That Mark wrote the second Gospel under the influence of Peter, or as a record of what he had heard from him, is the universal tradition of antiquity. Papias, in the famous and much-disputed passage (quoted by Eusebius, III. 39, below), is the first to record the tradition. Justin Martyr refers to Mark’s Gospel under the name “Memoirs (ἀπομνημονεύματα) of Peter” (Dial. c. Tryph. 106; the translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Am. Ed. Vol. I. p. 252, which refers the αὐτοῦ to Christ, is incorrect; compare Weiss, N. T. Einleitung, p. 44, note 4). Irenæus (Adv. Hær. III. 11. 1, quoted below, V. 8. 2), Tertullian (Adv. Marcionem, IV. 5), and Origen (quoted below, VI. 25) confirm the tradition, which is repeated over and over again by the Fathers. The question as to the real authorship of our second Gospel, or rather as to its composition and its relation to Matthew and Luke, is a very difficult one. The relationship of the three synoptical Gospels was first discussed by Augustine (De Consensu Evangelistarum), who defended the traditional order, but made Mark dependent upon Matthew. This view prevailed until the beginning of the present century, when the problem was attacked anew, and since then it has been the crux of the literary criticism of the Bible. The three have been held to be dependent upon each other, and every possible order has found its advocates; a common source has been assumed for the three: the Hebrew Matthew, the Gospel according to the Hebrews (see Bk. III. chap. 25, note 24), our canonical Gospel of Mark, or an original Mark, resembling the present one; a number of fragmentary documents have been assumed; while others, finally, have admitted only oral tradition as the basis. According to Baur’s tendency theory, Matthew (polemically Jewish-Christian) came first, followed by an original Luke (polemically Pauline-Christian), then by our Mark, which was based upon both and written in the interest of neutrality, and lastly by our present Luke, designed as a final irenicum. This view now finds few advocates. The whole matter is still unsettled, but criticism seems to be gradually converging toward a common ground type (or rather two independent types) for all three while at the same time maintaining the relative independence of the three, one toward the other. What these ground types were, is a matter of still sharper dispute, although criticism is gradually drawing their larger features with more and more certainty and clearness. (The latest discussion upon the subject by Handmann, das Hebräer-Evangelium, makes the two types the “Ur-Marcus” and the Gospel of the Hebrews.) That in the last analysis, however, some space must still be left for floating tradition, or for documents irreducible to the one or two types, seems absolutely certain. For further information as to the state of discussion upon this intricate problem, see among recent works, especially Weiss, Einleitung, p. 473 sqq., Holtzmann, Einleitung, p. 328 sqq., and Schaff, Ch. Hist. I. 575 sqq., where the literature down to 1882 is given with great fullness. Conservative opinion puts the composition of all the synoptic Gospels before the destruction of Jerusalem (for the date of Luke, see III. 4, note 12); but the critical school, while throwing the original type back of that date, considers the composition of our present Gospels to have been the gradual work of years, assuming that they were not finally crystallized into the form in which we have them before the second century.
Editorial footnote · Book II, Chapter XV.—The Gospel according to Mark.; original source section: Chapter 15, editorial note cite_note-4 · Original source