St. Mark's Gospel opens as follows:—“The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The significancy of the announcement is apparent when the opening of St. Matthew's Gospel is considered,—“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David.” Surely if there be a clause in the Gospel which carries on its front the evidence of its genuineness, it is this[606]. But in fact the words are found in every known copy but three (א, 28, 255); in all the Versions; in many Fathers. The evidence in its favour is therefore overwhelming. Yet it has of late become the fashion to call in question the clause—Υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ. Westcott and Hort shut up the words in brackets. Tischendorf ejects them from the text. The Revisers brand them with suspicion. High time is it to ascertain how much of doubt really attaches to the clause which has been thus assailed.
Tischendorf relies on the testimony of ten ancient Fathers, whom he quotes in the following order,—Irenaeus, Epiphanius, Origen, Basil, Titus, Serapion, Cyril of Jerusalem, Severianus, Victorinus, Jerome. But the learned [pg 280] critic has to be reminded (1) that pro hac vice, Origen, Serapion, Titus, Basil, Victorinus and Cyril of Jerusalem are not six fathers, but only one. Next (2), that Epiphanius delivers no testimony whatever on the point in dispute. Next (3), that Jerome[607] is rather to be reckoned with the upholders, than the impugners, of the disputed clause: while (4) Irenaeus and Severianus bear emphatic witness in its favour. All this quite changes the aspect of the Patristic testimony. The scanty residuum of hostile evidence proves to be Origen and three Codexes,—of which two are cursives. I proceed to shew that the facts are as I have stated them.
As we might expect, the true author of all the mischief was Origen. At the outset of his commentary on St. John, he writes with reference to St. Mark i. 1,—“Either the entire Old Testament (represented by John Baptist) is here spoken of as ‘the beginning’ of the New; or else, only the end of it (which John quotes) is so spoken of, on account of this linking on of the New Testament to the Old. For Mark says,—‘The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold, I send my messenger, &c. The voice of one, &c.’ I can but wonder therefore at those heretics,”—he means the followers of Basilides, Valentinus, Cerdon, Marcion, and the rest of the Gnostic crew,—“who attribute the two Testaments to two different Gods; seeing that this very place sufficiently refutes them. For how can John be ‘the beginning of the Gospel,’ if, as they pretend, he belongs to another God, and does not recognize the divinity of the New Testament?” Presently,—“In illustration of the former way of taking the passage, viz. that John stands for the entire Old Testament, I will quote what is found in the Acts [viii. 35] ‘Beginning at the same Scripture of [pg 281] Isaiah, He was brought as a lamb, &c., Philip preached to the eunuch the Lord Jesus.’ How could Philip, beginning at the prophet, preach unto him Jesus, unless Isaiah be some part of ‘the beginning of the Gospel[608]?’ ” From the day that Origen wrote those memorable words [a.d. 230], an appeal to St. Mark i. 1-3 became one of the commonplaces of Theological controversy. St. Mark's assertion that the voices of the ancient Prophets, were “the beginning of the Gospel”—of whom John Baptist was assumed to be the symbol,—was habitually cast in the teeth of the Manichaeans.
On such occasions, not only Origen's reasoning, but often Origen's mutilated text was reproduced. The heretics in question, though they rejected the Law, professed to hold fast the Gospel. “But” (says Serapion) “they do not understand the Gospel; for they do not receive the beginning of it:—‘The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet[609].’ ” What the author of this curt statement meant, is explained by Titus of Bostra, who exhibits the quotation word for word as Serapion, following Origen, had exhibited it before him; and adding that St. Mark in this way “connects the Gospel with the Law; recognizing the Law as the beginning of the Gospel[610].” How does this prove that either Serapion or Titus disallowed the words υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ? The simple fact is that they are both reproducing Origen: and besides availing themselves of his argument, are content to adopt the method of quotation with which he enforces it.
Next, for the testimony of Basil. His words are,—“Mark makes the preaching of John the beginning of the Gospel, [pg 282] saying, ‘The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ ... as it is written in Isaiah the prophet ... The voice of one crying in the wilderness[611].’ ” This certainly shews that Basil was treading in Origen's footsteps; but it no more proves that he disallowed the three words in dispute in ver. 1, than that he disallowed the sixteen words not in dispute in ver. 2.—from which it is undeniable that he omits them intentionally, knowing them to be there. As for Victorinus (a.d. 290), his manner of quoting the beginning of St. Mark's Gospel is identical with Basil's[612], and suggests the same observation.
If proof be needed that what precedes is the true account of the phenomenon before us, it is supplied by Cyril of Jerusalem, with reference to this very passage. He points out that “John was the end of the prophets, for ‘All the prophets and the Law were until John;’ but the beginning of the Gospel dispensation, for it says, ‘The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,’ and so forth. John was baptizing in the wilderness[613].” Cyril has therefore passed straight from the middle of the first verse of St. Mark i. to the beginning of ver. 4: not, of course, because he disallowed the eight and thirty words which come in between; but only because it was no part of his purpose to quote them. Like Serapion and Titus, Basil and Cyril of Jerusalem are in fact reproducing Origen: but unlike the former two, the two last-named quote the Gospel elliptically. The liberty indeed which the ancient Fathers freely exercised, when quoting Scripture for a purpose,—of leaving out whatever was irrelevant; of retaining just so much of the text as made for their argument,—may never be let slip out of sight. Little did those ancient men imagine that at the end of some 1500 years a school of Critics would arise who would insist on regarding every [pg 283] irregularity in such casual appeals to Scripture, as a deliberate assertion concerning the state of the text 1500 years before. Sometimes, happily, they make it plain by what they themselves let fall, that their citations of Scripture may not be so dealt with. Thus, Severianus, bishop of Gabala, after appealing to the fact that St. Mark begins his Gospel by styling our Saviour Υἱὸς Θεοῦ, straightway quotes ver. 1 without that record of Divine Sonship,—a proceeding which will only seem strange to those who omit to read his context. Severianus is calling attention to the considerate reserve of the Evangelists in declaring the eternal Generation of Jesus Christ. “Mark does indeed say ‘Son of God’; but straightway, in order to soothe his hearers, he checks himself and cuts short that train of thought; bringing in at once about John the Baptist: saying,—‘The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ ... as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold,’ &c. No sooner has the Evangelist displayed the torch of Truth, than he conceals it[614].” How could Severianus have made his testimony more emphatic?
And now the reader is in a position to understand what Epiphanius has delivered. He is shewing that whereas St. Matthew begins his Gospel with the history of the Nativity, “the holy Mark makes what happened at Jordan the introduction of the Gospel: saying,—The beginning of the Gospel ... as it is written in Isaiah the prophet ... The voice of one crying in the wilderness[615].” This does not of course prove that Epiphanius read ver. 1 differently from [pg 284] ourselves. He is but leaving out the one and twenty words (5 in ver. 1: 16 in ver. 2) which are immaterial to his purpose. Our Lord's glorious designation (“Jesus Christ, the Son of God,”) and the quotation from Malachi which precedes the quotation from Isaiah, stand in this writer's way: his one object being to reach “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” Epiphanius in fact is silent on the point in dispute.
But the most illustrious name is behind. Irenaeus (a.d. 170) unquestionably read Υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ in this place. He devotes a chapter of his great work to the proof that Jesus is the Christ,—very God as well as very Man; and establishes the doctrine against the Gnostics, by citing the Evangelists in turn. St. Mark's testimony he introduces by an apt appeal to Rom. i. 1-4, ix. 5, and Gal. iv. 4, 5: adding,—“The Son of God was made the Son of Man, in order that by Him we might obtain the adoption: Man carrying, and receiving, and enfolding the Son of God. Hence, Mark says,—‘The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets[616].’ ” Irenaeus had already, in an earlier chapter, proved by an appeal to the second and third Gospels that Jesus Christ is God. “Quapropter et Marcus,” (he says) “interpres et sectator Petri, initium Evangelicae conscriptionis fecit sic: ‘Initium Evangelii Jesu Christi Filii Dei, quemadmodum scriptum est in Prophetis,’ &c.[617]” This at all events is decisive. The Latin of either place alone survives: yet not a shadow of doubt can be pretended as to how the man who wrote these two passages read the first verse of St. Mark's Gospel[618].