' in Rome. These two years are supposed by Spanheim, Pearson, Tillemont, Bertholdt, Kohler, Feilmoser, Anger, Conybeare and Howson, to extend from a.d. 61 to a.d. 63. According to Hug, Schmidt, de Wette, Schrader, Schott, Ewald, Meyer, they extend from 62 to 64. According to Ussher, Michaelis, Heinrichs, Eichhorn, Olshausen, Sanclemente, Ideler, they extend from 63 to 65. Paul was martyred, according to Schrader, in the year 64 ; " according to Lardner, either in 64 or 65 ;3 according to Hemsen, either toward the close of 65 or toward the beginning of 66 ; 4 according to Patrizi, in the summer of 67 ; 5 according to Conybeare and Howson, in the summer of 68.6 Soon thereafter, and no doubt within the seventh decade of the century, if the chronology of Irengeus were correct, must the Gospel ac- cording to Mark have been published. Hug, in the earlier editions of his Introduction, fixed on the year 69. " The publication," he said, " took place in the sixty-ninth year after the birth, and in the "thirty-seventh year after the death of Jesus."7 But he ultimately saw reason to conclude that there is no real historic ground on which to determine the precise year.8 1 e/iapTuprjiTav Kara rbv avrbv Kaipbv, says Dionysiusj bishoj) of Corinth in the second century. See Eusebius's Hist. Eccles., ii. 25. 2 Der Apostel Paulus, vol. i., p. 264. 3 History of the Apostles and, Evangelists, chap. xi. Works, vol. vi., pp. 300, 301, ed. 1788. 4 Der Apostel Paulus, p. 742. 5 De Evangeliis, vol. i., p. 42. 6 Life and Epistles of St. Paxil, vol. ii., pp. 502, 5G0, ed. 1855. 1 Einleitung, vol. ii., § 31. 8 Einleitung, 4th ed., vol. ii., § 32. DATE OF THE GOSPEL. lxiii He was right. The coincidence of the martyrdoms of Paul and Peter in Rome is by no means a settled historical fact. And though it were, the chronological connection with it of the publication of Mark's Gospel rests only on the statement of Irenseus. And, in this statement, he is contradicted by counter statements on the part of Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, Epiphanius, and Jerome, which have apparently as much title, as the asseveration to which they are opposed, to be regarded as authoritative and correct. Irenams's asseveration then must, in the present state of patristic criticism, be held in abeyance. Patrizi contends strenuously that it must be set aside ; and reasoning on Christophorson's reading of the text, he fixes on the latter half of the year a.d. 42, or the former half of the year 43, as the date of the publication of Mark's Gospel.1 This is, however, a mere conjecture of the distinguished Roman chronologist, a conjecture toppling on the point of a critical needle. The conjecture, however, did not originate with Patrizi. The same date is found in the colophon of several respectable manu- scripts of the Gospel, including the uncials G K S. In these manu- scripts there is an express statement to the effect that the Gospel was published ten years after the ascension of Christ, that is, in the year 43. Storr,2 long ago, so far agreed with Patrizi and these manuscripts as to contend for a very early date. He supposed that the work was published in Antioch, soon after " the men of Cyprus and '• Cyrene," who were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, "came to Antioch and spake unto the Grecians, "preaching the Lord Jesus." (Acts xi. 19, 20.) He connected this occurrence regarding some men of Gyrene with the statement in Mark xv. 21, " And they impress one Simon a Gyrenian, who was passing " by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Unfits, to " bear His cross." Storr thinks it probable that Alexander and Ruf us were among the men of Gyrene who went to Antioch ; and hence, as he supposes, — Mark's mention of them in connection with their father. This is, however, just another needle point of conjec- tural criticism. T. R. Birks, also, pleads for an early date of publication. He 1 See his Dissertation Quando scripserit Marcus, pp. 36-51 of the 1st volume of his De Evangeliis. 2 Ueber den Zweck der evangclischen Geschichte u. Briefe Johannis, pp. 278 ff. lxiv INTRODUCTION. thinks that " the second Gospel was written by John Mark, about " the year a.d. 48, and probably at Csesarea, with a reference, not " only to Jewish believers, bnt to Gentile Roman converts, who " would have multiplied there in seven or eight years from the con- " version of Cornelius." l It is an ingenious conjecture, reverently wrought out, but resting, like Storr's, on not much broader evidence than can rest on the point of another needle. Volkmar, fixing on a later date, is far more definite and positive on the ' point.' " The time of publication," he says, " is easily and " indubitably determined." 3 Easily! Indubitably! How? For the strangest of reasons, reader. Only turn to Mark i. 13, and you have it, half hidden in a mystery, but self revealing to the initiated. Do we not read there that Jesus was " in the wilderness, forty day.", " tempted of Satan ? " What of that ? Why, it is obvious, contends Volkmar, that there must be a deep significance in that particular number of days. Moses too was forty clays in the wilderness (Exod. xxxiv. 28). Elijah also was forty days in the wilderness (1 Kings xix. 8). And the people of Israel were forty years in the wilder- ness (Num. xiv. 33). What could be clearer and more indubitable to the initiated ? The days of the Saviour's trial were forty, in order to cast shadows both behind and before. And they obviously therefore foreshadow forty years of trial to His people after His decease on the cross in the year 33, forty years to be succeeded by that glorious coming which was to take place before all the personal disciples of the Lord 'tasted of death' (Mark ix. 1). Add then 40 to 33, and ' the birth-year of the book ' 3 is at once determined — 73 ! This needle has a very sharp point indeed. The critics of the Tubingen school project the date of composition and publication far beyond a.d. 73. They admit that the original Mark of Papias must have belonged to the first century ; but they contend that the canonical Gospel, which superseded the original, cannot have been earlier than the second. Kostlin comes to the conclusion that it emerged in the first decade of the second cen- tury.4 Dr. Davidson would date it ' about a.d. 120.' 5 Others of the school would carry the date still farther forward, say to some point or other between a.d. 130 and a.d. 150. 1 Hotcb Evangelicce, p. 238. 2 Marcus unci die Synopsis, p. 646. s " Geburtsjahr des Buches." — Marcus, etc., pp. 49, 50. 4 Der Ursprung und die Komposition der Syn. Evv., pp. 384, 385. * Introduction, vol. ii., p. 111. DATE OF THE GOSPEL. lxv But this entire theory of the supersession and absorption of the original Gospel of Mark by a fictitious Gospel of the second cen- tury rests on another needle point. It rests on the assumption of the soundness of Strauss's theory. It assumes that the mythical interpretation of the Gospel history is substantially correct, though incomplete as originally propounded by its author, and needing for its complement the establishment of the inauthenticity of the four canonical Gospels. Hence the literary task assigned to itself by the school: Let the inauthenticity of the Gospels be made out! There cannot have been miracles. Paulus's method of reducing the supernatural to the natural is absurd and grotesque. Therefore the Gonpels we possess cannot be of apostolic origin or authority. They must have originated in a time far removed from the days of the apostles ! But the assumption of a fictitious Gospel according to Mark, composed by a well-meaning impostor of the second century, though essential, (along with corresponding assumptions in reference to Matthew, Luke, and John,) to the validity of Strauss's theory, is itself, so far as the scientific determination of the date of our canonical Gospel is concerned, nothing better than a mere unhis- torical assumption. It is in fact a critical myth. As unlikely too as it is unhistorical. For where can be found even so much as a needle point's breadth of probability that a Gospel, originated in the apostolic circle, and bearing what was equivalent to the im- primatur of the chief of the original apostles, could, in the course of the second century, be not only unceremoniously, but also unanimously, laid aside, to make room for an upstart composition, written by nobody knows who, but filchingly bearing the honoured name of the genuine original document ? How could it happen that all the copies of the original Gospel should have been not only superseded and shelved, but annihilated, so that, at the present day, not a single transcript, or fragment of one, can be found ? How could it come to pass that, in the midst of the keen conflicts and mutual jealousies that abounded toward the conclusion of the second century, there should be a perfectly unanimous consent that never should one word be written about the substitution of the false for the true Gospel, so that all the records that would likely go down to posterity should be entirely destitute of any note or hint on the subject ? How could all these improbabilities become actualities ? But are there then no data at all on which an approximate date / lxvi INTRODUCTION. may be assigned to the composition and publication of St. Mark's Gospel ? There are. There is nothing indeed, as we have already intimated, that will afford a warrant to fix on any given year or decade of years. But the succession of patristic testimonies back to Papias, as exhibited in the sixth section of this Introduction, makes it certain that the Gospel was in existence, and well known, during the first century of the Christian era. Since, moreover, it is all but certain that the John Mark of the Acts of the Apostles was the writer of the Gospel, and since it is prob- able that he was quite ' a young man ' at the time of the crucifixion, and consequently still young when he was assumed by Paul and Barnabas as their ministerial attendant, we may reasonably suppose that he would not defer the composition of his Gospel till he was overtaken by extreme old age. If he did not, then we have some- thing like a foothold on which to reach some data for an approxi- mate date. It is not likely, at all events, that the composition of the Gospel would be deferred to a period later than the year 70, the date of the overthrow of Jerusalem. Indeed it is most unlikely that it would be deferred till that period. If St. Mark was about twenty years of age at the time of the crucifixion, he would be nearly sixty about the year 70. Besides, there seems to be, in the peculiar inter-stratification of the contents of the 13th chapter of the Gospel, (the prophetical chapter,) taken in conjunction with the statement in chap. ix. 1, ' Verily I say unto you, that there be some that stand here, who shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power,' evidence on which we may, with probability, support the conclusion that Mark, at the time he composed his Gospel, connected in his mind, as a matter of ' private interpretation ' and expectation, the glorious personal appearing of our Lord with the anticipated destruction of Jerusalem. The precise ' times and seasons ' were not distinctly and minutely unrolled to the eyes of evangelists and apostles. The prophetical perspective did not show the length of the intervals that intervened along the path of the future ; and the inspired writers were consequently left, like the prophets of old, to ' search what and what manner of times ' were referred to. This being the case, there is, in the inter-stratification referred to, evidence that increases the probability that the Gospel must have been written before the year 70. PLACE OF PUBLICATION. lxvii There is another incidental item of evidence that leans and leads toward the same conclusion. It is found in the verse which oc- casioned Storr's theory, viz. chap. xv. 21, "and they impress one " Simon a Cyrenian, who was passing by, coming ont of the country, " the father of Alexander and Rufus, to hear His cross." Why should the evangelist particularize the fact that Simon of Cyrene was the father of Alexander and Rufus ? Obviously, as Grotius remarks, because Alexander and Rufus were living at the time when the Gospel was published. Simon himself seems to have been deceased. His identity is remembered by means of his surviving sons. He would probably be in middle life, or beyond it, when he undertook his journey to the city of his fathers to celebrate the passover. But it was ' the beginning of days ' to him ; and not to himself only, it would appear, but to all his household. His sons became men of mark in the Christian circle. It would however be quite improbable and unnatural to go forward to a period near the close of the century, for the time of their prominence. A period before the destruction of Jerusalem is far more likely to have been the season when they were conspicuous. At all events, we could not, with the least shadow of probability, pass the terminating decades of the first century, and go over into the second. The Tubingen date must of necessity be abandoned. § 10. The Place of the Gospel's Publication, and the Language in which it was originally written. As to the place where the Gospel of St. Mark was originally cir- culated, nothing can be positively determined. We have seen, incidentally,1 that Storr conjectured it to be Antioch, and that Birks conjectured it to be Caesarea. The ancients in general assumed it to be Rome. Chrysostom, however, in the introduction to his Homiletical Exposition of Matthew, mentions another tradition, which seems, nevertheless, never to have obtained extensive currency : — " Mark is said (Ae'yeTcu) to have composed his Gospel in Egypt at " the solicitation of the disciples there." Modern critics in general acquiesce in the common opinion of the ancients. Some of them sup- pose that we have in the considerable list of Latinisms that is found in the Gospel,2 internal evidence in favour of the tradition. 1 Pages lxiii., lxiv. 2 Such as Kevrvpiuv (centurio), !-t ST. MARK I. [4 of repentance for the remission of sins. 5 And there went anything about him. But he was Elijah-like, — a man overtopping all his fellows in grandeur of character ; when common people came in contact with him, they felt at once his superiority; he was a lion among men. And then too he belonged to a conspicuous family, a family of priests. So soon, therefore, as it was known that he was asserting tbat he had a message for his countrymen, and that he had undertaken to help them in preparing for the approach of the kingdom of heaven, the population, as it were en masse, flocked out to him. And preached: or proclaimed (in a heraldic ivay). The word is participial in the original, and comes under the influence of the article which renders the preceding participle characteristically attributive. It thus conveys the idea of continuously repeated action or habit. , The baptism of repentance. 'Or, very literally, without the article, baptism of repentance, that is repentance-baptism, or penitential-baptism, that baptism of which repentance was a characteristic. It was thus not simply and abstractly the duty of baptism, that John proclaimed. It was the duty of that peculiar kind of baptism, which, when voluntarily and intelligently received, mirrors forth, in its outward act, the acceptance of that inward purification which is essential to the enjoyment of the privileges of the Messiah's kingdom. Hence John did not attribute any real purificatory virtue to his baptismal rite. (See Matt. iii. 2, 7-10.) He knew that it was but the shadow of the one really efficacious baptism. (See Matt. iii. 11, 12; 1 Pet. iii. 21.) No one would know better than he, that it is ' the water of life,' as Justin Martyr says, which is 1 the only baptism that can purify the repentant.' (Dialog. Trypho, § 14.) John's baptism, nevertheless, was a beautiful figure of the true. And hence he unhesitatingly proclaimed, with heraldic cry, that it was the duty of the people to come to him, that they might receive it at his hands. Repentance : that is, afterthought, or change of mind, or turning to a right state of mind, namely, as regards things moral and spiritual. Such a turning begins in the intelligence (the vovs), but prolongs itself into the feelings, and runs out into the ultimate choices of the will, and then terminates in the fixed activities and habits of the whole complex man. Kepentance may thus be incipient, or pro- gressive, or complete. It was only incipient repentance that was enjoined by John as the prerequisite of his baptism, and hence the first word of his ministry was, ' Kepent.' (Matt. hi. 2 ; and comp. ver. 5-8.) Hence, too, as he looked to the end, and realized profoundly the necessity of progression and completion, he ' baptized unto repentance.' (Matt. iii. 11.) Unto remission of sins. The meaning is, in order to, or with a view to, remission of sins. But, of course, we are not to suppose that either the people's repentance on the one hand, or John's baptism on the other, or any combination of the two, could be either the efficient or the meritorious cause of forgiveness. God only is the Efficient Cause. The sacrificial Lamb, who bore the sin of the world (John i. 29), and He only, is the Meritorious Cause. Bepentance- baptism could be nothing else than a kind of instrumental cause, — pasdagogically leading the mind out and up at once to the Efficient and to the concurrent Meritorious Cause. It was really in the faith, which was underlying the G] ST. MARK I. 7 out unto him all the land of Juclasa, and they of Jerusalem ; and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 And John was clothed with camel's hair, and repentance baptism, that the link was found which united the soul to the indispensable Causes. Remission : or forgiveness. It is realized in deliverance from the penal consequences of sins, and is to be carefully distinguished from moral cleansing of the soul, which, however, is a still greater and grander blessing. (See Matt. vi. 12, xviii. 21-35 ; Luke xvii. 3, 4.) Yer. 5. And there went out unto him all the country of Judsea. More literally still, all the Judcean country. The evangelist used that figure of speech called by grammarians metonymy, — naming the country while meaning its inhabitants. So we sometimes say, London at this season is out of town. It is the same licence that is employed, when, in the dispensation of the Lord's Supper, we speak of ' drinking this cup.' (1 Cor. xi. 27.) And all they of Jerusalem. More literally still, and all the Jerusalemites. The adjective all, which in the Eeceived Text occurs in the next clause, properly belongs to this, and is so placed in the texts of Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles. All : The word is used in a free and easy, and popular, way. And yet, as Alexander remarks, " it must mean more than many, namely, " the great bulk and body of the population." All the Jerusalemites : not only all Judsea in general, but also all the Jerusalemites in particular. Even they And they were baptized of him in the river Jordan. John would stand, per- haps, at some suitable point or angle within the margin of the river, and when the people came to him in file, he would lave them in succession. Or they might station themselves in rows along the margin, and, as he passed by inside, he would sprinkle them in detail. Confessing their sins. The word rendered confessing (e^o/xoXoyoiifxevoi) strictly means confessing out, that is, confessing openly or aloud. It is not implied, therefore, that the people made private confession, auricularly, one by one, of particular sins. But when charged by John, in general terms, with un- faithfulness to their own consciences, and to the claims of their neighbours, and to God, they admitted the justice of the charge, acknowledged that they were ' verily guilty,' and that they thus stood greatly in need of being cleansed or baptized from unrighteousness. Both the Latin word confess, and the corresponding Greek word, bring out the idea of two parties speaking ; and when applied, as here, to sins, it is implied that some one — from without or within — charges the sinner with his sins, and that the sinner consents to the charge. Thus there is a togetherliood of speaking in the matter, that is to say, a confession. Ver. 6. The evangelist passes on to a description of some of the personal peculiarities of the Baptist. He was just a modern edition of the ancient Elijah. And John was clothed with camel's hair. It is not said, as Hofmeister remarks, with a camel's skin, but with camel's hairs. (Vestimcntum non de pelle, sed de pilis camelorum.) The old sacred artists misunderstood tho ex- 3 ST. MARK I. [6 with a girdle of a skin about his loins, and he did eat locusts and wild honey ; 7 and preached, saying, There cometh one pression, and painted the Baptist as arrayed in a camel's skin. The reference was no doubt to a coarse kind of sackcloth manufactured out of the strongest hairs of the camel. It made a rough hairy robe ; and thus John would be, like Elijah, ' an hairy man.' (2 Kings i. 8.) He was entirely self denied to all luxury in dress. And bad a girdle of skin about his loins. Tyndale's first translation (1526) was, and wyth a gerdyll off a beestes skyn about hys loynes. In his second version (1534) he left out the word beestes, but unhappily left standing the indefinite article, and hence its presence in King James's version. Coverdale's version is and with a lethron gerdell aboute his loynes. "The leathern girdle," says Horatio B. Hackett, "may be seen around the body of the common "labourer in the East, when fully dressed, almost everywhere; whereas men of " wealth take special pride in displaying a rich sash of silk or some other costly " fabric." (Illustrations of Scripture, p. 61.) Chardin tells us that the dervishes in the East, in his time, wore great leathern girdles. (Harmer's Observations, vol. iv., p. 416.) They still wear them. And these dervisbes, it may be noted, — at least the higbest specimens of them, — most nearly resemble, in their character and in the functions of tbeir ministry, such men as John and Elijah. " All tbe "great men in the East," says Dr. Wolff, "who have been celebrated either as "poets, or historians, or lawyers, have been dervishes. . . . Jj they did not " exist, no man would be safe in the deserts among the savages. They are tbe " chief people in the East who keep in the recollection of those savages that "there are ties between heaven and earth. They restrain the tyrant in his " oppression of his subjects ; and are, in fact, the great benefactors of the human " race in the East. . . . All the prophets of old were dervishes, beyond all " doubt, in their actions, in their style of speaking, and in their dress." (Travels and Adventures, p. 297.) And did eat locusts and wild honey. That is, his customary food was locusts and wild honey, the plainest of fare. He not only refrained from pampering 'the flesh,' he 'kept it under' (1 Cor. ix. 27), and made it 'endure hard- ness' (2 Tim. ii. 3) for great militant purposes. Locusts: "A kind of great " fly," says Petter, " which useth to eat and devour the tops of corn, herbs, "and trees." Jerome mentions that he had seen the whole land of Judaea covered with them. (Comment, on Joel ii. 20.) "It is well known," says Horatio B. Hackett, " that the poorer class of people eat them, cooked or raw, " in all the eastern countries where they are found." (Illustrations, p. 61.) Wild honey : Not honsy-deto, as Kobinson and Grimm suppose, a kind of gum that is found on the leaves of certain trees. The expression doubtless denotes real wild honey, the product of wild bees. Henry Maundrell mentions that when he was passing through the wilderness of Judaea, between the Dead !?ea and Jericho, he " perceived a strong scent of honey and wax, the sun being hot ; " and the bees," he adds, " were very industrious about the blossoms of that salt " weed which the plain produces." (Journey, p. 86, ed. 1749.) Dr. Tristram says : " The innumerable fissures and clefts of the limestone rocks, which every- 8] ST. MARK I. 9 mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. 8 I indeed have baptized " where flank the valleys, afford in their recesses secure shelter for any number of " swarms of wild bees ; and many of the Bedouin, particularly about the wilder- " ness of Judaea, obtain their subsistence by bee-hunting, briugiug into Jerusalem "jars of that wild honey on which John the Baptist fed in the wilderness." (The Land of Israel, p. 88.) The asceticism of John in food and raiment has its lessons. There are persons who ought always to be ascetics. It is their only chance for freedom from grossness and moral degradation. There are times, too, when all men should put both bit and bridle on the animal within them, keeping it on scanty diet and working it hard. And all moral reformers, who have it as their peculiar mission to expose the vices of a self-indulgent age, and to lead their fellow-men into cleaner ways arid a nobler style of life, would require to be, in their own persons, unmistakable examples of the higher types of sobriety and self-denial. Ver. 7. And he preached. That is, proclaimed (like a herald). Saying, There cometh after me He that is mightier than I. It is as if he had said, My Suzerain, my Lord Paramount, is coming after me. . Instead, however, of employing a merely generic term to designate the Prince whose harbinger he was, he brings into view His superiority in might or strength. He who is stronger than I is coming after me. ' This is the gospel,' says Zuingli, ' though in epitome.' The peo23le were prone to think that John himself had immense 'power' with God, and that all would be well with them if they should only get a baptism from his hands ; they had an exaggerated idea of his power. He sought to undeceive them. He was but a humble servant, a herald, a forerunner. But his Master was ' mighty ' ; his Master had real power with God. He could wield all influences ; touch all springs ; ascend all heights ; descend to all depths. He was ' able to save to the uttermost,' to pardon the most criminal, and to purify the most unclean. The latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and undo. Undo is Wycliffe's word, and better than the apparently contradictory unloose of our English versions. Purvey, in his revision of Wycliffe, has unlace. The woid translated latchet means properly thong; but there is a connection between latch, latchet, and lace. John alleges that there was no standard of comparison, by means of which the relative superiority of the Messiah to himself could be measured. The Messiah was his master, and John was His herald and har- binger. Nevertheless, he did not deserve the honour of that post ; he did not even deserve the honour of being permitted to stoop down and undo the latchets of his Master's sandals ; that was a far higher honour than any man deserved. How exceedingly high, then, must the dignity of Jesus be! Ver. 8. I baptized you with water. A good translation, so far at least as the substance of the meaning is concerned. In the Beceived Text the original ex- pression is in water. But Tischendorf and Alford have thrown out the pre- position in, under the sanction of the manuscripts NBHA33 and others, and of the Vulgate version. If the omission be legitimate, then the evangelist's expression corresponds to Luke's (iii. 10), and is strictly translated with water, 10 ST. MARK I. [8 you with water: but lie shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. 9 And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from denoting the material employed. If, however, the reading of the Eeceived Text should be retained, then the form of the expression corresponds to Matthew's (hi. 11), and could only be freely rendered with water. The preposition til would probably be accounted for by the original meaning of the verb to baptize ; this original meaning leaving its impress on the form of expression, even when the purificatory act was effected by some other mode than merging. (See Comm. on Matt. iii. 6, 16.) But He shall baptize you. There is here no emphasis on the you, and it would be wrong therefore to lay weight upon the word, in determining the question of the extent of the baptism which Christ administered, and still administers. Nevertheless it is worthy of note that the Baptist did not feel himself fettered in tbe pronominal phraseology which he employed. With the Holy Spirit. There is a somewhat corresponding uncertainty in re- ference to the with in this clause, as tbere is in relation to the preceding clause. Tischendorf indeed, in his eighth edition, inserts in this clause the preposition in, though he omits it in the preceding clause. Lachmann, on the other hand, doubts its genuineness here, though he does not doubt it as regards the preced- ing clause. Alford omits it in both the clauses, supposing that the Received Text has been artificially assimilated to Matthew's form of phraseology. It is a matter of no practical moment whether it be admitted, as in Matthew, or omitted, as in Luke. If it be omitted, the expression is literally translated ' with the Holy Spirit.' If it be retained, tbe expression is only freely thus rendered. The Holy Spirit : The article is wanting in the original. It was not needed, as the expression was, of itself, in Greek, sufficiently definite. Our usage how- ever, in reference to the article, does not correspond absolutely to the usage of the Greeks ; and hence it is according to tbe spirit, though not according to the letter, of the evangelist's phraseology that we say the Holy Spirit. When Wakefield rendered the expression a holy spirit, and Godwin, similarly, a Divine Spirit, they forgot that there is, in the letter of the original text, no more warrant for a than for the. The English language is richer than the Greek in the matter of articles, and if, in such a case as the one before us, the definite article be objected to, much more should the indefinite. The idea of the Baptist was not, that the Messiah would institute a more mystic style of water oaptism, or a style of water baptism that would be instinct with a more effica- cious spiritual energy, but it was that the Messiah would transcend altogether, in His purificatory operations, the sphere of the material and corporeal. He could act on spirit ; He could act on spirit with Spirit ; and He would thus act. He would furnish to men the influence from above that was needed in order to purity of heart and life ; He would procure and pour out the influence of the Divine Spirit. Ver. 9. And it came to pass in those days. Those days, namely, when John was engaged in preaching and baptizing in the wilderness that stretched along the banks of the Jordan. 10] ST. MARK I. 11 Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. 10 And straightway coming up out of the water, lie saw the That Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in the Jordan. In the Greek it is not in, but to, or into, the Jordan. It is as if the evangelist had been intending to say, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee to the Jordan, and was there baptized by John. But the evangelist, though having dis- tinctly in view the Saviour's arrival at the Jordan, was yet in haste, as it were, to mention the fact of His baptism ; and hence the peculiar collocation of the phraseology. It was quite in accordance with his ordinary inartificial style of composition, as exemplified for instance in ver. 1-4 and ver. 39. A similar transposition occurs in Matt. ii. 23, where we read, ' and He came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth.' In the original it is to a city or into a city, the idea being that Joseph came to a city called Nazareth and then dwelt there. Of course, we canuot suppose that Mark meant that Jesus was baptized into the Jordan. This interjjretation is out of the question, when we take into account that in the verse immediately preceding we have Mark's way of construing the word baptized. Jesus came to the Jordan, and was baptized in the Jordan. His baptism was finely significant. It was a visible picture of the invisible de- scent into His humanity of the fulness of the Divine Spirit. He hence became full, officially, of the Holy Spirit. He received the Spirit 'without measure'; so that the Divine Spirit had His hand, not only in the preparation of the body of our Lord (Luke i. 35), but also, and gloriously, in the preparation of His sprint (Isa. xi. 2, 3 ; Ixi. 1). Nazareth of Galilee. There are still many traces of this despised little ' city,' and quite a thriving modern town is springing up on the steep slope of the hill. It is thriving, says Dr. Tristram, in part, because it is 'a Christian not a Moslem place,' and in part because it is ' the centre for the commerce of the districts east of Jordan.' {The Land of Israel, p. 122.) " Bare and feature- " less, singularly unattractive in its landscape, with scarcely a tree to relieve the " monotony of its brown and dreary hill, without ruins or remains, without one " precisely identified locality, there is yet a reality in the associations of Naz- " areth which stirs the soul of the Christian to its very depths. ... It was •' the nursery of One whose mission was to meet man, and man's deepest needs, " on the platform of common-place daily life. ' Can any good thing come out "of Nazareth?' might naturally be asked, not only by the proud Jew of th*. " south, but by the dweller among the hills of Galilee, or by the fair lake of " Gennesaret." (The Land of Israel, p. 123.) Ver. 10. And straightway. Or, immediately. Thiess supposes that the term was intended to indicate that there was, on the part of the Saviour, a certain hastiness of movement. " The baptism," says he, "was for Him no baptism ; " He needed it not. It was only the people and the Baptist who needed it. " The people needed the example ; John needed the honour." It was befitting, therefore, in the Saviour to be quick in leaving the scene of the ordinance. Thiess misunderstands the case, however. It is not hastiness that is indicated, but uninterrupted sequence. Coming up out of the water. Or rather, going zip out of the water, that is, 12 ST. MARK I. [10 heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him : 11 and there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. going up to the bank of the river. (Comp. Matt. hi. 16.) Our Saviour, with the Baptist, had been within the margin of the stream. For the meaning of the word which we render going up, see Matt. v. 1, xiv. 23, xv. 29; Mark iii. 13, vi. 51, x. 32; John i. 51, iii. 13, vi. 62, xx. 17. He saw the heavens rent asunder. Or cleft, or parted. Our word schism comes from the term employed by the evangelist ; and so does our geological word schist or splitting rock. When it is said ' He saw the heavens parted,' the reference is not to John, but to Jesus, although it is also true that John saw the wonderful phenomenon as well as Jesus. (See John i. 33.) The revelation from above was primarily intended for our Lord Himself, in His humanity ; for, of course, there must have been steps of gradation, and times and seasons of progression, in the development of His humanity. And the Spirit, as a dove, descending upon Him. That was His true baptism, the thing signified. It was His formal inauguration, in the year of His perfect maturity, His thirtieth year (Luke iii. 23), to His great work, a work that gathered up into itself all the greatest offices of human society. Hence- forth the Lord was replenished, not only in actual fact, but to His own subject- ive consciousness, with all the fulness of influences that were required in His complex personality, to constitute Him the official Head of the human race, the Prophet of prophets, the Priest of priests, the King of kings. It was as a dove that the Spirit descended on Him, a most captivating symbolism. The eagle too was in our Lord ; everything about Him was mingled with the sublime ; but the dove was predominant. Not only in His terrestrial career, but all along the ages, it is the power of His gentleness and tenderness and meekness, His love in short, that has been victorious. He has ' wooed ' and ' won.' Ver. 11. And a voice came out of the heavens, Thou art My beloved Son, in Thee I am well-pleased. Very literally, I was ivell-pleased, viz. in Thy pre- existent state. The voice would thrill a variety of chords in our Lord's human heart, which would vibrate at once into the infinity of His higher being. The fulness of the Messianic self-consciousness would awake. Not the shadow of a film would obscure the glory of the fact that He was the Father's Son, and that He had been His darling from everlasting [dilectus singularissima dilectioue : Cajetan). His thoughts might shape themselves into some such forms as the following: My Father has said it. I know My Father's voice. Everlasting memories come rushing in. He says that I am His Beloved ! He iised to say it before the foundation of the world. This mission which I have undertaken is dear, beyond expression, to His infinite heart. It is dear to Mine too. I rejoiced from of old, in the habitable part of the earth, while as yet there was none of it, 'nor the highest part of the dust of the loorld.' He says, 'In Thee I was well- pleased ! ' — ' was' from the first, and still ' am.' Oh how I delight, My Father, to do Thy will ! ' Thy'' will is ' My' will. There has ever been, there loill ever be, the inmost union of the two. Instead of in Thee, the Received Text reads in whom, a reading borrowed from Matt. iii. 17, which presents the whole utterance 13] ST. MARK I. 13 12 And immediately the spirit drivetli him into the wilderness. 13 And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of from heaven, not as it was directly addressed to our Lord, but as it was in- lirectly apprehended by John who stood by. The two representations, we need 3carcely say, are in absolute harmony. Ver. 12. And immediately. Forthwith after His formal inauguration into His great Messianic work. The Spirit drivetli Him forth. The Divine Spirit, to wit, whose influence He had received in its fulness. Driveth Hun forth. Very literally, casteth Him out. ft is the very verb that is employed to designate our Lord's expulsion of demons (Mark i. 34, 39 ; iii. 15, 22 ; etc.). Wakefield renders it leadeth out, a trans- lation that completely draws the teeth of the original emphasis. Vehemency of impulse is represented ; the Saviour felt an influence that must be yielded to without delay. The translation of the English Geneva of 1557 is graphic, driveth Him sodenly. Sir John Cheke has threw Him, which would suit Cart- wright's idea that the reference is to a miraculous transport of our Saviour's person through the air. The expression means, as Petter says, thrusteth Him forth ; and perhaps it may subindicate the existence of some innocent reluc- tancy or shrinking of ' the flesh.' Into the wilderness. We know not what wilderness, and we do not need to know. Petter and others suppose that it was most likely the great wilderness of Arabia, in which the children of Israel wandered for forty years, and where Sinai is situated, the scene of the giving of the law and of the fasting of Moses. The traditional locality, however, is near Jericbo, a wild enough region, where rises the Mons Quarantania, or Jebel Kuruntil, " with its precipitous " face pierced in every direction by ancient cells and chapels, and a ruined church " on its topmost peak." There are multitudes of antique frescoes still fresh on the walls, "and generally," says Dr. Tristram, "every spring a few devout " Abyssinian Christians are in the habit of coming and remaining here for forty " days, to keep their Lent on the spot where they suppose our Lord to have " fasted and been tempted." (The Land of Israel, pp. 207-217.) Ver. 13. And He was in the wilderness forty days. Our Lord thus linked Himself on, in consciousness, to the marvellous and marvellously self-denying experiences of Moses and Elijah, the greatest souls of the dispensation that foreshadowed the more spiritual dispensation which He Himself was about to introduce. (See Exod. xxxiv. 28 ; Deut. ix. 9 ; 1 Kings xix. 8.) The founda- tions of all true greatness in human institutions must be laid in self denial. Tempted by Satan. That is, undergoing temptation by Satan. It was fit, and perhaps inevitable, that our Lord should come into personal conflict with the great adversary, whose works and usurped dominion He had come to destroy. There needed to be a great moral struggle, for there was already great antagon- ism between the two. And unless our Lord should have been able, while having all the secret springs of His aspirations and actions sifted to the uttermost, to pass through the fiery test unscathed, coming off an untarnisbed conqueror and indeed ' more than a conqueror,' He would not have been fit to take His place 14 ST. MARK I. [13 Satan ; and was with the wild beasts ; and the angels minis- tered unto him. at the head of the race, to recover for mankind the paradise that had been lost. None but the 'Stronger than the strong' could deliver 'the captives of the mighty.' " The Second Adam therefore," says Archbishop Trench, " taking up " the conflict exactly where the first had left it, and inheriting all the con- " sequences of his defeat, in the desert does battle with the foe ; and, conquer- " ing him there, wins back the garden for that whole race, whose champion and "representative in this conflict He had been." (Studies in the Gospel, p. 8.) Satan: or, as it is very literally, the Satan; just as we say the Devil. The word is as significant in Hebrew as the word Devil or Diabolos in Greek. It means adversary, just as Devil means accuser or slanderer. The being so named is the adversary both of God and of men. He is no myth ; his actual agency bewrays itself. The unity, which is characteristic of the varied wicked- nesses of men, suggests it. The suicidal infatuation, which is a curious and inseparable element in almost every species of crime, but which is obtrusively conspicuous in some of the most popular forms of iniquity, bespeaks the pre- sence of some mighty malice behind the scenes, moving the springs of human action. We need not therefore discuss with C. Friedrich Gelbricht the ques- tion which he proposes, whether we should require to ' think UV of Jesus if He found His temptations simply springing up within Himself; or, as Gelbricht more strongly expresses it, if He Himself was His own tempter ! Gelbricht answers his question in the negative, while he concedes that the hypothesis on which it is erected is probably to be accepted as true. We object, however, to the hypothesis. And He was with the wild beasts. This is added, not as Hilgenfeld supposes, to suggest an analogy between our Lord and Adam in paradise (Die Evangelien, p. 126), but, as Petter says, " to show the desolate and forlorn state in which " our Saviour now was in the wilderness ; being destitute of all help and com- " fort from men, and having none to be His companions but wild beasts, which " were so far from helping or comforting Him that they were more likely to " annoy and hurt Him, yea, to devour Him." Of what kind the wild beasts were we do not know, and need not care to know. Even to the present day the desert places in and around the Holy Land swarm with such denizens, more especially wherever there are convenient ivadies at hand, in which they may fix their homes or haunts. Dr. Tristram, in referring to Kuser Hajla, near Jericho, says : " In its gorge we found a fine clump of date palms, — one old tree, and "several younger ones clustered round it, apparently unknown to recent travel- lers, who state that the last palm tree has lately perished from the plains of "Jericho. Near these palm trees, in the thick cover, we came upon the lair of " a leopard or cheetah, with a well beaten path, and the broad, round, unmis- " takable footmarks quite fresh, and evidently not more than a few hours old. " However, the beast was not at home for us. Doubtless it was one of these " which M. de Saulcy took for the footprints of the lion. But inasmuch as " there is no trace of the lion having occurred in modern times, while the others " are familiar and common, we must be quite content with the leopard. Every- " where around us were the fresh traces of beasts of every kind; for two days H] ST. MARK I. 15 14 Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into " ago a great portion of the plain had been overflowed. The wild boar had " been rooting and treading on all sides ; the jackals had been hunting in packs ,; over the soft oozy slime ; the solitary wolf had been prowling about ; and " many foxes had singly been beating the district for game. The hyaena too ' had taken his nocturnal ramble in search of carcases. None of these, how- ;' ever, could we see." [The Land of Israel, pp. 245, 246.) When in the Wady Himani again, in the district of Gennesaret, he says : " We never met with so "many wild animals as on one of these days. First of all, a wild boar got out " of some scrub close to us, as we were ascending the valley. Then a deer was " started below, ran up the cliff, and wound along the ledge, passing close to us. " Then a large ichneumon almost crossed my feet, and ran into a cleft ; and "while endeavouring to trace him, I was amazed to see a brown Syrian bear "clumsily but rapidly clamber down the rocks and cross the ravine. Wbile " working the ropes above, we could see the gazelles tripping lightly at the " bottom of the valley, quite out of reach and sight of our companions at the " foot of the cliff. Mr. Lowne, who was below, saw an otter, which came out of " the water and stood and looked at him for a minute with surprise." (The Land of Israel, p. 451.) And the angels ministered to Him. In what way or ways we are not told, nor how frequently, or at what conjuncture or conjunctures. See Matt. iii. 11. Meyer infers from tbe extreme brevity of Mark's account of the temptation that his report must be chronologically earlier, and less mythically developed, than that of Matthew. Baur again infers, from the obscurity that is involved in its brevity, and from the consequent need of Matthew's fuller narrative to make it plain, that it must be of the nature not of a germ, but of a subsequent conden- sation or epitome. (Kritische Untersuchungen, p. 540.) It is thus that conjec- ture devours conjecture. We take neither of the alternatives. We do not think, on the one hand, that we have in Mark, or ' the proto-Mark,' the germ of Mat- thew ; neither do we think on the other that the mystery of the relationship of the two evangelists is solved when we try to school ourselves into Augustine's conviction, that we are but hearing the echoes of Matthew when we listen to the brief biographical sketches of Mark. Ver. 14. Now after that John was delivered up. See Matt. xiv. 3-5 ; Luke iii. 19, 20. The rendering of King James's translators, was put in prison, while true to historic fact, is rather too free a translation. Perhaps the Baptist had been betrayed, or surrendered, (as Dickinson renders the word,) into the hands of Herod Antipas ; perhaps he was violently seized by the tyrant, and then delivered over to the custody of a guard of soldiers, and thus imprisoned. Taken is Wycliffe's version and Tyndale's and Coverdale's. Delivered up is the version of the Rheims ; and Luther's corresponds (uberantwortet ward). Jesus came into Galilee. The district where He had spent His youth. Not unlikely, in consequence of its distance from the capital and its proximity to the Gentiles, it would not be so thoroughly priest-ridden, and Pharisee ridden, sm the district of Judaea. 16 ST. MARK I. [H Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 15 and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand : repent ye, and believe the gospel. Preaching the gospel of God. Jesus preached, or, very literally, heralded; that is, as Petter popularly explains it, • published openly, by lively voice and word of mouth.' He preached the gospel ; He proclaimed that which is, by pre-eminence, good news or glad tidings. It was not His aim to accuse, or denounce, or condemn. It was in sadness of heart if He ever, as in paren- thesis, spoke words of accusation, denunciation, or condemnation. The burden of His proclamation was altogether different. It was a message of mercy. He ' preached the gospel of God.' He preached the good news which He had received in commission from God. The genitive of God is what grammarians call the genitive of the author (genitivus auctoris). Ver. 15. And saying, The time is fulfilled. Or, more literally, has been ful- filled ; that is, the measure of time that required to be completed has been completed. A certain amount of time required to come and go ere the worl 1 was ready for the establishment of the new order of things, or for the inaugur- ation, in its more developed phase, of the kingdom of heaven. That amount of time had now elapsed. The appointed measure had been filled to the brim, — fulfilled, that is filled-full. The accumulation of days and weeks and months and years was complete. It was now ' the fulness of the time ' (Gal. iv. 4). And the kingdom of God is at hand. Or, has come nigh. What Matthew in general calls the kingdom of heaven (see Matt. iv. 17) is designated by Mark and Luke the kingdom of God. No other New Testament writer but Matthew employs the expression the kingdom of heaven, though Paul has the Lord's heavenly kingdom (2 Tim. iv. 18). The two expressions, the kingdom of heaven nnd the kingdom of God, are coincident in substrate; they vary only in phase. The kingdom is Divine, and hence heavenly. It is a thing of heaven ; it originated in heaven, tends to heaven, culminates in heaven. It is a heavenly community, with a heavenly Sovereign at its head. All its subjects are heavenly, whether they be on earth or in heaven. Our whole earth should have been a part of heaven ; but it is a runaway world, having gone off from heaven. It is not, however, finally lost to heaven. God, the Great Moral Governor, has not and will not let it go. He desires, not in the use of physical omnipotence, but by glorious moral means, to win it back. Long ago He took the initiative for the accomplishment of this end ; He reclaimed a foothold for heavenly institutions. And now the time was come for establish- ing, in a somewhat developed aud as it were completed form, the heavenly community, ' the kingdom of God.' Repent. It was the burden of John's wilderness ' cry.' Our Saviour takes it up ; for it never can become obsolete until sin has ceased to be. Repentance from dead works (Heb. vi. 1), repentance toward God (Acts xx. 21), must ever be an integrant elementary theme of exhortation with all true preachers of right- eousness. It implies, firstly, that men have been wrong in their conduct and character. It implies, secondly, that if they will but calmly and candidly think back over their ways, they will get to see that they have been wrong. Hence 16] ST. MARK I. 17 16 Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw the solemn call Repent ! as the antecedent of the joyful call Believe ! Our English word is by no means a perfect or precise synonym of the original Greek term (fieravoeiTe). The English Repent brings prominently into view the duty of a penitent state, of feeling (note the French repentir). The Greek term brings prominently into view the duty of a preliminary retrogressive acting of the intelligence (or poOs). This retrogressive acting of the intelligence, or after- thought, is only intended indeed to be preliminary ; and if it did not issue in the conviction of the conscience, the sorrow of the heart, and the reformation oi the life, it would be of no moral moment. It would be a useless mental frag- ment, a beginning without its appropriate ending. Nevertheless it is the indispensable beginning of a right state of spirit and life on the part of all such moral creatures as have already been wrong in their character and conduct. (See on Matt. iii. 2.) And believe in the gospel. It is men's duty both to believe the gospel and to believe in it. The one expression may replace the other ; but they differ in aspect of import. When we are said to believe in the gospel, the attention, so far as the form of the expression is concerned, is not carried farther than the gospel ; our faith is viewed as terminating in the gospel. When, again, we are said to believe the gospel, the attention is carried forward beyond the gospel to the object concerning which the gospel testifies. The gospel is regarded as the medium whereby we may reach the Glorious Object. Both representations are true to the actual philosophy of the case ; but the latter goes deeper in its draught. There are always two objects of faith or belief, — a proximate and an ultimate. The proximate is the testimony (the objectum quo) ; the ultimate is the reality testified (the objectum quod). The gospel to which the Saviour referred is, of course, just the good news that the time had now been fulfilled, and that the kingdom of God had come near. Ver. 16. And passing along by the sea of Galilee. Or, the sea of Tiberias ; or, the lake of Gennesaret. It was the centre of the circle of Galilee, and was called the sea by the surrounding inhabitants, for the same reason that Windermere, Unttermere, Thtilemere, Grasmere were regarded of old as seas. It was a?i expanse of water. The Jews had also their Dead Sea or Salt Sea. But the Mediterranean was 'the great sea.' Dr. Tristram, describing his approach to the sea of Galilee from Nazareth, says : — " For nearly three hours we had ridden " on, with Hermon in front, sparkling through its light cloud-mantle, but still "no sight of the sea of Galilee. One ridge after another had been surmounted, ' when on a sudden the calm blue basin, slumbering in placid sweetness b'e- " neath its surrounding wall of hills, burst upon us, and we were looking down " on the hallowed scenes of our Lord's ministry. We were on the brow of a "very steep hill. Below us was a narrow plain, sloping to the sea, the beach of " which we could trace to its northern extremity. At our feet lay the city of " Tiberias, the only remaining town on its shores, enclosed by crumbling forti- " fications with shattered but once massive round bastions. Along that fringe, " could we have known Wuere to find them, lay the remains of Chorazin, Beth- " saida, and Capernaum. Opposite to us were the heights of the country of the C 18 ST. MARK I. [16 Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea : for they were fishers. 17 And Jesus said unto them, Come ye " Gadarenes, and the scene of the feeding of the five thousand. On some one " of the slopes beneath us the sermon on the mount was delivered. The first ,l gaze on the sea of Galilee, lighted up with the bright sunshine of a spring " afternoon, was one of the moments of life not soon or easily forgotten. " It was different from my expectations ; our view was so commanding. In " some respect it recalled in miniature the first view of the Lake of Geneva, "from the crest of the Jura, as it is approached by the old Besancon road; " Hermon taking the place of Mont Blanc, the plain of Gennesaret recalling the " Pays de Vaud, and the steep banks opposite the bold coast of Savoy. All " looked small for the theatre of such great events, but all the incidents seemed " brought together as in a diorama. There was a calm peacefulness in the look "of these shores on the west, with the paths by the water's edge, which made " them the fitting theatre for the delivery of the message of peace and recon- " ciliation." (The Land of Israel, pp. 426, 427.) He saw Simon. Or, Simeon. See Acts xv. 14; 2 Pet. i. 1 (Gr.). The pro- nunciation Simeon is nearest the Hebrew original. He was called Peter by our Lord. And Andrew the brother of Simon. Andrew, unlike Simon or Simeon, is a Greek word, bearing the idea of manliness, whereas Simeon brings out the idea of listening or hearing. Casting a net in the sea. (' A/j.(pL^aXKoi>Tas iv rrj BaXacran), throwing about in the sea (viz. a hand net). It is one of Mark's vivid touches. The thing that the men were throwing about is not named. (See Tischendorf and Tregelles.) It is supposed that it would be sufficiently understood ; and no doubt the phrase throwing about would just be an idiom of the trade. It represents the fishermen throwing now on the one side of their boat, and now on the other (note the connection between a/j.t the Father. (See John viii. 42 ; xiii. 3 ; xvi. 27, 28. 40] ST. MARK T. 31 therefore came I forth. 39 And he preached in their syna- gogues throughout all Galilee, and cast out devils. 40 And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and 30 ; and compare Hegendorphinus in loc.) Compare also Matt. xiii. 49, where we read that " the angels shall come forth (or sliall come out), and sever the wicked " from among the just." (See Luke iv. 43.) De Wette thinks that the expression means for to this end came I out {from Capernaum). Meyer insists on the same view, for to this end came I out (of the Jiouse). So Fritzsche, for to this end came I out (into tins desert place). Godwin too. Such an interpretation how- ever amazes us. It involves a sudden, arbitrary, and most unpleasant descent into bathos. It is to assume moreover that our Lord had resolved, as if in caprice, to go off elsewhere without His newly called disciples, and without so much as even informing them of His intended movement ! It is to assume, besides, that it is not likely that our Saviour would wish to quicken thought by occasionally using two-edged expressions, which would lead His hearers to think at one and the same time of a lower and a higher relationship of things, — a most improbable assumption. "Ver. 39. And He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting out demons. A simple and easily understood historical statement, but, in the original, thrown very inartificially together, as in a heap of phrases. If the correct reading were literally rendered, it would run thus: And He came preaching into their synagogues, into the whole of Galilee, and casting out tlie demons (/ecu TJkBev Krjpucrcijiv ds rets awaywyas avruv els oXijv tt)v YaXCkaiav ko1 to. Saifiivia eKp&Wuv). The reading 'into' their synagogues is overwhelmingly supported by the manuscripts of importance. And the introductory expression He came, siipported by the Sinaitic and Vatican manuscripts, as well as by the Coptic and iEthiopie versions, is received into the text by Tischendorf (in his eighth edition) and by Tregelles. The Beceived Text has apparently been touched into harmony with the text of Luke (iv. 44). Throughout all Galdee. Josephus says, but surely with a touch of exaggera- tion, that in his day there were " two hundred and forty towns and villages in " Galilee." (Life, § 45.) Ver. 40. And there cometh to Him a leper. We know not in what place. Luke says it was ' in one of the cities ' (see chap. v. 12-1G). Matthew too records the miracle (viii. 1-4), but does not specify the place. To this day lepers' quarters are found outside the walls of many of the towns of Palestine. (Tristram's Land of Israel, p. 417.) A leper: one infected with v. hat Mead calls ' the most dreadful of all the diseases to which the Jews were subject ' (atrocissimus erat, qui Judceorum corpora frequenter fcedabat, viorbus : Medica Sacra, cap. 2). Many diseases have their peculiar haunts or habitats; and leprosy seems to have been emphatically, and as existing under some peculiarly aggravated type or phase, a Syrian, Arabian, and Egyptian disease. (See Smith's Bible Dictionary, sub voce.) Perhaps the Jews brought it from Egypt, which Lucretius (RerumNat., vi. 1112-3) and other ancient writers (see J.Mason Good's note on Lucretius) assert to be the birthplace and the favourite abode of elephan- tiasis. It is disputed indeed among nosologista whether or not elephantiasis bo 32 ST. MARK I. [40 kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 41 And Jesus, moved with com- passion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto really leprosy. The dispute is, to a great degree, a matter of terminology. (See J. Mason Good's Study of Medicine, vol. ii., pp. 851-862, and vol. iv., p. 578.) But it seems to be certain that what is, at the present day, regarded as leprosy in Jerusalem, and throughout Palestine and Syria, is not so much the disease which the old Greek and Latin physicians called leprosy, as the still more loath- some malady called elephantiasis. Diseases indeed sometimes vary in their development, in the course of ages ; they culminate and wane ; they run out their course, or pass into new varieties. (See Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages.) Whether or not this may have been the case with the old Jewish leprosy we need not at present inquire. Dr. Robinson says: "Within the Z ion gate of " Jerusalem, a little towards the right, are some miserable hovels, inhabited by " persons called leprous. Whether their disease is or is not the leprosy of " Scripture I am unable to affirm ; the symptoms described to us were similar " to those of elephantiasis. At any rate they are pitiable objects, and miserable ' outcasts from society. They all live here together, and intermarry only with ' each other." (Biblical Researches, vol. i., 359.) We ourselves saw the poor 3reatures, and noted the erosive and dismembering nature of their malady. The disease riots tubercularly and ulceratingly, attacking and destroying feature after feature of the face, and the fingers and the toes, and other parts, till ' the patient becomes a hideous spectacle, and falls in pieces.' (See Michaelis's Mosaisches-Recht, §§ 208, 209.) Beseeching Him, and kneeling down to Him, and saying unto Him, If Thou wiliest, Thou art able to cleanse me. The disease was correctly regarded, not only as constituting a ceremonial uncleanness, but also as embodying a real physical impurity. Hence when the leper applied to the Saviour for cleansing, lie did not refer to ceremonial purification, which a priest alone could confer. He made exclusive reference to physical purification, which would consist in restoration to such a normal state of health as, when acknowledged by the priest, would be his passport into the privilege of living in communion with the population at large, as an admitted member of society. When he said to our Lord, Thou art able to cleanse me, he manifested, as Alexander remarks, a very high degree of faith in our Lord's Divine or Messianic power. Leprosy stood apart by itself from all other diseases, as a malady that signally manifested the judicial displeasure of God (see 2 Kings v. 27; 2 Chron. xxvi. 19-21). It was admitted to be in general incurable. When the afflicted man said, If Thou wiliest, he admitted that he did not know whether it might be within the range of our Lord's mission, or within the scope of His aim and intent, to grant relief to such a humiliated and outcast class of sufferers as that to which he belonged. We know ; but he did not. Ver. 41. And being moved with compassion. An exceedingly fine translation (v/ATo 65dv iroieiv riWovres tovs ffrdxvas, literally means and His disciples began to make a way, plucking the ears. The word began has, in the first place, been perplexing to many; more especially as it is not connected, in the original, with plucking the ears. It perplexed Beza among others. ' There seems,' said he, ' to be a displacement of the verbs.' Hence he arbitrarily connected it with plucking the ears, ' they began to pluck the ears.' It perplexed Hammond too. ' The phrase here in the Greek is,' says he, ' a little unusual.' He would regard the word began as an ' unsignificant expletive,' a mere pleonasm. So would Eisner and Wolf, who would consequently ignore the word in translation, and His disciples walked on and plucked the ears. Kocher however, and Baphel, Bosenmiiller, Kuinol, and others, would rather approve of Beza's ' hypallage.' Erasmus pre- ceded Beza in his expedient, and Luther too. Tyndale used the same liberty, and the authors of the Geneva version, and hence the rendering in our present translation. It is, however, a licentious liberty. How then should we construe the expression ? Coverdale comes nearer to the original than his great fore- runner, Luther. He translates it thus : and His disciples begane to make a waye thorow, and to plucke the eares of the come. Erasmus Schmid's translation is somewhat to the same effect, but very much more clumsy, and His disciples began (so) to go, that (at the same time) they plucked the ears. Both translations do justice to the l began.' But they differ as to the import of the expression that is directly governed by that verb. Coverdale says to make a waye thorow ; Erasmus Schmid says to go. A rather hot controversy hooks itself on to the phrase thus rendered (b5bi> iroieiv, or bdoiroielv as Theophylact gives it, and Lachmann too under the sanction of the Vatican manuscript). The great ma- jority of expositors, ancient and modern, translate it as E. Schmid does ; but contrary, says Dresigius (De Verbis Mediis, § 29), to the idiom of the Greek language. When the verb is in the middle voice (bdbv woie'ie^ai), the phrase means to set out, to advance, to make way (iter facere). But when the verb is in the active (ibbv iroieiv), the phrase means, as Viger had remarked before 58 ST. MARK II. [23 went, to pluck the ears of corn. 24 And the Pharisees said Dresigius, not to make icay, but to make a ivay, or, as Coverdale gives it, to make a waye thorow (viam facere). Fritzsche insists on the distinction being ob- served. Lange gives in to it. So did Bretschneider and Wahl and Winer. Meyer is most determined in adhering to it, and founds on it a theory of irre- concilable discordance between Mark's representation and that of Matthew and Luke. He is sure that as Mark makes no explicit reference to the disciples' rubbing the spikes and eating the disintegrated grains, so he had no implicit reference to such acts. The Pharisees he holds, so far as Mark's representa- tion is concerned, blamed the disciples, not for doing on the sabbath day what would have been quite lawful on any other da}7, but for doing on the sacred day what would have been unlawful on any day, viz. making a road through other people's sta7iding corn, by plucking the spikes. Holtzmann takes the same view of the expression, and of the intent of the Pharisees in their censure (Synopt. Evang., p. 73). And so does Michelsen {Ret Ev. van Markus, p. 152), and Scholten likewise (Ret oudste Evan., p. 26). These three critics insist on it, moreover, that Mark's account is the original story, and that both Matthew and Luke have ' misunderstood ' it. Grimm, on the other hand, supposes that if we must interpret the expression as Meyer does, then there is no avoiding the conclusion ' that Mark did not report the truth, but miserably corrupted (mis ere corrupisse) the report which he had received from others.' (Glavis, sub voce iroiew.) Krebs, again, has no doubt that Mark's expression properly means to make a road, but he thinks that, in using it, he was Latinizing, or rendering into Greek a common Latin phrase (iter facere, proficisci), and that therefore, as Mark intended it, the meaning is that the disciples advanced. (Observations, in loc.) Others, inclusive of Kypke, Losner, Rosenmuller, Kuinol, Bisping, Alford, assume or maintain that in the later and provincial Greek the distinction between the active and the middle voices of the verb, in the expression under question, got to be to a great degree confused or effaced. Jud. xvii. 8 is appealed to, as an instance in point ; but the expression there is rather pecu- liar, and does not simply mean, as we presume, to journey or advance. Yet, whatever it means, we see no reason for abandoning the simple and natural interpretation of the expression in Mark ; more particularly when we bear in mind the word began. We must picture to ourselves, as Klostermann remarks, the ' scene.' No doubt Mark is retailing the abrupt and graphic phrases of Peter or of some other reporter, who is sjjeaking from a vivid recollection of what he had witnessed with his eyes and heard with his ears. We must picture then to ourselves the Saviour going along through the cornfields. His dis- ciples are with Him, and a group of others, inclusive of a band of disputatious and censorious Pharisees. They are on their way to or from some adjoining synagogue. Conversation and lively disputation go on, all along the way. At a certain point where there is a crossing, or nearer cut, or a smaller diverging footpath, there is a pause on the part of our Saviour and of some of the Phari- sees with whom He was discoursing. Perhaps they paused, merely that they might stand and talk for a little, the earnestness of their spirits putting an unconscious arrest upon their physical progress. Or perhaps they were about at that point to separate into different routes. While they stand and talk, the 24] ST. MARK II. 59 unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which Lord's disciples move on ; they ' began ' to advance. Here is the explanation of the 'began.' Cajetan rigbtly supposes tbat they began to go ahead of our Lord. But the very narrow path along which they had to advance, being comparatively unused, was overgrown apparently at that particular spot with the crop. When the soil had been prepared, and the seed sown, no care was taken to keep off that narrow strip, along which the people had right of way ; the farmer knew that it was easy for the public to renew the path, just by walking ufion it. The disciples then began to walk in upon this line of transit, ' making a way.'' They were hungry too ; they had been long fasting. And hence, instead of simply trampling down the intervening stalks, tbey stooped, as they 'began' to walk, and plucked some handfuls of the spikes. They plucked them not from the fields by the side (although that would not have been seriously objected to), but considerately and economizingly from the stalks that were obstructing the road, and thus they began to make a way, plucking the spikes, or by plucking the spikes. There is thus not the slightest necessity for having recourse to any rack or strain or out-of-the-way peculiarity, to get the evan- gelist's expressions bent from their natural import. Ver. 24. And the Pharisees said to Him, Behold ! Or, See ! The word was used as an exclamation, Lo I But in such a case as the one before us its primary meaning is not to be lost sight of. The Pharisees turned their atten- tion to what the disciples were engaged in doing, the moment that they ' began ' to press in among the standing corn. What are they about ? They are actually plucking the spikes as if they were reapers ! and they are rubbing them too in the palms of their hands, and eating the threshed out grains ! Who could have thought it ? What daring wickedness ! Immediately tbey turn round, as with surprise, to the Lord, and say, See ! Why do they on the sabbath what is not lawful ? It is an inartificial way of saying, Why do they what is not lawful on the sabbath ? Meyer however, along with Holtzmann, Michelsen, and Scholten, will have it that the meaning is, Why do they, and that too on the sabbath, a thing that is (at all times and under all circumstances) unlawful ? Scholten is positive that the mere plucking and eating of the spikes ' could hardly have afforded an occasion of offence and complaint,' (wat kwalijk eene oorzaak van ergernis kon hebben opgeleverd). He seems to know little of the censorious spirit of ancient pbariseeism, or of its modern oriental analogue, ' wahbabeeism.' He seems likewise, along with Michelsen, Meyer, and Holtzmann, to be strangely unwilling to look at what is obviously implied in the reply which the Saviour made to the censorious Phari- sees. What can be clearer than that it is implied tbat His disciples were hungry, and tbat what they did to the standing corn they did because they had need i This was so obvious to the mind of the inartificial narrator, who was bending bis thoughts forward toward the words of the Saviour's reply, that he does not make formal mention of the fact. The proprietor of the crop had no right (Deut. xxiii. 25), and would not be disposed, to find fault with the disciples for assuaging their hunger as they passed along. But the sanctimonious Pharisees thought it a dreadful desecration of the sabbath to do things so like to week-day 60 ST. MARK II. [24 is not lawful ? 25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him ? 26 How he went into the reaping and threshing as plucking the ears of the corn and rubbing them in the palm of the hand. (See Comm. on Matt. xii. 2.) Vee. 25. And He saith to them, Did ye never read what David did, when he had need and was hungry, he and they that were with him ? See 1 Sam. xxi. 1-6. Note the generic had need and the specific was hungry. Note also the inartificial and conversational way in which the expression, he and they that were with him, is appended to the affirmation he had need and was hungry. His followers had need too, and were hungry ; but it is on the acting of David, as one of the most eminent of the Jews, that our Lord concentrates attention. Note likewise the archaic expression an-hungred in King James's version and the Eevised. It came down from Tyndale, who gives it thus — anhongred. The prefixed an, like the a in athirst, is a preposition, equivalent to on or in, so that the whole expression means in (the state of being) hungered or hungry. See Comm. on Matt. xii. 1.) Ver. 26. How he entered into the house of God. The tabernacle, to wit, while it was located in Nob, an ancient sacerdotal town (1 Sam. xxii. 19) near Jerusalem (Isa. x. 32). See 1 Sam. xxi. 1-6. In the days of Abiathar (the) high-priest. This is the other expression in tha paragraph which has occasioned difficulty to many, and over which irreverent critics have rejoiced, under the idea that it furnishes them with evidence that the evangelist has committed an historical blunder. They allege that a blunder there must be, inasmuch as we learn explicitly from 1 Sam. xxi. that it was not Abiathar but his father Ahimelech, who was high-priest, when David entered into the house of God and ate the shewbread, giving part of it to them that were with him. How then are we to account for the expression ? That may be some- what uncertain ; but it is absolutely certain that it is absolutely impossible to prove that there is anything of the nature of a blunder. ' There is no need,' as Dr. Wall says, ' of that supposal ' (Notes, in loc). (1) Some have drawn atten- tion to the fact that it is not said in 1 Sam. xxi. , or in any other passage in the Bible, that Ahimelech the father of Abiathar was high-priest ; he is only called the priest, and never the high-priest. Theophylact threw out the con- jecture that this might probably have to do with the solution of the difficulty. Patrizi is of opinion that Abiathar was actually high-priest at the time that David came to Ahimelech (Comm. in loc, and De Evangel., xxviii. n. 38). Wall and Whiston held the same opinion. It is probable however that Ahimelech was high-priest, for he ' inquired of the Lord ' and had ' the ephod ' (see Whitbtj). Josephus, himself of the priestly order, again and again speaks of him as high-priest (Ant. vi., xii., 4, 5, 6). (2) Some have supposed that a solution of the difficulty is to be found in 2 Sam. viii. 17, and 1 Chron. xxiv. 6, in which passages there is a transposition of the names Abiathar and Ahimelech, the latter being spoken of as the son of the former. Comp. 1 Chron. xviii. 16. It is probable however that this transposition is merely transcriptional ; and, if so, it would be in vain to look to it for an explanation 26] ST. MARK II. 61 house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, of the expression before us. (3) Lightfoot imagined that the phrase Abiathar the High-priest had already in our Saviour's day acquired its curious cabbalist- ical import of Urim and Thummim, so that the whole expression in the days of Abiathar the high-priest meant in the days of the Urim and Thummim, in the days, that is to say, when the mind of the Lord was ascertainable and ascer- tained by means of the Urim mid the Thummim. But this is quite an oddity of interpretation. (4) Jansen, Petter, a-Lapide, and others, suppose that both Abiathar and his father may have had each other's names for surnames, so that Ahimelech would be surnarned Abiathar, while Abiathar would be surnamed Ahimelech. Beza, in his day, had caught hold of this idea as an alternative explanation, founding on the passages already referred to (2 Sam. viii. 17 and 1 Chron. xxiv. 6). It has, however, all the appearance of an exceedingly artificial device. (5) Beza threw out another conjecture, in the editions of his Annotations which succeeded that of 1565. The entire phrase in the days of Abiathar the high-priest is wanting in the very ancient manuscript (D) which belonged to him, and which he subsequently presented to the University of Cambridge ; and hence he wondered whether the phrase might not have crept into the text from an early marginal note. The phrase is wanting not only in D, but also in some important manuscripts of the old Latin version. Arch- bishop Newcome would have liked to let it go ; and, walking in his leading- strings, the authors of the Improved Version (Unitarian) actually omit it ; Bloomfield too is disposed to part with it. But without good reason; the evidence in support of the clause is overwhelming. And if it should be sup- posed that the words involve a historical difficulty, it would be unaccountable, on the supposition of their spuriousness, that they should have been almost universally received into the text. But what then ? Do they really involve a historical difficulty? (6) Michaelis thought that the historical difficulty was very great, and, in a kind of despair, suggested that the phrase, instead of being rendered in the days of Abiathar the high-priest, might have a topical reference, in the section or paragraph of Abiathar the high-priest. Comp. Luke xx. 37. Saunier accepts this solution of the imagined difficulty as the best upon the whole. (Quellen des Ev. des Marcus, pp. 57, 58.) But there is really no evidence that the word Abiathar was appropriate from its conspicuousness to give a title to a Scripture section or paragraph, at least in or about 1 Sam. xxi. And then, besides, the phrase would have required to have stood nearer to the expression did ye never read? in the 25th verse. (7) Le Clerc tries another shift. He supposes that the preposition (iwi) employed by the evan- gelist, instead of being rendered temporally in the time of, should be rendered locally, in or into the presence of (chez, apud, ad). Wetstein gives the same translation, and Godwin. The passages appealed to in support of it (1 Tim. vi. 13 ; Acts xxiv. 19, xxv. 10 ; 1 Cor. vi. 1 ; add Matt, xxviii. 14, Mark xiii. 9, Acts xxvi. 2) are all idiomatic, haviug a reference to the elevated position of a judge. And no difficulty is escaped, if difficulty there be, by means of such a translation ; new difficulties, on the contrary, are incurred. (8) Bishop Hammond saw clearly that the preposition must have a reference to time, but be conjectured that it might mean a little before the time of. He says, apolo- 62 ST. MARK II. [26 and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but gizingly : " The notation of the preposition for the time not then present, but " soon after succeeding, is remarkable." He ingeniously appeals, however, to Matt. i. 11 in support of his ' remarkable ' interpretation ; and Bichard Baxter, Samuel Clarke, and Owen agree with him. The passage in Mattbew however has this peculiarity, that it refers to a definite occurrence, and thus to a point of time, whereas this expression in Mark refers either to the period of a lifetime or to the period of a pontificate. In the case therefore of such an expression as Matthew's the preposition is naturally employed to denote close upon the time of; but in the case of Mark's expression it as naturally means on or in the time of. (See Baphel's Annotations, in loc.) Wells's translation therefore, about the time of, is inexact. But what then ? (9) Brameld trans- lates the phrase during the high-priesthood of Abiathar. Schleusner gives the same translation ; it corresponds with the Syriac Peshito, wheii Abiathar was chief of the priests. The English Bevisionists agree, when Abiathar was high- priest. But this is certainly a most unnecessary leap into the heart of a his- torical difficulty ; there is assuredly no propriety in giving such a free and interpretative translation, when the interpretation of the phrase is the ve.vy matter in dispute. Bisping's interpretation coincides with Brameld's, but his translation is correct, in the time of Abiathar the high-priest. What is the difference between the two translations ? and how does it affect the true inter- pretation ? (10) Bishop Middleton supposed that the presence of the article before the word high-priest is the key that unlocks the whole supposed difficulty. If the article had been wanting, the phrase he thinks must have been inter- preted as meaning in the time of the high-priesthood of Abiathar; but the presence of the article makes that meaning, Bishop Middleton contends, ' a sense which the words will not bear.' The phrase then means, according to him, in the time of Abiathar, the (celebrated) high-priest, it not being implied that he was high-priest at the time referred to. We think that Middleton and Wetstein are both right and wrong. They are right, we conceive, in the mean- ing which they attached to the evangelist's phrase ; and thus the difficulty of the phrase, if difficulty there be, is really solved. Their exegetical instinct led them, as it did Grotius before them, to the true mark. The phrase refers to the lifetime of the high-priest, not to the time of his pontificate. But the reason on which Middleton grounds his interpretation is as unsound, in its onesidedness, as the interpretation itself is sound. The word ' high-priest ' without the article has not necessarily, by any means, the force of a participle (like Herodotus's iirl Aeovros BaaiXevovros , i. 65). It may simply be added appositively, in order to discriminate, embellish, or characterize the name that is specified ; some- what like the word Christ put anarthrously after Jesus (Matt. i. 1, etc.), or the anarthrous word apostle after Paul (Gal. i. 1, etc.), or the anarthrous expression Doctor of Divinity, or Doctor of Laws, or Knight, or Baronet, after any proper name in our own times. It is undoubtedly thus added in the case before us. There is a decided preponderance of authorities against the genuineness of the article. It is found indeed in the manuscripts A C A II, 1, 33, 69. But it is wanting inNBLEGHKMSUVr. LachmanD, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Alford omit it. Bishop Wordsworth both accepts the reading of the text 26] ST. MARK II. 63 for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him ? which omits the article, and gives the correct interpretation of the phrase. *' The reference is made to Abiathar as one well known to the readers of the " Old Testament as a celebrated high-priest." When however the bishop says that the expression, in itself, ' rather suggests that he was nut the high-priest' at the time referred to by our Lord, he greatly overstrains the case, and over- looks at once the usage and the regulative principles of Greek phraseology. In that he is decidedly wrong ; but it is to the point that he adds : "If our Lord "had mentioned Ahimelech, the Pharisees' answer might have been that Ahi- "melech was punished by God for this profanation of sacred things ; he and his " were soon overtaken by Divine vengeance and slain. But by specifying Abia- " thar, who was then with his father (1 Sam. xxii. 20), and who (we may " reasonably infer from our Lord's words, which are the words of Him who " knows all history) was a party to his father's act, and was afterwards blessed " by God in his escape and in a long and glorious priesthood, our Lord "obviates the objection of the worldly-minded Pharisees, and strengthens His " own argument, by reminding them that this action took place in the time " and under the sanction of one whom they held in reverence as a venerable "ornament of the pontifical family and dignity." De Lyra brings out a " similar idea. And ate the shewbread. Or, as the Kheims, translating from the Vulgate, renders the expression, and did eate the loaves of proposition. The word pro- •position is here used in its primary acceptation, position before, the loaves referred to being the cakes which were put in position before the Lord. The reference is to the twelve loaves or cakes, which were regularly kept on the golden table in the holy place. (Lev. xxiv. 5-9.) They were the loaves of the Face, as the Jews called them, that is, the loaves of the Divine Presence, the loaves which were kept in the presence-chamber of Jehovah, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. It was a sublime symbolism, being intended to remind the children of Israel that it was the Lord, their Father, who was their bountiful Provider. It was thus the bread of God (see John vi. 33) which David ate. (See Comm. on Matt. xii. 4.) Which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat. The reading of Tischen- dorf, in his eighth edition, is oDs ovk e^ariv ep6v). These words represent, not exactly what our Lord said to the healed persons, but what was the end He had in view in saying what He said (tva). He wished to prevent them, as far as possible, from spreading themselves abroad over society, and zealously proclaiming that He was the great Deliverer. His popularity with the common people was already inconveniently great. There was besides too much tendency to make use of Him for merely physical relief. A time too of quiet was needed for the progressive instruction of His disciples in things moral, spiritual, and Messianic. And He shrank, with true delicacy of spirit, from the din and dust and ' muscular ' rush and roar and rant of those excited mobs of admirers, in the tides of whose applause moral and political mounte- banks think themselves glorified. Ver. 13-19 constitute another snatch of narrative, exceedingly condensed. Coinp. Matt. x. 1-4 and Luke vi. 12-16. Ver. 13. And He goeth up into the mountain. We know not exactly when ; we know not exactly where. Neither the precise chronology, nor the precise topography, of the event was interesting to the evangelist. He had heard, however, from the lips of his informant, that it was ' the mountain ' into which the Lord ascended, that is, the particular ' highland ' of the locality that ivas present to the thoughts of the narrator. Comp. Matt. v. 1. Of course it was some one or other of the numerous upland spots in the vicinity of the sea of Galilee, at its northern extremity. Our Lord ' ascended into the mountain,' that is, into some of the scoops or gorges that intersect the face of the eminence. And calleth to Him whom He Himself pleased. We need not fancy anything like vociferation in the call ; for we need not supjjose, on the one hand, that our Saviour had ascended to any very great height, and we must bear in mind, on the other, that in those still regions of comparatively bare rock, and thus of universal ' sounding-board,' the voice is easily carried. Our Lord called to Him 'whom He Himself pleased' (ot's ffreKev avros). He did not allow any of His general followers to offer themselves, ultroneously, for special work and special privilege. And they departed to Him (d.Tr7J\^oi> irpbs o.vtqv). Namely, from the rest of the people who remained below. Ver. 14. And He appointed twelve. Literally, Ami He made twelve, an ex- ceedingly artless expression ; and, in conjunction with the following clause, just »s artlessly though not literally rendered by the Vulgate, And He made that twelve should be with Him (Eheims translation). Tyndale and Coverdale, 74 ST. MARK III. [14 dained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, 15 and to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils. 16 And Simon he instead of the generic made, have the specific ordained ; the Geneva, Norton, Sharpe, Rotherham, the English Revisionists, appointed ; Principal Campbell, selected. The term may he freely so rendered ; but still it just means made. It would appear that our Lord had called up to Him a select number of Hi3 most attached followers ; and then from these He selected twelve. See Luke vi. 13. Standing somewhat apart from the company, He would tell Peter to advance nearer to Him : that was one. Then He would call perhaps on Andrew, the brother of Peter : that would make two. Then He would call on the other pair of brothers, James and John : that would make four. And thus He would proceed, till He made twelve, the full number of the children of Israel. The Lord, it would appear, delighted to realize, in His institution of the apostolate, His relation to the whole of the Israelites, as representative of the whole of mankind. In order that they might be with Him. He had a particular aim in ' making twelve.' It was, first of all, in order that they might be His constant attend- ants. He wished to have them beside Him, that He might pour His spirit into them, and train them, at once by light and by love, to be His fellow-labourers and His successors in. teaching the peojjle. And in order that He might send them forth to preach. Namely, by and by, when they were inwardly equipped. That He might send them forth (dirocrTeWrj), that is, that He might make apostles of them (diroa-ToXoi) . This was His ulterior aim. Our Lord could not Himself reach very many with His own individual voice ; and hence He multiplied it as it were. He knew that it was all-important for the Israelites in particular, and thence for all men, that they should be earnestly spoken to in reference to the kingdom of God. Hence • preachers,' or heralds of good news, were needed. "Ver. 15. And to have authority to cast out the demons. ' The demons,' to wit, which were so rampant in human society, annoying, oppressing, defiling, and abusing men. (See chap. i. 23, 32.) Note the expression to have authority. We might have expected the evangelist to have said simply, and to cast out the demons. But the power of exorcising was so different from the power of preaching, that the evangelist makes special mention of the Divine authorization with which they would require to be endued. Ver. 16. And He made the twelve. This artless repetitive clause, with the addition of the retrospective article, is inserted by Tischendorf in his eighth edition of the text ; apparently on good authority, the authority of the Sinaitic, Vatican, Ephraemi, and San Gallensis manuscripts (N B C* A), and the iEthiopic manuscript m. The clause had got to be early droiraed, as bearing the aspect of a useless repetition. And He imposed on Simon the name Peter. Another exceedingly artless ex- pression. The evangelist intends to enumerate the apostles, and begins with Peter. But instead of introducing the surname in a subordinate clause, Simon, on whom He imposed the name Peter, he narrates the imposition of the name in 17] ST. MARK III. 75 surnamed Peter; 17 and James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James ; and he sm-named them Boanerges, a capital clause, and then leaves the narration as sufficing for the enumerative object that he had in view. The word Simon or Simeon is Hebrew, meaning hearing ; the word Peter is Greek, meaning stone. As imposed, however, upon the chief of the apostles, it is not to he regarded as referring to any littlo pebble in the brook, or any accidental chip of rock lying on the road or in tl_o held. Galilee and the surrounding lands were remarkable for massive stone structures. The most conspicuous of these were sacred edifices, temples ; and the foundation stones of these temples were invariably large and imposing. It would be with a view to these large and conspicuous foundation stones that our Lord would call Simon a Stone. He was spiritually large and strong, massive and shapely, fit to constitute an important part of the substructure of the great spiritual temple of God. (See Matt. xvi. 18.) There is no reason for supposing, with Cajetan and Meyer, that the name Peter was imposed on Simon just at the particular time referred to. (See John i. 42.) The evangelist simply takes the opportunity, in his own artless way, of recording the new name and of mentioning that it was given to Simon by our Lord. Ver. 17. Mark does not classify the apostles in pairs, as Matthew does (x. 2-4), although it is he who mentions that by and by they were sent out in pairs (chap. vi. 7). He heaps their names together in an artless manner, but is particular, like the other evangelists, about the first and the last. He is also particular, unlike Matthew, and Luke in his Gospel (vi. 14), to introduce James and John between Peter and his brother Andrew, thus recognising the pre- eminence of the triumvirate who were admitted by our Lord into His most intimate fellowship. (See Mark ix. 2, xiv. 33.) The same intersection occurs in the Acts of the Apostles (i. 13). And James the son of Zebedee. James is thus patronymically marked out, to distinguish him from the other apostolical James, the son of Alphseus. See next verse. And John the brother of James. John had no doubt been the younger brother, and hence his position in the list, though he ultimately became much more distinguished than his brother. See chap. i. 19 ; and comp. Luke ix. 28. And them He surnamed Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder. The expression rendered surnamed means literally imposed on them ' names.1 Note the plural ' names.' It seems to justify us in concluding that each of the brothers would bear the ' name ' Son-of-thnnder or Bar-reges. The two names combined make Sons of thunder, or Boanerges, that is Boanerges. The word Boane, meaning Sons of, must have been a provincial or otherwise peculiar way of pronouncing Bene or Benai. {Dene is Hebrew and Chaldee ; Benai is Syriac.) Drusius indeed was perplexed with the broadness of the pronunciation, and supposed that the word, as found in the evangelist's text, must have been accidentally mis-spelled, and that it should be written Bane. (Praterita, in loc.) Beza was nearly of the same opinion. ' It is obvious,' says he, ' that the o should be expunged.' But this is going much too far in an assumption of purism of pronunciation among the Galileans. There are often the strangest freaks of 76 ST. MARK III. [1» which is, The sons of thunder : 18 and Andrew, and Philip, variation in pronunciation. There would be in Galilee, especially in the ' broad ' direction. (See Matt. xxvi. 73.) The manuscripts are unanimous in reading oa ; and Hugh Broughton says, " At this day scheva is sounded by the " Jews themselves as oa, as for example Noaby-im," (for Nehy-im). (Works, ^ p. 706.) The other moiety of the surname, viz. r^ges or regesh (tJ\3"l or t^jl— , * . ;), has also occasioned to critics unnecessary difficulty. It is true that in the classic passages in which the term occurs, it means, not thunder, but an assembly or croivd. (See Ps. lv. 14.) In no passage of the Targums, it would appear, or of the Talmud, does it indisputably mean thunder. (See Patrizi, in loc.) It is, however, very evidently onomatopoetic, having primarily a reference to noise. (See Buxtorf's Lexicon Talmud., sub voce.) Hence the translation which the cognate verb receives in the Septuagint version of Ps. ii. 1 (£roposed by other interpreters, more influenced perhaps, as Maldonato observes, by piety than by prudence. Unhappily however. It is by no means needful to sujjpose that our Lord's kinsfolk understood Him, or were careful to avoid all strong expressions in reference to Him. (See John vii. 3-10.) Neither is it on the other hand needful to suppose that every one of them, inclusive even of Mary herself, used the very strong phraseology recorded. Nothing is more reasonable, as Mal- donato remarks, than to assume a free and easy syllepsis or synecdoche of repre- sentation on the part of the evangelist. And it is, at the same time, quite reasonable to assume that, even to Mary, our Saviour was in many respects an Inexplicable Mystery. So doubtless would He have been to us, had we had no other light, by means of which to see, than the twilight in which Mary and the ' brethren ' were walking. Ver. 22. And. The evangelist, having in the preceding verse led us in thought from Capernaum to Nazareth, and shown us the departure of the Saviour's kinsfolk on their officious mission, leaves that thread of things, to bo afterwards resumed : see ver. 31-35. Meantime, and while the kinsfolk are as it were on the road, he introduces us abruptly and artlessly to another scene. The scribes who came down from Jerusalem. For it would appear that the great ecclesiastics in the capital were feeling uneasy in reference to the Galilean Keforrner. He had not got Hit training at the feet of any of the accredited rabbis, and yet He was already quite a power in the country. They deemed it prudent therefore to depute some of the ablest of the scribes to go down and make inquisition. Doivn : Jerusalem was perched on the summit of a broatf 22] ST. MARK III. b3' He Lath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out mountain ridge ; the highest point of the city was more than 2,300 feet above the level of the Mediterranean. Hence people in all parts of the Holy Laud spoke of going up to Jerusalem and coming down from it. Said, He hath Beelzebub. Or rather Beelzebul. Such is the form of the word in Greek, although unhappily it is Beelzebub in the S.yriac Peshito and the Latin Vulgate. It was from the latter version that the corrupted form passed into the Anglo-Saxon and the old English versions, inclusive of Wycliffe"s ; and thence it descended into our Authorized version and the Eevised. It passed likewise, from the same source, into Luther's German version, and Emser's, Piscator's, and Zinzendorf's ; also into the older French versions ; and into the old Dutch version, though it was rectified in the revised version of the Synod of Dort. It passed likewise into Diodati's Italian version, and Martini's. But iu Brucioli's Tuscan version a compromise is made between the two forms ; or rather, the peculiarity of both the forms is dropped. His word is Belzebn. The evangelist's word was no doubt Beelzebul, which however was an intentional travesty of Beelzebub or Baal-zebub. This latter word was the real name of the tutelary deity of the Ekronites (2 Kings i. 2, 3, 16), and meant Fly-Lord. But the Jews, by the change of a single letter, turned it quaintly into Filth-Lord (see Comm. on Matt. x. 25) ; and then, pleased with their own theological pleasantry, they proceeded farther in their grim humour, and applied the name in its parodied form to Satan. Hence when the scribes said of our Lord, He has Beelzebul, they meant to destroy His influence with the people by throwing into their minds the terrible idea that the devil was in league ivith Him. (See ver. 23.) There is far greater malice in the imputation than Bosenmiiller and Kuinol imagined ; they thought that it siniply meant He is mad. And, By the prince of the demons He casts out the demons. Note the connective particle and ; it is not part of the report ; and hence it does not introduce a second clause in the terrible accusation, or lead us to understand that they who said He has Beelzebul immediately added and by the prince of the demons He casts out the demons. The repetition of the quotation particle in the original (the recitative 6'n after the kclI) shows us- that the evangelist is recording tivo distinct reports, — although, it is true, they were but different forms or phases of one diabolical accusation. If we were, according to a suggestion of. Philippi, to represent ocularly, by means of inverted commas, the power of the quotation particle, the verse would stand thus : And the scribes, who came down from Jerusalem, said, "He has Beelzebul," and, "By the prince of the demons He casts out the demons." It is Satan of course, or Beelzebul, who is called the prince or ruler of the demons. (See next verse.) The expression by the ruler of the demons is rendered freely by Tyndale, by the power of tfiie chefe devyll. It is literally ' in' the ruler of the demons, and represents our Saviour's personality as merged. in the personality of Satan. The imputation was that Satan had taken Jesus into himself ; or, to exhibit the case under a slightly different phase, that he had, as principal, entered into a compact with Jesus as subordinate. He had entered into this compact, it was insinuated, for the purpose of putting down the inestimably beneficent influence of the Pharisees ! Hence, it icas alleged, all the strictures and criticisms of Jesus on the godly ways of the godly people ! Power 84 ST. MARK III. [22 devils. 23 Aud he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan ? 24 And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot was given from beneath, power even to cast out demons, so that tlie people might be thoroughly deceived ! (As to demons, see on chap. i. 34.) Ver. 23. And He called them unto Him. The horrible imputation was not directly addressed to Himself, but to some of the surrounding people. Perhaps it would be elicited in the course of some keen debate whieh was going on aside. Not unlikely it would at first be only broached in some half smothered insinua- tion, gnashed between the teeth. But the Saviour was cognisant of it, and it brought collision to a crisis. Hence He called His accusers to Him. And said unto them in parables. Such as are recorded in ver. 24, 25, 27. The argumentative parables there recorded are short indeed ; still they are parables, for it is not essential to a parable that it be a fully developed narration or story. The word means etymologically a side-throw. The thing signified by the word is therefore something thrown by the side of another thing, it may be to hide it, or it may be to show it off. The parable is in general some kind of similitude, illustrating by something common, well known, or easily understood, some other thing lying more remote from popular apprehension. It is based on a profound law of correspondences, pervading and binding into harmony the whole universe. Instead of the Greek word parables, Tyndale, Coverdale and the original Geneva version of 1557 have the Latin word similitudes, which however is not quite broad enough to cover the whole expanse of parables. (See Luke iv. 23, in the Greek.) How can Satan cast out Satan ? This does not mean, as Fritzsche supjiosed, and Luther and Coverdale before him, How can one Satan cast out another Satan? but How can Satan cast out himself? (See ver. 24,25.) When the Saviour says can, He does not refer to physical ability as it is called, for it is conceivable that Satan could, as a mere feat of ability, make a feint of casting out himself. He could cast himself out (as regards some forms of his indwelling presence or energy) from some individuals, in order that he might throw a 'glamour' of misconception over the minds of others. Our Saviour is refer- ring however to a certain kind of moral ability, so called, to ability inter-related to consistency of demeanour. How could it be consistent in Satan to cast oiti Satan ? Ver. 24. And. The parables, referred to in the preceding verse, now come in. But as the argumentative query which has already been proposed has really settled the whole question, they are not introduced as demonstrations by means of the ratiocinative particle for, but are just artlessly linked on as appended illustrations. Hence the and. If a kingdom be divided against itself. That is, If perchance it should happen that a kingdom has been divided (/xepia^y) against itself. The expression against Ctself is literally upon itself (eft eavrriv) ; if part has turned upon part with hostile intent. The preposition denotes motion with a vieiv to superposition ; if each party has sought to come down upon the other, so as to overthrow it and keep it under. 2G] ST. MARK III. 85 stand. 25 And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end. 27 That kingdom is not able to stand. Note the present tense of the verb, is not able, coming after the prreterite tense of the preceding clause. If the division in the state is already an accomplished fact, the consequence is not merely a pro- spective but a present iceakness, and hence imminent prostration. If the parties are well balanced, and the feud be incurable, (two elements in the case that are parabolically assumed,) the kingdom must collapse. For the meaning of the passive verb rendered to stand (o-rctS-^fcu), and correctly so rendered, see Luke xviii. 40, xix. 8,xxi. 36; Acts ii. 14, v. 20, xvii. 22, xxv. 18, xxvii. 21; Rev. vi. 17, viii. 3. Ver. 25. The Saviour gives another and analogous parable, only shifting His scene to a smaller community. And if a house be divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. The word house has, of course, its rarer meaning of household, the meaning which it has in John iv. 53 and 1 Cor. xvi. 15. It is translated household in Phil. iv. 22. If thorough intestine antagonism be once an accomplished fact in a family, that family must be broken tip and thus broken doivn. Ver. 26. And if (el) Satan has risen up against himself (avearyj £(p' iavrov). As is actually the case, provided the malicious imputation of the scribes be ivell founded. It is a most graphic picture. Satan, ' himself a host,' rises up in all the panoply of his might to put himself down ! And has been uivided. Such is probably the correct reading (t?7,iucu, 6Vo av ^Xa<7 the correct reading). The preceding 68 ST. MARK III. [28 shall blaspheme : 29 but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal all has reference both to the generic sins and the specific blasphemies ; and when it is added 'wherewith' they may blaspheme, the wlierewith (6is as well as to the specific blasphemies. If the reference had been unfolded, the expression would have run thus, the sins wherein they may sin, and the blasphemies whereioith they may blaspheme. The phraseology is inartificial ; but a deep theological meaning is embedded. It is implied that all sins, when analysed into their substrate, have an element of blasphemy in them. They cast dishonour on God ; they cast it wilfully. Blas- phemy, considered in its form, is injurious speaking ; but considered in its essence it is despite or scorn. In all sin there is such essential blasphemy ; God's wish and will are proudly set aside and resisted. All such proud resist- ances of the wish and will of God will be forgiven, if they do not culminate in a particular phase of blasphemy. See next verse. Ver. 29. But whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. Whosoever shall be guilty of blasphemy that goes out to (els) the Holy Spirit. What of him ? See next clause. But meanwhile note that the peculiarity of his crime arises from its relation to the dispensation of mercy. It is the only crime which, in its own nature, closes the door of the soul and keeps it closed, against the ingress of Divine mercy. The Holy Spirit is the revealer of the propitiousness of God ; and when, as such, He is blasphemed, or scorned, or slighted, the only possible means of the soul's acquaintance with the mercy of God is set aside or resisted ; the only avenue to salvation and sanctification is thus closed. Augustine was right, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is wilfully-persisted- in impenitence or disbelief. (See Comm. on Matt. xii. 31, 32.) Hath never forgiveness. A free but fine translation ; it was Coverdale's. It is more literal than Tyndale's, shall never have forgevenes. The Bheims version is more literal still, he hath not forgiveness for ever. The expression for ever is literally to the age (els tqv ai&va). It is an idiom, and substantially means, as Alexander renders it, to eternity. And hence a peculiar symphony between this clause and the next. But is in danger of eternal damnation. So is the expression rendered in King James's version. It is a strong translation of an incorrect text. The text was that of .Erasmus ; the translation was Tyndale's. It is to be borne in mind however that the word damnation meant originally nothing but condemnation ; and such undoubtedly was the import of the term in Tyndale's version. The Greek word indeed, in the text that was lying before him, strictly meant judgment (Kpiaews), and so Coverdale here renders it. But us judgment is in itself ambidextrous, left-hand judgment is condemnation. The word however which Tyndale found in his Erasmian text was really a marginal correction of the word that was in the evangelist's autograph, and which Lachmann, Tischendorf , Tregelles, Alford, have wisely restored, the word sin (aixapTTjixaros). Griesbach, in his day, saw clearly that the reading of the Erasmian text was a critical correction (Comm. Crit., inloc.) ; Mill too (Prolegomena, p. xliii.). The case is SO] ST. MARK III. 89 damnation : 30 because they said, He hath an unclean spirit. obvious. No one would have substituted, for perspicuity's sake, the expression eternal sin for the expression eternal judgment or condemnation. But many a critic might think that he was only innocently smoothing a rugged phrase when he quietly introduced judgment or condemnation, for sin. Both the Vatican and the Sinaitic manuscripts, as well as ' the queen of the cursives,' read sin ; so do the Italic, Vulgate, Coptic, Armenian, and Gothis versions. Instead then of the expression is in danger of eternal damnation, we should read is guilty of an eternal sin. As to the word translated guilty (tvoxos), see its use in 1 Cor. xi. 27 and Jas. ii. 10. It denotes that the person spoken of is in the grip of his sin. It has hold of him, and holds him in, so that he cannot escape from the punishment that is his due. As to the expression eternal sin, it is peculiar and in some respects unique, but thoroughly intelligible. It denotes a sin that cannot be taken aioay, blotted out, or cleansed. Griesbach compares John ix. 41, ' your sin remaineth.' An eternal sin is a sin that remaineth for ever. For- given sins are sins that are taken up by God from the burdened conscience of the sinner and cast as it were ' behind His back ' or ' into the depths of the sea ' ; but unforgiven sins abide for ever on the souls that committed tbem. The language is of course strongly pictorial, but most solemnly significant. Vek. 30. Because they said. They persisted in saying (ZXeyov). Our Saviour addressed to the scribes His solemn warning, because they were persisting in their malign and wanton allegation. He hath an unclean spirit. That is, a demon. They could not deny that His works were supernatural. But instead of admitting that they were from above, and full of Divine mercy to men, they wilfully, casuistically, and malignantly accused Him of being voluntarily assisted from beneath. He does not intimate to them, as Petter and many others suppose, that they had thereby blasphemed the Holy Spirit and committed the unpardonable sin. Neither does Mark, as Kostlin imagines, confound the two blasphemies (die ^\aovs). It is supported by the uncial manuscripts S B G L A. He says, Lo My mother and My brethren ! My nearest of kin ! See next verse. V~eb 35. For whosoever shall do the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother. A great preponderance of the best manuscripts omit the my before the word sister. If any one do the will of God, and be thus Godlike and good in character, holy and whole in spirit, in him does the Saviour recognise, in relation to Himself, true kinship. He is at once His ' brother and sister and mother.' The deepest affinity is that of the spirit. Hence the supremacy, even in the present provisional state of things, of the wedlock relationship. Hence too the still higher supremacy of the relationship that will rule in the world of glory (Matt. xxii. 30). It is noteworthy that Jesus does not add ' father ' to His ' brother and sister and mother.' A high and hallowed con- sciousness kept back that august term ; He realized that His relation to His real and only Father towered far aloft above all other relations. CHAFTER IV. Here follows one of the most graphic of illustrative stories, the parable of the tower, ver. 1-20. Comp. Matt. xiii. 1-23 and Luke viii. 4-15. Ver. 1. And again He began to team by the sea side. By the side of the lovely ' sea of Galilee.' It was again that He began ; He had taught by the same place before. See chap. hi. 7-9. And there is gathered unto Him a very great crowd. No sooner had He gone to the shore and begun His teaching, than the people came pouring toward Him from all directions. There was a very great crowd (ox^os irXeiaros). Such is 92 ST. MARK IV. [1 into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land. 2 And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine, 3 Hearken ; Behold, there went out a sower to sow : 4 and it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. 5 And some fell on stony the reading of Teschendorf, Tregelles, Alford, instead of the reading of the Received or Erasmian text, a great crowd (oyXos ttoXvs). The same important manuscripts (X B C L A) which support the superlative reading have the verb in the present tense, is gathered (aw dye rat). We are taken back in imagination to the time referred to, and see the people in the very act of congregating. So that He entered into a boat. Such is Wycliffe's translation, in to a boot. And sat in the sea, and all the crowd were (T/aav) by the sea on the land. Some might be sitting on the beautiful ' white beach,' some standing. The Great Rabbi however, according to the universal custom of the rabbis, sat as He taught. He sat ' in the sea.' The boat in which He sat was afloat in the sea. If the place referred to was near Bethsaida, there " the beach rises rapidly,'1 says Mr. Macgregor, " and there is deep water within a few yards of the shore, " while at the same time a multitude of hearers could place themselves so as " to see the Saviour in the boat ; and there is no such natural church along the " other coast by Gennesareth." (The Rob Roy on the Jordan, p. 350.) Ver. 2. And He taught them many things in parables. The things were con- veyed to them 'in' parables (iv irapa(3o\ai^, and thus they were partly revealed and partly concealed. (See ver. 10-12.) Parables are not direct representations of realities, but indirect. What they directly represent is thrown in the direc- tion of something that lies beyond. (See on chap. iii. 23.) And said to them in His teaching. The word employed is just the noun-form of the verb that is rendered taught in the preceding clause (StSa^^— ediSaaicev). Ver. 3. Hearken; Behold, the sower went out to sow. It is ' the ' sower in the original. The Saviour casts upon the canvas of the imagination a par- ticular individual. This individual went out to sow. He went out from the village or hamlet, where the farmers in the East are accustomed to reside, duly furnished for his work. Ver. 4. And it came to pass, as he sowed. Or, still more literally, and it hap- pened in the solving. It happened is Coverdale's translation. Tyndale's version is, it fortuned. Some fell by the wayside. That is, some seed. It fell on the margin of the hard trodden pathway that ran along, or, as the case might be, right through the unenclosed field. And the birds came. Or, the briddes, as Wycliffe gives it. And devoured it. The word (Karecpayev) is just ' de ''-voured or ate down. " Our "horses," says Dr. W. M. Thomson on a certain occasion, in his eastern travels, " are actually trampling down some seeds which have fallen by this 11 wayside, aad larks and sparrows are busy picking them up." (The Land and the Book, p. 82.) 8] ST. MARK IV. 93 ground, where it had not much earth ; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up, it was scorched ; and because it had no root, it withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. 8 And other fell ou good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and Ver. 5. And other fell on rocky ground (£ttI rb irerp&des). Our Saviour imagines a field with a particular rocky part protruding slightly here and there ahove the general level of the ground, or else revealing itself to the tread as lying immediately below the surface. This is ' the ' rocky ground. It is not expected by the farmer that anything sown upon it will come to full maturity ; but the place comes within his sweep as he sows the grain, and so some seeds fall upon it. Where it had not much earth. For it is not of a stony place, properly so called, but of a place that is rocky, that the Saviour speaks. And immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. Or, because of not having depth of earth. There was no scope for development downward, and hence the forces of the plant rushed prematurely upward. Ver. 6. And when the sun arose, it was scorched. Scorched, a fine translation, originated by the editors of King James's version. And, on account of not having root, it withered away. It had not sufficient root. Its supplies beneath were not sufficient to sustain it in the process of a complete upward development. Ver. 7. And other fell among thorns. Or, more literally, into the thorns, such namely as our Saviour was realizing in His picture of the field. He was thinking of some clump of thorny plants which had been burnt down according to oriental custom, but not eradicated, before seed-sowing time. In among these roots some seeds fell. And the thorns grew up, and choked it. Or, as Wycliffe renders it, strangled it. The -thorns suffocated the growing plant, compressing it together (aweirv^av), and thus preventing it from getting the free air of heaven and a sufficiency of the nourishment of the soil. And it yielded no fruit. It rose high enough in its stem, perhaps too high ; but it was by the help of artificial props. The tide of vital energy was so impoverished by the surroundings that the real final end of the plant's existence was never reached. There was no ' fruit.' Ver. 8. And others fell into the good ground {els rty yrjv rr\v Ka\r)v). In some important manuscripts (K B C L, 33), there is in this clause the plural word others (&\\a), instead of the singular other (ct\Xo), which is found in ver. 5 and 7. Tischendorf has introduced it into his eighth edition of the text. And yielded fruit growing up and increasing. Meyer thinks that the word fruit denotes here, not the grains, but the stalks of the corn, which conspicu- ously ascend and increase. He was misled by thinking of the disintegrated grains (Earner), instead of the entire spikes, the ascent and increase of which are obvious and beautiful phenomena. That the reference is to the grains in the 94 ST. MARK IV. [8 increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred. 9 And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. 10 And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. 11 And he said unto integer of the spike is demonstrated by ver. 20. Comp. Matt. xiii. 8, and Luke viii. 8. And bore to thirty and to sixty and to a hundredfold. Such is the literal translation of the true text (teal Z). It is the text that is given by Teschendorf, Tregelles, and Alford, supported by the manuscripts X B C L A. It could not well be accounted for unless it had been in the original autograph. The reading of the Keceived Text (iv for els) seems to have been artificially accommodated, as Tischendorf remarks, to the mode of expression in Matt. xiii. 8. The various degrees of fertility specified by our Lord were nothing extraordinary in such a paradise of a place as the plain of Gennesaret. ' Its fertility,' says Dr. Eobinson, ' can hardly be exceeded.' (Biblical Researches, vol. iii., p. 285.) Ver. 9. And He said, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Calvin, Petter, a-Lapide, and others, think that our Saviour assumes a distinction among men, between those loho have ears, that is, ears fit to listen to Divine communications, and those who have none. It is much more probable, however, that He assumes that all without exception have been divinely provided with fitting organs of hearing, and that He draws attention to the fact of the provision in a way tbat is calculated to lead each individual to reflect on his individual responsibility. It is quite a common phenomenon among men to misuse the ears, so as not to hear the still small voices tbat speak the most important truths. In a world like ours, in which there is such a din of noises aud voices, there must be eclecticism in hearing. Ver. 10. And when He came to be alone. Not indeed absolutely alone, but relatively to the public crowd who had pressed down to the shore to see and hear ; when He got into comparative seclusion. They who were about Him with the twelve. No doubt there would be fre- quently in the presence of our Lord other attached disciples besides the apostles ; the pious women for instance, and occasionally the relatives and acquaintances both of them and of the apostles ; and others besides. It is only Mark who here takes notice of these other adherents. (Comp. Matt. xiii. 10, Luke viii. 9.) It is one of the minute touches which show that he was not writing a compendium of any of the other synoptic Gospels. Asked Him the parable. That is, interrogated Him concerning the import of the parable, or, as Wycliffe gives it, axiden Hym for to expoivne the parable. Such is the import of the Keceived Text. It is the reading of Lachmann ; and it is found in the Alexandrine manuscript and a majority of the other uncials, as also in the Clementine Vulgate, the Pcshito Syriac, and the Gothic, Armenian, and Coptic versions. It is certainly the easiest reading ; and in this instance it is, most probably, the correct reading. A preponderance indeed of the more important manuscripts (fcsLCLA), supported by some important 12] ST. MARK IV. 95 them. Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God : but unto them that are without, all tltese things are done in parables : 12 that seeing they may see, and not perceive ; manuscripts of the Vulgate, inclusive of the Codex Amiatinus, read, in the plural, parables (rds Trapa(36\as), instead of parable. Tischendorf in conse- quence, and Tregolles and Alford, have introduced the plural word into their texts. But it is probable that it owes its place, in the codices from which they copy, to the use of the plural word in the 11th verse. Ver. 11. And He said to them, Unto you the mystery of the kingdom of God has been given. Unto you as the ' subjects ' of knowledge. The mystery of the kingdom of God is its secret, or the sum of its secrets. It is that inner reality of spiritual things which the masses of the Jews did not like to think of, and which had therefore to be veiled when it was spoken of in their presence. The same inner reality of things, though under other phases, is still an object of aversion to the masses of men, rich and poor, high and low, learned and illiterate. When an approach is made to an esoteric exhibition of it, symptoms of inijmtience and dislike are speedily encountered, so that the object must be shaded off exoterically as a secret or mystery. It is not in any peculiar respect an incomprehensibility , although no doubt in its heights it ascends, and in its deptbs it descends, into incomprehensibilities enough. But to them who are without. Who are outside the circle of disciplehood. The phrase was frequently used by the Jews to denote the Gentiles ■ but it was also applicable, according to the specific standpoint occupied, to all who did not gravitate toward any given centre of attraction. All the things take place in parables. The phrase all the things (ra wavTa), or indefinitely, all things (wavra.), as Tischendorf, tinder the authority of the Sinaitic and a few other manuscripts, has it, refers to the universality tbat is found within the circle of the Saviour's teachings at that particular period. His teachings to the masses of the people took the shape of parables. Why ? See next verse. Ver. 12. That seeing they may see and not perceive. Or, In order that looking they may look and not see. The verb in the Hebraistic expression, looking they may look, is translated look in Matt. v. 28, John xiii. 22, Acts iii. 4, 2 John 8. It is here used to "denote that exercise of the beholding faculty which stops short of perfected perception. The Hebraistic expression draws attention to a process, involving a progress which should culminate in a completed result. The result however is not reached ; they do not see. And Jesus did not wish them, at that particular stage of things, to see. The parables were spoken in order that (i'ra) they should not 'see.' Why? Was it because He did not wish them to know and to enjoy ? Everything the reverse. But He was aware that, in consequence of the inveteracy of their prepossessions, they could not, in the first instance, see ' the secret of the kingdom ' without being repelled in spirit, and confirmed in their dissent and dislike. He wished therefore that they should not ' see.' But at the same time He graciously wished that they should ' look,' and keep ' looking,' so that they might, if possible, get such a glimpse of the iuuer glory as might fascinate their interest and attention, and 96 ST. MARK IV. [12 aud hearing they may hear, and not understand ; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them. 13 And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable ? and how then will ye know all parables ? 14 The sower soweth by and by disarm their prejudices, so that they might with safety be permitted to ' see.' And hearing they may hear and not understand. A parallel representation, drawn from another of the outward senses. The Saviour wished that the deeply prejudiced multitude should not ' understand,' in the first instance, the fulness of His ideas, but that yet they should ' hear ' and continue to ' hear.' If what they ' heard ' were in itself fitted to stimulate interest and inquiry, and also adapted, when once inquiry was excited, to guide the mind toward the right goal, it might ultimately lead on to the mo.t important secrets of the kingdom of heaven. Lest they should ever turn. The verb is in the active voice (iTTLarpefwiriv), and thus brings into view the important truth that the sinner's own agency is an indispensable element in his conversion. When it is said ' lest ' they should turn, the 4 lest ' expresses the idea of aversion ; and the question naturally arises, in ivhose mind is the aversion to the turning ? Is it in the Saviour's (and God's), or in that of the sinner himself? The sentence is so inartificially con- structed that, unless common sense step in as interpreter, one might suppose that it was the Saviour who was opposed to the sinner's conversion. It is manifestly, however, the sinner himself. It is implied in the preceding clauses that it is the sinner's deeply rooted wish that he should not ' see ' and ' under- stand.' And in this expression the reason of his wish is given. He is afraid lest lie should be prevailed on to turn. Comp. Matt. xiii. 15, and also John xii. 40, and Acts xxviii. 27. And it should be forgiven to them (teal acpe^rj avro'is). In the Eeceived Text the expression the sins, that is, their sins, is incorporated, and their sins should he forgiven to tliem. The supplement brings out exactly the idea of the original phrase ; but it is not unlikely that it was exegetically added. The people spoken of would not be averse to forgiveness, abstractly considered, though there are some that profess to wish simple justice and no favour. But, in the case of most, it is the moral antecedents, and in particular the moral consequents, of forgiveness that are disliked. In explicitly shrinking from these they implicitly shrink from the involved forgiveness itself. Vek. 13. And He says to them. This expression indicates that another thread of thought is taken up in what immediately follows. Note the present says ; we are carried back in imagination, and can ourselves listen. Know ye not this parable? Is that the case? Are ye so slow in learning? Hare ye such difficulty in getting to the standpoint from which the ivhole expanse of these spiritual truths is seen ? And how shall ye know all the parables ? The language at the beginning of the clause is abrupt, and how ? that is, and how, if that be the case ? Note the future expression, shall ye know ? It implies an intended order in the parables 16] ST. MARK IV. 97 the word. 15 And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown ; but when they have heard Satan cometh im- mediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts. 16 And these are they likewise which are sown on stony referred to. The order is such that the mind should commence with the consideration of the first, and thence proceed, in the future, to the remainder. The Saviour does not refer to all possible parables. His expression is not all parables, hut all the parables {iraaas rds Trapaj3o\as). Very prohahly however He may refer, not only to those which He delivered before He retired from the multitude to whom He spoke the parable of the sower, but also to such as He might deem it proper to deliver on future occasions in reference to the kingdom of heaven. Ver. 14. The Saviour explains the parable of the sower. The sower sows the word. The sower in the parable represents the preacher of the word. The Holy Spirit is the Great Preacher, the Holy Spirit in Jesus or in those who are filled out of the fulness of Jesus. All ordinary preachers have but to echo the preaching of the Holy Spirit. It is to them however, in particular, that the Saviour refers. The word which they preach, if they preach as they ought to preach, is just the manifested thought of the Holy Spirit, His thought concerning God, and goodness, and the way back for sinners at once to goodness and to God. This manifested thought is the gospel. Ver. 15. And these are they by the wayside, where the word is sown. The demonstrative these points forward to those who are about to be described in the remainder of the verse. But as the Saviour has them already in His eye while He is speaking, He introduces the next clause by means of the conjunction and. There is a tvayside in the place ' where the word is sown.' There is, that is to say, a class of people who correspond to the wayside in the parabolic field. Who are they ? See what follows. And whenever they have heard, immediately Satan cometh, and taketh away the word which has been sown in their hearts. Instead of the expression in their hearts, Tischendorf (eighth edition) reads in them, and Tregelles into them. The former has the support of the Sinaitic, the latter that of the Vatican manu- script. It is probable that one or other of the readings, as developing a less developed mode of phraseology than the expression of the Eeceived Text, is authentic ; most likely the former, which is sustained by the manuscripts C L A, as well as by the Coptic (edd) and Armenian versions, and the marginal reading of the Philoxenian Syriac. The wayside hearers are those who never allow the word to get under the surface of their thoughts; and hence any little super- ficial influence which it may exert is easily and speedily removed by any of the winged and watchful agencies of Satan, the great adversary of souls. It is well to retain the Hebrew word Satan. The evangelist himself retained it, though writing in Greek. It would however be unidiomatic, so far as English is concerned, were we to follow him in the use of the article, the Satan (that ist the Adversary). Ver. 1G. And these in like manner are they who are sown upon the rocky pHces, In like manner, for the second part of the parable admirably corresponds B 98 ST. MARK IV. [16 ground ; who, when they have heard the word, immedi- ately receive it with gladness; 17 and have no root in them- selves, and so endure but for a time. Afterward, when afflic- tion or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately to the first in its susceptibility of application. Note the inartificial nature of the representation. The significates of the parable are, for the moment, shifted, the hearers of the word being represented by the seeds sown instead of the ground on which they were sown. But the idea remains unembarrassed for all practical purposes. Who, whenever they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness. The word does get under the surface in their case, and immediately produces some effect. It touches the superficial feelings, and is hastily welcomed. Perhaps because it is a new thing ; perhaps because it is evidently a good thing, good in particular for objects that terminate on self, good for getting safety and everlasting glory. Vee. 17. And have not root in themselves. They have not root, that is, they are deficient in root. The word of God, though under the surface, does not get far down in its influence ; and hence it does not get free scope and fair play. Its influence is speedily arrested by an impenetrable hardness underneath. Religion does not get rooting ; there is no receptivity for it in the hidden depths of the being, almost all that is of it has rushed up to the outside. They have no root ' in themselves.' The expression finely suggests that religion must be a personal matter ; it is either something in one's self, or else nothing at all. And so endure but for a time. King James's version, and a fine free transla- tion ; but certainly free. It is literally but are temporary. There is in the expression a kind of hasty anticipation of the hasty termination of the hasty religious profession. The measure of the comparative temporariness is to be found in the time that would have been required for the full development of the grain. A full moral spring-time and a full moral summer-time would have been required. Then when tribulation or persecution for the word's sake has come to pass (yevo/Aevys). It is assumed that such tribulation or persecution may be expected. The prevailing hatred of ' the word,' on the part of ' the world,' will, in one way or another, bring it to pass. The words tribulation and persecution are just two specific modes of representing suffering for the gospel's sake. The one word (tribulation = SAt^ts) denotes oppression; the other (persecution = 5iw7/ws) denotes pursuit. Immediately they are offended. Literally, and as the Rheims has it, they are scandalized. The word scandalized is just the Anglicised form of the Greek word ; and the Greek word was provincial. It does not occur in the classics. It is a term moreover which it is impossible to translate literally, into Latin or English or French or German or Dutch. It paints a complex picture. The original scandal, or scandalon, was a part of a trap for catching noxious animals. It was that part on which the animal was expected to strike un- awares ; when once this scandal was struck, the animal was ensnared. A 19] ST. MARK IV. 99 they are offended. 18 And these are they which are sown among thorns ; such as hear the word, 19 and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of scandalized person, therefore, is a person who has unawares struck, or stumbled on, what entraps and ruins him. The persons referred to by our Lord are in this respect scandalized. Their religion becomes a thing on which they stumble and stagger, and are held fast, or fall. Tyndale's translation is, they fall im- mediately, or, as it is in his 1526 edition, anon they fall. It is all over with their profession. Ver. 18. And others are they who are sown into the thorns. These are they that have heard the word. The demonstrative these, which had erroneously ex- truded in the Beceived Text the word others in the preceding clause, comes in here. Ver. 19. And the cares of this world. Or rather of this age, or better still, of the age. The this is omitted in the manuscripts SBCDLA, 1, and in the Vulgate and Armenian versions. Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles leave it out. The cares of the age are the distractions (/j.epi/j.vai) that are incident to this preliminary period of the world's history, a period when things are ex- ceedingly out of order. They are men's ' secular ' cares (cerumna, sectdi). They come more or less upon all men ; but some men lay themselves peculiarly open to their influence, and allow them to twine and twist themselves, like the serpents of Laocoon, around every energy and susceptibility of their being. And the deceitfulness (or deceit) of riches. Tyndale has disseytfulness, Wycliffe disseit. The word for riches (ttXovtos) etymologically connects itself with the idea of much (ttoXijs). A rich man is a man who has much, and who, just because he has much of ivhat ' ansiuereth ' almost ' all things,' is exposed to peculiar temptations, which but few can altogether withstand. " If a man "suffer the habit of acquisition," says one who was eminently entitled to speak on such a subject, Joshua Wilson, Esq., " to predominate and prevail over him, " (as it must, predominate and prevail unless carefully held in check and reso- " lutely counteracted), he may become, before he is aware, a miserable victim of " ' the pitiful passion for accumulation.' Hence the immense importance of " early forming and diligently cultivating the habit of liberality, of beginning to " give as soon as a man begins to get, and increasing the amount of his givings '• in proportion to the increase of his gains. One of the greatest deceptions, " that men are too apt to practise upon themselves, is to defer being bountiful " till their means have greatly increased. This is indeed a striking proof of " what our Lord calls the deceitfulness of riches.'" {Memoir of the Life and Character of Thomas Wilson, Esq., p. 69.) And the lusts of other things. Namely, besides money. The expression is literally and the lusts concerning the other things. Note the definitive articles, ' the ' lusts (so common in society) concerning ' the ' other things (so commonly longed for). The word lust has now for long got narrowed in its reference ter&aZ interblending in the representation; there was real confusion in the composite phenomenon. Come out, thou unclean spirit, from the man. There were in reality, as we learn from the next verse, many spirits ; but one had spoken representatively, What ]iast Thou to do loith ' me ' ? and therefore the Saviour addresses it in the same representative capacity. We need not picture to ourselves a mere chaotic mob of spirits. There was a ' legion ' ; and we may appropriately think therefore of some general of the corps. Ver. 9. And He asked him, What is thy name? We have no reason to suppose that the question was proposed for the Saviour's own information. But, seeing as He did into the spirit world, He saw that this was a peculiar case, and hence He took appropriate means to unfold to the view of His disciples and of the other spectators the fulness of the reality. And he says to Him. We are taken into the presence of the demoniac, and listen with our ears. Legion is my name, for we are many. It was the man, not the spirit, who was asked to tell his name. The man seemed to ansiver; it was his lips that moved, it was his voice that articulated ; but it was really the representative spirit who spoke. He spoke however as if he were the man, Legion is ' my ' name. " He "answered," says Farmer, in the treatise in which he endeavours to prove that there were no real possessions, "like a madman who thought himself pos- " sessed with a multitude of demons, or that he was one of the number. . . . He " confounded himself with those spirits under whose influence he supposed him- " self to speak and act." {Essay on the Demoniacs, p. 273.) True, there was con- fusion. The man was insane, and misunderstood his own case ; but his peculiar type of insanity is the very problem to be solved, and there seems to be no solu- tion of it more reasonable than the evangelist's ; he was 'possessed.' Legion : a 120 ST. HARK V. [9 for we are many. 10 And he besought him much that he Roman word, denoting a corps of foot soldiers to the number of between six and seven thousand, at least in the evangelist's time. Each legion consisted of ten cohorts ; each cohort of three maniples ; each maniple of two centuries. It is most likely that it was the man himself who imposed on himself, for the moment, the name. But we need not, from the fact that it was a Latin name, infer with Semler {Be Demoniacis, p. 82) that the man was probably a Hellenist or a proselyte who could not speak Hebrew. Lightfoot however had the same idea. The word ' legion ' was likely enough to fasten itself upon the popular Jewish mind as a term vividly representing the idea of overwhelming numbers. The poor man no doubt felt overwhelmed, and hence in his hallucination trans- ferred his consciousness, as it would appear, to the overwhelming force. Such a transference of consciousness, or what appears to be such, is quite common in certain cases of insanity. Many of the inmates of our asylums imagine themselves to be kings, or queens, or angels, or Christ, or God, or (descendingly) beasts, birds, or inanimate things. For we are many : At this point in the interview the transference of the poor man's consciousness from the singular to the plural seems to have taken place. Or, to represent the case otherwise, the man's personality got merged at this point out of view, and the host of spirits that had possession of him came into the foreground of observation. Strauss maintains that such possession of an individual man by a multiplicity of spirits is 'unthinkable' (undenkbar) ; he reasons the matter (Leben, ii. 9, § 89). He says that to possess is by hypothesis " nothing else than to make oneself the "subject of consciousness in an individual." A possessed person therefore is one who has ceased to be the subject of his own consciousness. But, adds he, as consciousness can actually have only one culminating or central point (nur einc Spitze, einen Mittelpunckt habcn kann), it is impossible to think that a plurality of demons would at the same time have possession of the man ; the utmost that can be thought is that there may have been a succession in posses- sion. Strauss forgot, in his zeal, that insanity is by hypothesis a state of inconsistency. He confounds, too, the subject and the objects of consciousness. The man in the unity of his own subjective consciousness seemed to himself to be objectively conscious of a plurality of demons usurping his powers and being. There was of course a hallucination of consciousness ; but in no instance is possession so complete by hypothesis as to obliterate entirely every vestige of the original self- consciousness. Ver. 10. And he besought Him much. The consciour/aess of the man swung partially back to himself. Hence the he after the we of the preceding clause. Much : the word is plural in the original (iroWd), and suggests repeated entreaties. That He would not send them. The that of the original (iW) does not so much point out the subject-matter of the entreaty as its final end. The idea is, in order that He might not send them. The demons, in pleading through the man, had a particular end in view. Let no one marvel at the fact of their pleading or the fact of their aim. They had desires ; they could not but have them ; and, having them, what wonder that they should express them? 11] ST. MARK V. 121 would not send' them away out of the country. 11 Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine Out of the country. They had become localized in their associations. And why not ? All human spirits are. All spirits, but the infinite, must be to a greater or less degree. The local reference however is not, as Hilgenfeld sup- poses (Evangel., p. 134), a reference to heathendom as the appropriate sphere of demoniacal possessions (der eigentliche Wirkungskreis der Damonen). There is no evidence that Gerasa was regarded as strictly belonging to heathendom or Gentiledom. And still less is there evidence that demoniacal possession was regarded as a strictly heathenish or Gentile experience. Neither is the repre- sentation in Luke, and they besought Him that He icould not command them to depart into 'the abyss'1 (viii. 31), at variance, as Bruno Bauer alleges (Kritik, v., § 33), with the representation in Mark. Expatriation would have been to the Gerasene demons tantamount to banishment into the abyss of woe (see ver. 7). In petitioning therefore not to be sent out of the country they would really mean not to be sent into the abyss. It is assumed in the twofold representation that there would, for them, be no intermediate sphere available. Another country on earth was not to be thought of, and was not thought of, as an alternative localization. Ver. 11. Now there was there. Now or but ($4). The attention is suddenly turned for the moment in a new direction. On the mountain side. A little to the south of the Wady Semakh there is a considerable uneven plateau of fine fertile soil stretching westward from the roots of the mountain slopes. " A verdant sward is here," says Mr. Macgregor, " with many bulbous roots which swine might feed upon. And on this I " observed — what is an unusual sight — a very large herd of oxen, horses, camels, " sheep, asses and goats all feeding together. It was evident that the pasturage " was various, and enough for all, a likely place for a herd of swine feeding on "the mountain." (The Rob Roy on the Jordan, p. 423.) A great herd of swine feeding. Not a right kind of herd for a Jew, or for Jews, to possess. The animal was ' unclean ' to the Jews (Lev. xi. 7, Deut. xiv. 8) as it was also to the Egyptians. (Herod., ii. 47.) It was prohibited as one of a class of animals; but possibly the limits of the class were determined, to some extent, by reasons that had special referenco to it as an individual species. (See Isa. lxv. 4.) There can be no doubt that there was something exceedingly disgusting and morally contaminating, connected with the use that was made of the animal in Egypt. (See Herodotus, ii. 37.) Similar customs, less modified and moderated by restrictions, may have been common in adjacent countries. (See Pausanias, vii. 15 : 7.) And hence it might be wise, in the peculiar ethical circumstances of the Jews, that the use of the animal should be prohibited altogether for the whole course of a Dispensation. If in addition to this it should be the case, as many have contended, that the flesh of the animal must have been dietetically injurious among a people in whom there was a sort of national tendency to leprosy and corresponding erosive affections, as well a.< other eruptive and contagious cutaneous diseases, then there would be reason upon reason for the prohibition. If the Canaanites moreover were eaters of 122 ST. MARK V. [11 feeding. 12 And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. 13 And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine : and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about swine's flesh and fond of it, that may have been another good reason for the prohibition, for as Michaelis remarks, " the most intimate friendships are " formed at table. Men," he adds," whatever business relations they may have " with one another, seldom become familiar if they do not become each other's "guests." (Mosaisches Recht, §203.) Tbe Gerasenes must have got Gentilized in their ideas and customs, and languid in their attachment to the institutions of Judaism. Vbb. 12. And they besought Him saying, Send us into the swine— or rather Send us ' to ' the sivine, — that we may enter into them. How could there, it is asked, be such a desire on the part of the demons ? Why should there not ? we would answer. We do not feel called upon to enter into the rationale of demonic desires, and to find them in harmony with our notions of what is reasonable or proper. The wish might, on their part, be a mere outburst of wantonness. Or there might be eagerness for anything on which to wreak their evil energy ; they might be wishing, as Eichard Baxter has it, ' to play a small game rather than none.' Or there might be cunning malice in their intent, malice toward Christ and toward all the other parties concerned. " They aimed," as Petter thinks, " at this, that they might move the owners of " the herd, and the rest of the people of the country, to be discontented at our " Saviour." It may be so, or it may not. Ver. 13. And He gave them leave. 'It was an injury done to the proprietors,' says the scoffing Woolston, ' and unbecoming of the goodness of the holy Jesus.' (Discourses on the Miracles, i. 38.) But it was not, if the proprietors had no right to have such property, and if they were moreover the subjects or the stewards of Him who was the true King of the Jews. And the unclean spirits came out, and entered into the swine. 'When it is averred,' says Strauss, ' that the demons actually entered the swine, do not the evangelists narrate a manifest impossibility?' (Leben, ii. 9, § 89.) No. The demonic power that was adequate to take possession of the intricate organ- ism of man's nature would be more than adequate to take possession of the simpler organism of beasts ; if the castle of the human spirit could be surrep- titiously entered and occupied, there could be little difficulty with the fortalices of irrational natures. And the herd rushed. As the word is admirably rendered in Acts xix. 29. The movement was ' with a greet birre,' as Purvey has it. Down the steep into the sea. The particular steep in which the plateau re- ferred to terminated, close on the waters of the lake. " There are several " steeps near the sea here," says Mr. Macgregor, " but only one so close to the "water as to make it sure that if a herd ran violently down, they would go into " the sea.'" There "the gravel beach is inclined so steep that when my boat was "at the shore I could not see over the top even by standing up ; while the water 15] ST. MARK V. 123 two thousand,) and were choked in the sea. 14 And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. 15 And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed " alongside is so deep that it covered my paddle (seven feet long) when dipped '•in vertically a few feet from the shore." (The Rob Roy on the Jordan, pp. 423-4.) To about the number of two thousand. Such is the import of the simple un- parenthetical expression exhibited in the texts of Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford (ws dicrx^Loi). It is supported too by the Vulgate version. And were choked in the sea. A vivid mirroring, in a particular outward sphere, of the lamentable wrecking of things that would speedily be realized, if the demonic powers that are in the world had full and unfettered scope. Veb. 14. And they who were feeding them fled and reported in the city and in the country. Our word reported corresponds as nearly as may he to the radical import of the evangelist's term (aTTTiyyeiXav, not avqyyeiXav). We can use too the word reported ' absolutely,' just as the evangelist has used his term. The double-folding expression in the city and in the country is a free but admirable translation. It is literally into the city and into the fields, and would be con- nected, in the evangelist's mind, not with the verb reported, as Lightfoot imagined, but with the preceding verb fled. The scene pictures itself readily and vividly upon the canvas of the imagination. There were several individuals tending the herd. The moment that they recover from the first stun which they would experience when they witnessed the consummated catastrophe of the herd, they flee, under the influence of intense excitement, first into the city, and then into the surrounding fields, where numbers of the inhabitants would be at work. They shout aloud, wherever they meet with individuals, that the whole herd has rushed into the sea and is drowned, and that the wild man of the tombs is in his senses ! And they came to see what it is that has happened. They, the people of the city and the workers in the fields. They were filled with blank amazement at the report which was shouted into their ears, and could not at first comprehend the state of the case. They must come and ' see ' with their own eyes. Ver. 15. And they come to Jesus. Note the present come, as distinguished from the historic came of the preceding verse. The evangelist begins to depict the scene as if he and we were present in the midst of it and looking on. And behold the demoniac sitting clothed and in sound mind. Note the word behold C$eupod) ; it is more than see. They gaze upon the man. There is a fine harmony between the statement that the demoniac was now clothed and the statement in Luke that formerly he ' had worn no clothes ' (viii. 27). The two statements mutually confirm each other's historic verity. The coincidence is so striking that Ewald (Evan., p. 241) had to imagine that the expression ' he wore no clothes ' must have originally stood in the third verse of Mark's narrative ! And Holtzmann (Synop. Ev., p. 222) supposes that Luke took the hint, from the Proto-Markus's remark, to insert the statement • anticipatively.' Fancies ! 124 ST. MARK V. [15 with the devil, and had the legion, sitting", and clothed, and in his right mind: and they wei*e afraid. 16 And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine. 17 And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts. 18 And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him. Him who had the legion. Such is the proper position of this clause. The contrast of the man's former condition sets off to advantage the marvel of his present state. Yes, the very individual who was now ' sitting clothed and sound in mind ' was ' he who had the legion ' / And they were afraid. They felt in the presence of a power which inspired them with awe and alarm. It might, for aught that they could comprehend, be something weird and ' uncanny.' Vek. 16. And they who saw narrated to them how it happened to the demoniac. How the things which had taken place did take place, in reference to the demoniac ; or, as the Eheims version has it, in ivhat manner he had been dealt withal that had the divel. And concerning the swine. The spectators, (who would no doubt be prin- cipally, if not exclusively, the same persons who had carried the news excitedly into the city and into the fields, and who would return to the scene of the miracle with the body of the people,) recounted and explained in detail all that had happened ' concerning the swine.' The two clauses which specify the things recounted are inartificially connected. Vek. 17. And they began to entreat Him to depart from their borders. Namely, after they got to understand somewhat clearly how the events had come to pass. They were afraid that they might suffer other losses. They were afraid, at all events, of the consequences of having such a wonderful Being as Jesus in the midst of them. "With unparalleled— what shall I call it? 'tis a crime that " wants a name, and such as one would think people that were not themselves " possessed could never be capable of committing, — they were urgent with Him " to be gone and leave them. . . . And yet, if we consider it, is not the case "just thus with too many amongst ourselves? . . . Are we not afraid of " anything that would oblige us to a reformation ? shy of a faithful friend who "would advise us better? and that because our swine would be in danger!" (Bragge"s Observations on the Miracles, vol. i., pp. 79-82.) Vee. 18. And as He was entering into the boat the delivered demoniac en- treated Him that he might be with Him. The clause, that he might be with Him, brings out rather the aim than the subject matter of the entreaty (iva). It is probable that the man's heart was swelling with gratitude and love ; he would feel ashamed too of the conduct of his countrymen. Euthymius Zigabenus and Theophylact suppose that, in addition, he would probably be afraid that, if his Deliverer should be at a distance from him, he would again be subject to assault from his old spiritual enemies. Maldonato and Dr. Samuel Clarke bring out the same idea. 20] ST. MARK V. 125 19 Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee and hath had compassion on thee. 20 And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how Ver. 19. And He suffered him not. Such is the simple form of the expression as it is given, correctly, in the texts of Griesbach, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford. Hilgenfeld (Evan., p. 1-48) supposes that the refusal to allow the delivered man to go along with our Lord bewrays, on the part of Mark, an anti- Gentile tendency. The whole Gospel is thus assumed to be a myth that was contrived in the interests of a small theological dogma and narrow ecclesiastical move- ment ! But says to hhn, Go home to thy own folk. Literally, to those icho are thine, or as Wycliffe has it, to thine. Very literally it is, to the thine, which however, though idiomatic Greek, is not idiomatic English. And tell them. Literally, report to them (aTrdyyeiXov ai/rcHs, the reading of OCA, and of Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles), or announce to them (av&yyeiXov aureus, the reading of the Textus Keceptus and the Alexandrine manuscript (A), and the great body of the secondary uncial manuscripts). How great things the Lord hath done for thee. Or rather, to thee. What the Lord had done terminated on and in the person of the delivered man, and thus reached to him. It is only however from the history of the case, and from the peculiarity of the expression in the next clause, that we know that the things done on, in, and to him were for him and not against him. The Saviour, in saying the Lord, does not point to his own particular personality ; He simply leads the man's mind upward, in a general way, to the Divine Source of the great things which had been done to him. And compassionated thee. Or, and had mercy on thee. Here it is distinctly stated that the great things done were fur the man. The expression, however, is very artlessly attached to the preceding clause. The mind of the reader is left to disintegrate, from the compositely qualitative expression hoio great things or what great things (6 an idiom of the later Greek. See Lobeck's Phrynichus, p. 389). (I make my request) in order that Thou mightest come and lay Thy hands upon her. The father's address, as he spoke with choking yoice, is abrupt and fragmentary, or else only fragments of it are recorded. When he prostrated himself and spoke of the condition of his little daughter, it was in order that the Saviour might come and lay His hands upon her. He seems to have known that it was the Saviour's practice to lay His Stands on such as He cured ; it established and exhibited a human connection between His Divine power and the patient. That she might be saved and live. Such is the literal translation. That she might be saved, viz. from her malady. And live (/cat tvav)- Such is the reading of N B C D L A, and Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford. Vee. 24. And He went off with him. Namely, in the direction of the ruler's house. He had no misgivings about His own power, and He was satisfied with the ruler's faith. And a great crowd was following Him, and thronging Him. They were pressing together upon His person {) and people weeping and wailing greatly. The scene represented struck upon two of the outer senses, that of hearing and that of seeing. But the evangelist gives prominence to that par- ticular sense which is our chief medium of observation, seeing. Our Saviour beholds an excited company of people making ' an uproar,' and, prominent in that company, persons busily engaged in 'weeping aloud,' or 'crying,' and' wailing. ,' The word rendered tumult in our English version, after the example of the Vulgate, is translated by Wycliffe noyse. It usually denoted the confused noise of an excited public assembly. The noise on the present occasion was chiefly that of wailing, and would be raised by females. " There are," says Dr. W. M. Thomson, " in every city and community, women exceedingly cunning in this " business. They are always sent for, and kept in readiness. When a fresh " company of sympathisers comes in, these women ' make haste ' to take up a " wailing, that the newly come may the more easily unite their tears with the "mourners." (The Land and the Book, p. 103.) The same artificiality and business-like way of mourning and crying was, and still is, common in Greece. Tournefort says in reference to the island of Candia, " the wife of one of the "principal men in the city, over against whose house we lodged, expired two "days after, our arrival. Scarce had she given up the ghost before we heard "extraordinary cries, which made us inquire what was the matter. They told " us that, according to the ancient Greek custom, the public weepers were doing ".their duty over the body of the deceased. These women," he adds, " really " earn their money hard, and Horace (De Arte Poet.) had good reason to say that " they give themselves more plague and uneasiness than those who mourn "naturally." (Voyage into the Levant, vol. i., p. 99.) This mourning to order, and according to an approved pattern, prevails still in many other places, even among those who do not literally * sell their sorrow.' Dr. Clarke found it in llussia. In describing a funeral at Nikitskoy he employs a word which admir- ably corresponds to the term employed by the evangelist (dXaAdfoiras, using the dAaXrj) : " The women kept up a kind of musical ululation, howling their ".loud lamentations in strains truly dolorous." (Travels, vol. i., .p. 251.) 40] ST. MARK V. 135 39 And when lie was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep ? The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. 40 And they laughed him to scorn. But when he had put them all out, he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entereth in where Ver. 39. And when He was come in, He says to them, Why make ye this uproar ? The child is not dead, but sleepeth. Our Saviour occupied a peculiar, and peculiarly elevated, standpoint when He said The child is not dead. He had not yet seen the child with His human eyes, and He could not therefore speak from human observation. He knew that the mourners were aware that this was the case. Neither did He mean to depreciate the gracious miracle which He was about to work, by alleging that the case was by no means so desperate as they imagined. He was looking at the case from a lofty point of view. His idea is this : The child's terrestrial course is not terminated. She has subsided indeed into unconsciousness toward things outicard and terrene ; but, in virtue of My will, it is only for a little. The child is therefore, so to speak, but asleep. Ver. 40. And they laughed Him to scorn. They derided Him (the Eheims). They did not understand what He meant when He said The child is not dead. They thought that He was meaning to deny the actual fact of her manifest decease. They would not, and did not, take time to ascend to that higher standpoint of observation, to which they had been invited by the lofty beariug of the Saviour. They hurriedly pre-judged and mis-judged His representa- tion. But He, when He had thrust them all out. Most probably by His mere word of command. There would be an authority displayed which would make them cower and crowd out ; for no doubt, when our Saviour chose, there would be a majesty of manner in His bearing which would be ineffable and irresistible. Comp. John xviii. 5, 6. But why did He thrust them out? He was not needing, on the one hand, to choose a very public theatre of representation. He was already inconvenienced by excess of publicity (see chap. iii. 20, iv. 1, 35). He might have been, and most probably would have been, annoyed on the spot, and harassed, and oppressed, by a sudden and yet only superficial revulsion of feel- ing on the part of the excited crowd. And then, on the other hand, there are some solemnities to which privacy and domestic quiet are peculiarly appropriate, and which would be spoiled by din and tumult and uproar, even when springing from a spirit of admiration and joy. Taketh with Himself the father of the child, and the mother, and those who were with Him. That is, the three disciples formerly specified. The others might probably be left in the street amid the crowd, while the Saviour was working His way into the court, and thence into the apartment where the mother with her companions would be found. Ferdinand G. Baur, by a strange oblivion of memory, says that ' the three disciples also ' are here represented as thrust out (Er trieb sic allc hinaus, also auch jene drci Junocr : Markus., p. 38). They are however expressly excepted in the words before its. And cntoreth in where the child was. In some inner apartment. 1.36 ST. MAEK V. [40 the damsel was lying. 41 And he took the damsel by the hand, and saith unto her, Talitha cumi, which is, being inter- preted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. 42 And straightway the damsel arose, and walked ; for she was of the age of twelve years. And they were astonished with a great astonishment. Ver. 41. And having taken hold of the hand of the chili. Thus visibly con- necting Himself with her, for the sake, as we may suppose, of the witnesses; at least for their sake principally. He says to her, ' Talitha cumi,' which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, Arise. There is nothing that precisely and literally corresponds, in the Aramaic expression Talitha cumi, to the words I say unto thee. But every im- perative is the saying of some one ; and hence, when the Saviour said ' cumi,' His idea, when fully unfolded, was exactly I say unto thee, Arise. The full unfolding might, with indifference, be either given as in Mark, or withheld as in Luke (viii. 54). It is Mark alone who preserves the native Aramaic form of the Saviour's command. The words would likely be just such as the little girl had been accustomed to hear and to employ ; and there was a beautiful propriety in our Lord addressing her returning and re-animating spirit in her natural mother-tongue. ' Tali ' was a boy, ' Talitha ' a girl. (See Buxtorf 's Lex. Talm., p. 875, and Lightfoot in loc.) ' Cumi,' or ' Cum' as it is in some of the oldest manuscripts (X B C L M, 1, 33), is the common Hebrew word for arise. Here the idea is, as it were, arise out of sleep, wake up, rouse thyself up internally and thence arise externally. The word is translated awake in Matt. viii. 25 ; Kom. xiii. 11 ; Eph. v. 14. Comp. Matt. ii. 13, viii. 26, xxvii. 52 ;*Mark iv. 27. Ver. 42. And immediately the damsel arose. It is a different word that is rendered damsel here, and in the last clause of the preceding verse, from that which is employed in ver. 39, 40, and the first clause of the 41st verse. It properly means damosel or damsel, while the other means child or little child. The word arose too has no connection with the verb which is rendered arise in the preceding verse. It strictly means arose (