(4.) But lastly, inasmuch as the opening words of our [pg 162] Lord's Ministerial Commission to the Apostles are these,—κηρύξατε τὸ εὐαγγέλιον πάση τῇ κτίσει (ver. 15): inasmuch, too, as S. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians (i. 23) almost reproduces those very words; speaking of the Hope τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ... τοῦ κηρυχθέντος ἐν πάση [τῇ] κτίσει τῇ ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανόν:—Is it not an allowable conjecture that a direct reference to that place in S. Mark's Gospel is contained in this place of S. Paul's Epistle? that the inspired Apostle “beholding the universal tendency of Christianity already realized,” announces (and from imperial Rome!) the fulfilment of his Lord's commands in his Lord's own words as recorded by the Evangelist S. Mark?
I desire to be understood to deliver this only as a conjecture. But seeing that S. Mark's Gospel is commonly thought to have been written at Rome, and under the eye of S. Peter; and that S. Peter (and therefore S. Mark) must have been at Rome before S. Paul visited that city in A.D. 61;—seeing, too, that it was in A.D. 61-2 (as Wordsworth and Alford are agreed) that S. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Colossians, and wrote it from Rome;—I really can discover nothing unreasonable in the speculation. If, however, it be well founded,—(and it is impossible to deny that the coincidence of expression may be such as I have suggested,)—then, what an august corroboration would this be of “the last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark!” ... If, indeed, the great Apostle on reaching Rome inspected S. Mark's Gospel for the first time, with what awe will he have recognised in his own recent experience the fulfilment of his Saviour's great announcement concerning the “signs which should follow them that believe!” Had he not himself “cast out devils?”—“spoken with tongues more than they all?”—and at Melita, not only “shaken off the serpent into the fire and felt no harm,” but also “laid hands on the sick” father of Publius, “and he had recovered?” ... To return, however, to matters of fact; with an apology (if it be thought necessary) for what immediately goes before.
(XVII.) Next,—ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι μου (ver. 17) is noticed as another suspicious peculiarity. The phrase is supposed to occur only in this place of S. Mark's Gospel; the Evangelist elsewhere [pg 163] employing the preposition ἐπί:—(viz. in ix. 37: ix. 39: xiii. 6.)
(1.) Now really, if it were so, the reasoning would be nugatory. S. Luke also once, and once only, has ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί σου: his usage elsewhere being, (like S. Mark's) to use ἐπί. Nay, in two consecutive verses of ch. ix, ἐπί τῷ ὀνόματί μου—σου is read: and yet, in the very next chapter, his Gospel exhibits an unique instance of the usage of ἐν. Was it ever thought that suspicion is thereby cast on S. Luke x. 17?
(2.) But, in fact, the objection is an oversight of the learned (and generally accurate) objector. The phrase recurs in S. Mark ix. 38,—as the text of that place has been revised by Tischendorf, by Tregelles and by himself. This is therefore a slightly corroborative, not a suspicious circumstance.
(XVIII. and XIX.) We are further assured that παρακολουθεῖν (in ver. 17) and ἐπακολουθεῖν (in ver. 20) “are both foreign to the diction of Mark.”
(1.) But what can the learned author of this statement possibly mean? He is not speaking of the uncompounded verb ἀκολουθεῖν, of course; for S. Mark employs it at least twenty times. He cannot be speaking of the compounded verb; for συνακολουθεῖν occurs in S. Mark v. 37. He cannot mean that παρακολουθεῖν, because the Evangelist uses it only once, is suspicious; for that would be to cast a slur on S. Luke i. 3. He cannot mean generally that verbs compounded with prepositions are “foreign to the diction of Mark;” for there are no less than forty-two such verbs which are even peculiar to S. Mark's short Gospel,—against thirty which are peculiar to S. Matthew, and seventeen which are peculiar to S. John. He cannot mean that verbs compounded with παρά and ἐπί have a suspicious look; for at least thirty-three such compounds, (besides the two before us,) occur in his sixteen chapters.[287] What, then, I must [pg 164] really ask, can the learned Critic possibly mean?—I respectfully pause for an answer.
(2.) In the meantime, I claim that as far as such evidence goes,—(and it certainly goes a very little way, yet, as far as it goes,)—it is a note of S. Mark's authorship, that within the compass of the last twelve verses of his Gospel these two compounded verbs should be met with.
(XX.) Dr. Davidson points out, as another suspicious circumstance, that (in ver. 18) the phrase χεῖρας ἐπιτιθέναι ἐπί τινα occurs; “instead of χεῖρας ἐπιτιθέναι τινι.”
(1.) But on the contrary, the phrase “is in Mark's manner,” says Dean Alford: the plain fact being that it occurs no less than three times in his Gospel,—viz. in chap. viii. 25: x. 16: xvi. 18. (The other idiom, he has four times.[288]) Behold, then, one and the same phrase is appealed to as a note of genuineness and as an indication of spurious origin. What can be the value of such Criticism as this?