master, which could not but have filled a sad place
in the Apostle’s memory. On the other hand,
there is no adequate record of special matter which
the intimate knowledge of the doings and sayings of
Jesus possessed by Peter might have supplied to counterbalance
the singular omissions. There is infinitely more
of the spirit of Peter in the first Gospel than there
is in the second. The whole internal evidence,
therefore, shows that this part of the tradition of
the Presbyter John transmitted by Papias does not
apply to our Gospel” ("Sup. Rel.,”
vol. i., pp. 459, 460). But a far stronger objection
to the identity of the work spoken of by Papias with
the present Gospel of Mark, is drawn from the description
of the document as given by him. “The discrepancy,
however, is still more marked when we compare with
our actual second Gospel the account of the work of
Mark, which Papias received from the Presbyter.
Mark wrote down from memory some parts [Greek:
enia] of the teaching of Peter regarding the life
of Jesus, but as Peter adapted his instructions to
the actual circumstances [Greek: pros tas chreias]
and did not give a consecutive report [Greek:
suntaxis] of the discourses or doings of Jesus, Mark
was only careful to be accurate, and did not trouble
himself to arrange in historical order [Greek:
taxis] his narrative of the things which were said
or done by Jesus, but merely wrote down facts as he
remembered them. This description would lead
us to expect a work composed of fragmentary reminiscences
of the teaching of Peter, without orderly sequence
or connection. The absence of orderly arrangement
is the most prominent feature in the description,
and forms the burden of the whole. Mark writes
‘what he remembered;’ ’he did not
arrange in order the things that were either said
or done by Christ;’ and then follow the apologetic
expressions of explanation—he was not himself
a hearer or follower of the Lord, but derived his
information from the occasional preaching of Peter,
who did not attempt to give a consecutive narrative,
and, therefore, Mark was not wrong in merely writing
things without order as he happened to hear or remember
them. Now it is impossible in the work of Mark
here described to recognise our present second Gospel,
which does not depart in any important degree from
the order of the other two Synoptics, and which, throughout,
has the most evident character of orderly arrangement....
The great majority of critics, therefore, are agreed
in concluding that the account of the Presbyter John
recorded by Papias does not apply to our second Canonical
Gospel at all” ("Sup. Rel.,” vol.
1, pp. 460, 461). “This document, also,
is mentioned by Papias, as quoted by Eusebius; the
account which they give of it is not applicable to
the work which we now have. For the ’Gospel
according to St. Mark’ professes to give a continuous
history of Christ’s life, as regularly as the
other three Gospels, but the work noticed by Papias
is expressly stated to have been memoranda, taken down


