CHAPTER XI
HOW THE GOSPELS CAME TO BE WRITTEN
ut how did the story of the Saviour's life on earth come to be written?
We have seen that many years passed before any one thought of writing it down at all. The men and women who had really seen Him, who had listened to His voice, looked into His face, and who knew that He had conquered death and sin for evermore, could not sit down to write, for their hearts were all on fire to speak.
But as the years passed, the number of those who had seen Christ grew less, and the need of a written Gospel became ever greater. Precious words would be forgotten, precious facts passed over, unless they were collected together and put down in black and white. Some of those, therefore, who had seen and heard Christ began to write down all they remembered of His life.
They had no thought, as yet, of a New Testament being added to their Bible; the Old Testament Scriptures were still the 'Bible'[[1]] to them. These early Christians, as we remember, did not read the Bible in the original Hebrew, but in its Greek translation. They loved it and searched its pages eagerly, as they realized that all its words spoke of Christ!
But about the time that St. Paul was imprisoned at Rome we think that the Gospel according to St. Mark was written.
Most of you know that Mark was a young Jew who began his work for God by travelling with Paul and Barnabas (Acts xii. 25), but who left them when the work grew dangerous. (Acts xiii. 13.) Paul was so grieved at his failure, that for a while he refused to trust him again; but Barnabas, who believed in his repentance, gave him another trial. (Acts xv. 37-39.) That Mark proved himself even to Paul we find from the Apostle's last Epistle to Timothy, when he writes: 'Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.' (2 Timothy iv. 11.)
Before that time, however, Mark had lived and worked for many years with the Apostle Peter, who in his letter written from Babylon speaks of him as 'Marcus my son.' (1 Peter v. 13.)