And the elder said this also: Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately everything that he remembered, without however recording in order what was either said or done by Christ. For neither did he hear the Lord, nor did he follow Him; but afterwards, as I said, [attended] Peter, who adapted His instructions to the needs [of his hearers] but had no design of giving a connected account of the Lord's oracles [or discourses] ([Greek: all' ouch hôsper suntaxin tôn kuriakôn poioumenos logiôn] or [Greek: lôgon]). So then Mark made no mistake, while he thus wrote down some things as he remembered them; for he made it his one care not to omit anything that he heard, or to set down any false statement therein.
Eusebius introduces this passage by a statement that it 'refers to Mark, the writer of the Gospel;' and the authority whom Papias here quotes is apparently the Presbyter John, who has been mentioned immediately before.
Now it will be plain, I think, to any reader of common sense, that Papias is giving an account of the circumstances under which the Evangelical narrative in question was composed. There were two phenomena in it which seemed to him to call for explanation. In the first place, it is not a complete narrative. In the second place, the events are not recorded in strict chronological order. These two phenomena are explained by St Mark's position and opportunities, which were necessarily limited. His work was composed from reminiscences of St Peter's preaching; and, as this preaching was necessarily fragmentary and adapted to the immediate requirements of his hearers (the preacher having no intention of giving a continuous narrative), the writer could not possess either the materials for a complete account or the knowledge for an accurate chronological arrangement. Papias obviously has before him some other Gospel narrative or narratives, which contained sayings or doings of Christ not recorded by St Mark, and moreover related those which he did record in a different order. For this discrepancy he desires to account. The motive and the treatment have an exact parallel, as I shall show hereafter, in the account of the Gospels given by the author of the Muratorian Canon.
This is the plain and simple inference from the passage; and we have only to ask whether this description corresponds with the phenomena of our St Mark. That it does so correspond, I think, can hardly be denied. As regards completeness, it is sufficient to call attention to the fact that any one of our Canonical Gospels records many doings, and above all, many sayings, which are omitted in St Mark. As regards order again, it may, I believe, safely be said that no writer of a 'Life of Christ' finds himself able to preserve the sequence of events exactly as it stands in St Mark. His account does not profess to be strictly chronological. There are indeed chronological links in the narrative here and there; but throughout considerable parts of our Lord's ministry the successive incidents are quite unconnected by notices of time. In short, the Gospel is just what we should expect, if the author had derived his information in the way reported by the Presbyter. But our author objects, that it 'does not depart in any important degree from the order of the other two Synoptics,' and that it 'throughout has the most evident character of orderly arrangement' [165:1]. Persons may differ as to what is important or unimportant; but if the reader will refer to any one of the common harmonies, those of Anger and Tischendorf for instance, he will see that constant transpositions are necessary in one or other of the Synoptic Gospels to bring them into accordance, and will be able to judge for himself how far this statement is true. 'Orderly arrangement' of some sort, no doubt, there is; but it is just such as lay within the reach of a person obtaining his knowledge at second-hand in this way. Our author himself describes it lower down as 'artistic and orderly arrangement.' I shall not quarrel with the phrase, though somewhat exaggerated. Any amount of 'artistic arrangement' is compatible with the notice of Papias, which refers only to historical sequence. 'Artistic arrangement' does not require the direct knowledge of an eye-witness. It will be observed however, that our author speaks of a comparison with 'the order of the other two Synoptics.' But what, if the comparison which Papias had in view was wholly different? What, if he adduced this testimony of the Presbyter to explain how St Mark's Gospel differed not from another Synoptic narrative, but from St John? I shall return to this question at a later point in these investigations.
Our author is no stranger to the use of strong words: 'If our present Gospel,' he writes, 'cannot be proved to be the very work referred to by the Presbyter John, as most certainly it cannot, the evidence of Papias becomes fatal to the claims of the second Canonical Gospel' [165:2]. The novelty of the logic in this sentence rivals the boldness of the assumption.
Yet so entirely satisfied is he with the result of his arguments, that he does not consider it 'necessary to account for the manner in which the work to which the Presbyter John referred disappeared, and the present Gospel according to Mark became substituted for it' [166:1]. But others are of a more inquiring turn of mind. They will be haunted with this difficulty, and will not be able thus to shelve the question. They will venture to ask how it is that not any, even the faintest, indication of the existence of this other Mark can be traced in all the remains of Christian antiquity. They will observe too, that if the date which our author himself adopts be correct, Irenæus was already grown up to manhood when Papias wrote his work. They will remember that Irenæus received his earliest Christian education from a friend of Papias, and that his great authorities in everything which relates to Christian tradition are the associates and fellow-countrymen of Papias. They will remark that, having the work of Papias in his hands and holding it in high esteem, he nevertheless is so impressed with the conviction that our present four Gospels, and these only, had formed the title-deeds of the Church from the beginning, that he ransacks heaven and earth for analogies to this sacred number. They will perhaps carry their investigations further, and discover that Irenæus not only possessed our St Mark's Gospel, but possessed it also with its present ending, which, though undoubtedly very early, can hardly have been part of the original work. They will then pass on to the Muratorian author, who probably wrote some years before Irenæus, and, remembering that Irenæus represents the combined testimony of Asia Minor and Gaul, they will see that they have here the representative of a different branch of the Church, probably the Roman. Yet the Muratorian writer agrees with Irenæus in representing our four Gospels, and these only, as the traditional inheritance of the Church; for though the fragment is mutilated at the beginning, so that the names of the first two Evangelists have disappeared, the identity cannot be seriously questioned. They will then extend their horizon to Clement in Alexandria and Tertullian in Africa; and they will find these fathers also possessed by the same belief. Impressed with this convergency of testimony from so many different quarters, they will be utterly at a loss to account for the unanimity of these early witnesses—all sharing in the same delusion, all ignorant that a false Mark has been silently substituted for the true Mark during their own lifetime, and consequently assuming as an indisputable fact that the false Mark was received by the Church from the beginning. And they will end in a revolt against the attempt of our author to impose upon them with his favourite commonplace about the 'thoroughly uncritical character of the fathers.'
Indeed, they will begin altogether to suspect this wholesale denunciation; for they will observe that our author is convicted out of his own context. They will remark how he repels an inconvenient question of Tischendorf by a scornful reference to 'the frivolous character of the only criticism in which they [Eusebius and the other Christian Fathers] ever indulged [167:1].' Yet they will remember at the same time to have read in this very chapter on Papias a highly intelligent criticism of Eusebius, with which this father confronts a statement of Irenæus, and which our author himself adopts as conclusive [167:2]. They will recall also, in this same context, a reference to a passage in Dionysius of Alexandria, where this 'great Bishop' anticipates by nearly sixteen centuries the criticisms of our own age concerning the differences of style between the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse [167:3].
From St Mark we pass to St Matthew. Papias has something to tell us of this Gospel also; but here again we are asked to believe that we have a case of mistaken identity.
After the notice relating to St Mark, Eusebius continues:—
But concerning Matthew, the following statement is made [by
Papias]: 'So then Matthew ([Greek: Matthaios men oun]) composed the
Oracles in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as he
could.'