That the second Gospel contains many such hints has often been pointed out; never more interestingly or more convincingly than by Townson[307] in a work which deserves to be in the hands of every student of Sacred Science. Instead of reproducing any of the familiar cases in order to illustrate my meaning, I will mention one which has perhaps never been mentioned in this connexion before.
(a) Reference is made to our Lord's sayings in S. Mark vii, and specially to what is found in ver. 19. That expression, “purging all meats” (καθαρίζων[308] πάντα τὰ βρώματα), does really seem to be no part of the Divine discourse; but the Evangelist's inspired comment on the Saviour's words.[309]
Our Saviour (he explains) by that discourse of His—ipso, facto—“made all meats clean.” How doubly striking a statement, when it is remembered that probably Simon Peter himself was the actual author of it;—the same who, on the house-top at Joppa, had been shewn in a vision that “God had made clean” (ὁ Θεὸς ἐκαθάρισε[310]) all His creatures!
(b) Now, let a few words spoken by the same S. Peter on a memorable occasion be considered:—“Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the Baptism of John, unto that same day that He was taken up (ἀνελήφθη) from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of His Resurrection.”[311] Does not S. Peter thereby define the precise limits of our Saviour's Ministry,—shewing it to have “begun” (ἀρξάμενος) “from the Baptism of John,”—and closed with the Day of our Lord's Ascension? And what else are those but the exact bounds of S. Mark's Gospel,—of which the ἀρχή (ch. i. 1) is signally declared to have been the Baptism of John,—and the utmost limit, the day when (as S. Mark says) “He was taken up (ἀνελήφθη) into Heaven,”—(ch. xvi. 19)?
(c) I will only further remind the reader, in connexion with the phrase, πᾶσῃ τῇ κτίσει, in ver. 15,—(concerning which, the reader is referred back to page [162-3],)—that both S. Peter and S. Mark (but no other of the sacred writers) conspire to use the expression ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς κτίσεως.[312] S. Mark has besides κτίσεως ἧς ἔκτισε ὁ Θεός (ch. xiii. 19); while S. Peter alone styles the Almighty, from His work of Creation, ὁ κτίστης (1 S. Pet. iv. 19).
VI. But besides, and over and above such considerations [pg 181] as those which precede,—(some of which, I am aware, might be considerably evacuated of their cogency; while others, I am just as firmly convinced, will remain forcible witnesses of God's Truth to the end of Time,)—I hesitate not to avow my personal conviction that abundant and striking evidence is garnered up within the brief compass of these Twelve Verses that they are identical in respect of fabric with the rest of the Gospel; were clearly manufactured out of the same Divine materials,—wrought in the same heavenly loom.
It was even to have been expected, from what is found to have been universally the method in other parts of Scripture,—(for it was of course foreseen by Almighty God from the beginning that this portion of His Word would be, like its Divine Author, in these last days cavilled at, reviled, hated, rejected, denied,)—that the Spirit would not leave Himself without witness in this place. It was to have been anticipated, I say, that Eternal Wisdom would carefully—(I trust there is no irreverence in so speaking of God and His ways!)—would carefully make provision: meet the coming unbelief (as His Angel met Balaam) with a drawn sword: plant up and down throughout these Twelve Verses of the Gospel, sure indications of their Divine Original,—unmistakable notes of purpose and design,—mysterious traces and tokens of Himself; not visible indeed to the scornful and arrogant, the impatient and irreverent; yet clear as if written with a sunbeam to the patient and humble student, the man who “trembleth at God's Word.”[313] Or, (if the Reader prefers the image,) the indications of a Divine Original to be met with in these verses shall be likened rather to those cryptic characters, invisible so long as they remain unsuspected, but which shine forth clear and strong when exposed to the Light or to the Heat; (Light and Heat, both emblems of Himself!) so that even he that gropeth in darkness must now see them, and admit that of a truth “the Lord is in this place” although he “knew it not!”
(i.) I propose then that in the first instance we compare the conclusion of S. Mark's Gospel with the beginning of it. We did this before, when our object was to ascertain whether [pg 182] the Style of S. Mark xvi. 9-20 be indeed as utterly discordant from that of the rest of the Gospel as is commonly represented. We found, instead, the most striking resemblance.[314] We also instituted a brief comparison between the two in order to discover whether the Diction of the one might not possibly be found as suggestive of verbal doubts as the diction of the other: and so we found it.[315]—Let us for the third time draw the two extremities of this precious fabric into close proximity in order again to compare them. Nothing I presume can be fairer than to elect that, once more, our attention be chiefly directed to what is contained within the twelve verses (ver. 9-20) of S. Mark's first chapter which exactly correspond with the twelve verses of his last chapter (ver. 9-20) which are the subject of the present volume.
Now between these two sections of the Gospel, besides (1) the obvious verbal resemblance, I detect (2) a singular parallelism of essential structure. And this does not strike me the less forcibly because nothing of the kind was to have been expected.
(1.) On the verbal coincidences I do not propose to lay much stress. Yet are they certainly not without argumentative weight and significancy. I allude to the following:—