MR. KENRICK ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. MARK.* Tins little
book consists of three essays, all of them scholarlike, thoughtful, and acute, though on subjects of very unequal im- portance. The first essay, on the Gospel of Mark, is by far the first in interest and in value; the second, on " the gift of tongues," is acute and important ; the last, on the meaning which St. Paul intended to convey by the epithet applied to the Athenians which is translated in our version " too superstitious,"
Iddical Naas& By Atm John Kenrick, M.A., F.B.A. Loudon: Longman.
is a sound piece of philological criticism on a point of compara- tively small interest.
The first of these essays, which assigns to Mark's Gospel the place of a protevangelion, or the original germ round which the other materials of Matthew's and Luke's Gospels were subse- quently collected, is one of considerable critical interest, and will probably be widely read at the present day, as preseuting in a brief and lucid form both coherent principles of criticism and a distinct result. Mr. Kenrick's principles (which are in some measure universal principles of criticism) may, perhaps, be fairly said to be the following ; (1) that a Gospel which presents the facts it contains without any of that artistic framework which at once connects them with, and separates them from, the outer history of the world, is, probably, older than any which make the effort to shade-in a background, and shape away a natural conclusion ; (2) that a Gospel which does not show any know- ledge of those half technical ecclesiastical expressions to which the organization of the Christian Church gave birth (such as "apostles ") is earlier than those which do ; (3) that where wonderful and supernatural events are related in a different way by different writers, the one in whose account the supernatural or marvellous element is most enhanced by minor touches is probably the latest, and the one in whose account these minor touches are least visible is the one on which the popular influence of tradition has had least time to act; (4) that the account in which minor incidents non-essential to the point of the story as it would be told, but yet likely to strike the eye of an eye-witness, are most plentiful, is probably the most authentic, and has most escaped the chisel of the popular imagination, whose tendency is not only to cut away what tends to diminish the effect of the story, but all minor circumstances which do not in any degree tend to produce it. Finally, the earliest is that which gives names and places where later traditions give none.
Judging by all these principles (in themselves, we think, sound) Mr. Kenrick concludes that Mark's Gospel is cer- tainly not an abridgment of either Matthew's or Luke's, but probably gives us the best approximation we can now reach to the original document or oral Gospel from which Matthew and Luke derived the substance of their longer accounts. For ex- ample, it commences abruptly without fixing any date by which to connect itself with universal history,—" Beginning of the an- nouncement of glad tidings of Jesus Christ, Son of God,"—and it terminates with equal abruptness at the flight of the women from the sepulchre after hearing from "the young man in a long white garment " that Jesus had risen, and would go before them into Galilee,—a mode of both beginning and conclusion almost impossible to an epitomizer.t Again, by way of illustrating the second principle, Mark never uses the term " apostles" but once, and then not in the technical sense, but only on their return from their mission in the sense of "the sent," while Luke, as becomes the author of the "Acts of the Apostles," uses it always in its official meaning, and even Matthew calls the twelve " apostles " before their mission as well as after it. As in- stances of Mark's putting in circumstances which, though they do not in the least rationalize a miracle, yet rather tend to diminish the picturesqueness of its effect on the mind,—circumstances, there- fore, which tradition would gradually pare away,—Mr. Kenrick
quotes Mark's explanation of the reason why there were no figs on the tree which withered away at Christ's word, namely, that it was not the right time for figs, " apparently not thinking it derogatory from his Master's honour that, with his mind full of
thoughts of infinite moment, lie should have forgotten that it was not the season when edible figs were to be looked for." So, too, says Mr. Kenrick, " there are several instances in Mark in which the use of natural means is recognized," even when a miracle is being narrated, as (Mark vi., 13) "They anointed many sick with oil and healed them," when Luke only says, " They went through the villages, healing everywhere." Again (Mark vi., 5), it is said that in Nazareth our Lord "could not do any mighty work on account of their unbelief, except that He put Hishands on a few sick and healed them;" while Matthew says, "He did not many mighty works there." Again, Matthew and Luke de scribe the cure of a dumb man without any mention of external means, while Mark says (vii., 33), " He took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and spit, and touched his tongue, and looking up to heaven he sighed and said, 'Ephphatha,' that is, be opened, and straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake
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+ The last verses, from the ninth onwards, of the last chapter of Mark are certainly Cr not part of the original .apel. The "Codex Binaiticus," we observe, does not contain them. plain." And again, in the following chapter,—of the blind man at Bethsaida, "He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town, and when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw aught. And he looked up and said, I see men as trees walking ;* and after that he put his hands again upon his eyes and made him look up, and he was restored, and saw every man clearly." In all these cases, reasons Mr. Bernick, Mark has retained incidents which partially mar the imaginative effect of the miracles narrated, and which it would, therefore, be the tendency of tradition to chisel away. Again, in another set of cases, Mark's account retains non-essential cir- cumstances, which, though they do not detract from the pic- turesque effect, and may even add to it, are so completely out of the course of the story to any but an eye-witness, that they would gradually drop off in the natural process of tradition. For example, in the account of the storm on the Lake of Galilee, Mark adds, "And there were also with him other little ships." So also, in the feeding of the five thousand, Mark notes that the people were made to sit down " on the green grass." In the account of the arrest of Christ he alone mentions "a young man having a linen cloth cast about his naked body ; and the young men laid hold on him, and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked,"—with various other instances of non-essential par- ticulars which the eye-witness alone would preserve, such as that when Christ called the blind man at Jericho who sat by the way- side, he, " casting away his garment," came to Jesus. Lastly, Mark mentions names where the others do not. The blind man of Jericho is with him "blind Bartimmus ;" the ruler in the synagogue, whose daughter is raised up, is " Jairus ;" the per- son who bears the cross of Christ is "Simon, a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus."
All these prinoiples, except perhaps the last, are, we think, sound; yet it is curious that the theological motive for preferring Mark, which a part of the essay gives us some little reason to suspect, namely, that Mark's account of Christ is decidedly the most humanitarian of the three, and treats Him more like the last of the prophets than the " Word made flesh," would fail the critic in criticizing the only other Gospel to which these canons of criticism would bring a remarkable testimony of authenticity ; we mean, of course, the Gospel of John, which is entirely excluded from the consideration of this essay. Like Mark's, it begins without any note of time that connects it with the general history of the world, and while supplying for us the full theology of the Incarnation, contains no allusion whatever to the supernatural conception or birth, and represents the Jews as calling Him " the Son of Joseph," without interpolating any correction. Like Mark's, it never uses the word " apostle " in the technical sense which it so soon assumed to those standing outside the Christian Church, but, like him, calls them the " twelve," or the disciples. Like Mark, he gives us, at least, one great miracle with a sort of second cause to it, and this of precisely the same kind as in Mark's account of the cure of the deaf and dumb man, and of the blind man, viz., in chapter ix., where he describes Christ as anointing, with clay moistened from His own mouth, the eyes of the man who had been born blind, and bidding him go wash in the pool of Siloam. Even in the first of His miracles, at Cana in. Galilee, He is described not as creating the wine immediately, but as ordering the water-pots to be first filled with water and changing the water into wine, just as in the great miracle of the loaves He multiplies the bread and fish rather than blankly calls it out of nothing. Again, he, like Mark, adds numbers of non-essential incidents ;—not only the "green grass" in the miracle of the loaves, and the cost, " two hundred pennyworth," of bread which would have been insufficient to feed so many, and the price (three hundred pence) of the ointment which Mary poured over Him at the supper in Bethany, all which John has in common with Mark, and with him only,—but many other incidents peculiar to himself, such as the " scourge of small cords" with which He drove the sheep and oxen out of the Temple,—the aside between Our Lord and John at the Last Supper. toncerning the traitor,—the "leather= and torches " which those who arrested Christ brought with them,—the explanation concerning the "fire of coals" in the hall of the house of the high priest,—most important of all, the audience with Annas before the audience with Caiaphas,—and many personal touches illustrating the characters of Peter and the brother disciples which no other Evangelist records at all. Finally, like Mark, he defines the persons and places mentioned by him much more often than the other Evangelists. He tells us the servant whose ear Peter cut off was called Malchus. He tells us that John was baptizing " at Anon, near to Salim ;" he mentions the names of the different disciples who objected to Our Lord's sayings. When the Greeks ask to speak to Him, he says, "Philip cometh and telleth Andrew, and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus,"— a quite immaterial statement, which could scarcely have been recorded by any but the aotual witness. In almost every respect the canons which would bid us prefer the evidence of the most humanitarian, and in some sense least theological, Gospel, would support equally the evidence of the par excellence theological Gospel which records everything with a view to the manifesta- tion of the Word made flesh.
We believe the truth to be that as the short narrative of St. Mark gives ns the kernel of the Galilean Gospel of Christ's life, St. John gives us what we may call the Gospel of His metropolitan life, the record of His own personal career at the head-quarters of Judaism, while the Apostles were sent forth on their separate missions to the tribes of Israel. In the Galilean Gospel we have chiefly the account of what Christ did when He and His immediate disciples were together ; but a great hiatus is left for the period of their absence in preaching His approaching kingdom. This hiatus John, who probably accompanied his Master, and thus became "known to the high priest," fills up, and we think it can be proved that on the two main chronological points on which the fourth Gospel absolutely differs from the three first,—both of them points affecting the Jerusalem life,— the cleansing of the Temple and the day of the Last Supper,— John's account is certainly the correct one. However distinguished by first-hand evidence on Galilean events the Gospel of Mark may be,—on the events of the trial and crucifixion of Christ, it is almost demonstrably less historical than that of St. John. Mr; Kenrick's essay, however, is written in the true spirit of sober historical criticism, and we should much like to see bow he would deal in the same spirit with the (probably to him less congenial) fourth Gospel.
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