form of Christianity itself before the circumcision controversy broke out which occasioned the
apostolic conference at Jerusalem twenty years after the founding of the church. His Gospel is
Petrine without being anti-Pauline, and Pauline without being anti-Petrine. Its doctrinal tone is the
same as that of the sermons of Peter in the Acts. It is thoroughly practical. Its preaches Christianity,
not theology.
The same is true of the other Gospels, with this difference, however, that Matthew has a
special reference to Jewish, Luke to Gentile readers, and that both make their selection accordingly
under the guidance of the Spirit and in accordance with their peculiar charisma and aim, but without
altering or coloring the facts. Mark stands properly between them just as Peter stood between James
and Paul.
The Style.
The style of Mark is unclassical, inelegant, provincial, homely, poor and repetitious in
vocabulary, but original, fresh, and picturesque, and enlivened by interesting touches and flickers..^962
He was a stranger to the arts of rhetoric and unskilled in literary composition, but an attentive
listener, a close observer, and faithful recorder of actual events. He is strongly Hebraizing, and uses
often the Hebrew and, but seldom the argumentative for. He inserts a number of Latin words,
though most of these occur also in Matthew and Luke, and in the Talmud.^963 He uses the particle
"forthwith" or "straightway" more frequently than all the other Evangelists combined.^964 It is his
pet word, and well expresses his haste and rapid transition from event to event, from conquest to
conquest. He quotes names and phrases in the original Aramaic, as "Abba," "Boanerges," "Talitha
kum," "Corban," "Ephphathah," and "Eloi, Eloi," with a Greek translation.^965 He is fond of the
historical present,^966 of the direct instead of the indirect mode of speech,^967 of pictorical participles,^968this Tübingen tendency criticism: "There is not so much as a straw of evidence that the Gospel of Mark occupied a position of
mediation, or irenic 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 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.’"(^962) Ewald characterizes Mark’s style as the Schmelz der frischen Blume, as the volle, reine Leben der Stoffe, Kahnis as drastisch
and frappant, Meyer as malerisch anschaulich. Lange speaks of the "enthusiasm and vividness of realization which accounts
for the brevity, rapidity, and somewhat dramatic tone of the narrative, and the introduction of details which give life to the scene."
(^963) κῆνσος (census), κεντυρίων(centurio),ξέστης(sextarius),σπεκουλάτωπ(speculator), and the Latinizing phrases τὸ ἱκανόν
ποιεῖν(satisfacere,Mark 15:15),ἐσχάτως ἔχει, (in extremis esse),συμβούλιον διδόναι (consilium dare). Mark even uses the
Roman names of coins instead of the Greek, κοδράντης(quadrans, 12:42).
(^964) εὐθέως or εὐθύς occurs (according to Bruder’s Concord.) forty-one times in the Gospel of Mark, nearly as often as in all
other New Test. writings combined. But there are some variations in reading. Codex D omits it in several passages. The English
Version, by its inexcusable love of variations, obliterates many characteristic features of the sacred writers. This very particle
is translated in no less than seven different ways: straightway, immediately, forthwith, as soon as, by and by, shortly, and anon.
(^965) Mark 3:17; 5:41 7:11, 34; 14:36; 15:34.
(^966) Mark 1:21, 40, 44 2:3, 10, 17; 11:1; 14:43, 66.
(^967) Mark 4:39; 5:8, 9, 12; 6:23, 31; 9:25; 12:6.
(^968) Such as ἀναβλέψαι, ἐμβλέψας, περιβλεψάμενος , ἀναπηδήσας, κύψας , ἐμβριμησάμενος, ἐπιστραφείς ἀποστενάξας.
A.D. 1-100.