Many minor details not found in the other Gospels, however insignificant in themselves,
are yet most significant as marks of the autopticity of the narrator (Peter). Such are the notices that
Jesus entered the house of "Simon and Andrew, with James and John" (Mark 1:29); that the Pharisees
took counsel "with the Herodians" (3:6); that the raiment of Jesus at the transfiguration became
exceeding white as snow "so as no fuller on earth can whiten them" (9:3); that blind Bartimaeus
when called, "casting away his garment, leaped up" (10:50), and came to Jesus; that "Peter and
James and John and Andrew asked him privately" on the Mount of Olives about the coming events
(13:3); that the five thousand sat down "in ranks, by hundreds and fifties" (6:40); that the Simon
who carried the cross of Christ (15:21) was a "Cyrenian" and "the father of Alexander and Rufus"
(no doubt, two well-known disciples, perhaps at Rome, comp. Rom. 16:13).
We may add, as peculiar to Mark and "bewraying" Peter, the designation of Christ as "the
carpenter" (Mark 6:3); the name of the blind beggar at Jericho, "Bartimaeus" (10:46); the "cushion"
in the boat on which Jesus slept (4:38); the "green grass" on the hill side in spring time (4:39); the
"one loaf" in the ship (8:14); the colt "tied at the door without in the open street" (11:4); the address
to the daughter of Jairus in her mother tongue (5:41); the bilingual "Abba, Father," in the prayer at
Gethsemane (14:36; comp. Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6).
Conclusion.
The natural conclusion from all these peculiarities is that Mark’s Gospel, far from being an
extract from Matthew or Luke or both, as formerly held,^980 is a thoroughly independent and original
work, as has been proven by minute investigations of critics of different schools and aims.^981 It is
in all its essential parts a fresh, life-like, and trustworthy record of the persons and events of the
gospel history from the lips of honest old Peter and from the pen of his constant attendant and pupil.
Jerome hit it in the fourth century, and unbiassed critics in the nineteenth century confirm it: Peter
was the narrator, Mark the writer, of the second Gospel.^982
Some have gone further and maintain that Mark, "the interpreter of Peter," simply translated
a Hebrew Gospel of his teacher;^983 but tradition knows nothing of a Hebrew Peter, while it speaks
of a Hebrew Matthew; and a book is called after its author, not after its translator. It is enough to
say Peter was the preacher, Mark the reporter and editor.
The bearing of this fact upon the reliableness of the Synoptic record of the life of Christ is
self-evident. It leaves no room for the mythical or legendary hypothesis.^984(^980) By Augustin, Griesbach, De Wette, Bleek, Baur, Davidson.
(^981) As C. H. Weisse, Wilke, Ewald, Lange, Holtzmann, Bernhard Weiss, Westcott, Abbott, Morison. See § 79, this vol.
(^982) Jerome wrote to Hedibia, a pious lady in Gaul (Ep. CXX c. 10, in Opera, ed. Migne, I. 1002): "Habebat ergo [Paulus]
Titum interpretem; sicut et beatus Petrus Marcum, cuius evangelium Petro narrante (not dictante), et illo [Marco]scribente,
compositum est." This letter was written in 406 or 407, from Bethlehem. Morison (p. xxxvii): "If we assume the Patristic tradition
regarding St. Peter’s relation to St. Mark, we find the contents and texture of the Gospel to be without a jar at any point, in perfect
accord with the idea."
(^983) So James Smith in his Dissertation on the Origin and Connection of the Gospels, and again in the Dissertation on the Life
and Writings of St. Luke, prefixed to the fourth ed. of his Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul (1880), pp. 29 sqq.
(^984) "In substance and style and treatment, the Gospel of St, Mark is essentially a transcript from life. The course and the issue
of facts are imaged in it with the clearest outline. If all other arguments against the mythic origin of the Evangelic narratives
were wanting, this vivid and simple record, stamped with the most distinct impress of independence and originality,—totally
unconnected with the symbolism of the Old Dispensation, totally independent of the deeper reasonings of the New,—would be
sufficient to refute a theory subversive of all faith in history. The details which were originally addressed to the vigorous
intelligence of Roman bearers are still pregnant with instruction for us. The teaching which ’met their wants’ in the first age,
finds a corresponding field for its action now." Westcott, l.c., 369 (Am. ed.).
A.D. 1-100.