In treating St. Mark's Gospel, our first task is to ask if its silence is complete. This leads at once to a discussion of Mk. vi. 3: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary...?”
Parentage among the Jews was traced on the father's side. The passage may therefore imply that Joseph was already dead. Archdeacon Allen thinks that “son of Mary” is “more naturally an allusion to the supernatural circumstances of the birth of Jesus” (ICC., St. Mt., p. 156).[9] Without going so far as this, Canon Box thinks that there is something “decidedly remarkable and unusual” in the phrase, and suggests that it is probably contemptuous (op. cit., p. 139).
However we explain the phrase, we ought not to interpret Mk. vi. 3 as implying a knowledge of the Virgin Birth on the part of the people of Nazareth. Mt. xiii. 55 and Lk. iv. 22 directly exclude this view.[10] “Who would allude to the miraculous birth of somebody as a reason for not believing in him?” (Thompson, ib., p. 138 n.).
But did the Evangelist know of the Virgin Birth? Has a knowledge of the doctrine shaped his phrasing in Mk. vi. 3? The question is complicated by critical considerations. It is suggested by several scholars that the passage, in whole or in part, is a later addition to the Second Gospel.[11] There is much to be said for this view, but, so far as our immediate purpose is concerned, we have no need to discuss it in detail. On either view—that of the critical theory just mentioned, or that which attributes the passage to the Evangelist—it is improbable that St. Mark intended to refer to the Virgin Birth, or was influenced by the doctrine. On the interpolation-hypothesis, this is obvious enough, but it is also true if Mk. vi. 3 is original. The suggestions that Joseph was already dead, and that a certain contempt [pg 009] breathes in the words, have great force. We may also note that the passage goes on to refer to the brothers and sisters of Jesus, with no suggestion that the relationship was other than full and complete. But what is most telling of all is the fact that, if Mk. vi. 3 does imply St. Mark's knowledge of the Virgin Birth, both St. “Matthew” and St. Luke, in their own narratives, have destroyed the reference. This is all the more remarkable if the First Evangelist's treatment of Mk. vi. 3 is motived by reverence for the Person of Jesus.[12] Finally, can we suppose that St. Mark would have placed his sole reference to the Virgin Birth in the lips of unbelieving Jews who speak with thinly veiled contempt? For these reasons, we find it impossible to discover in Mk. vi. 3 a reference to the Virgin Birth by St. Mark; the Evangelist's silence is unbroken.
Was, then, the tradition unknown to St. Mark?
Several passages have been cited in support of the contention that St. Mark had no knowledge of the doctrine. Among these is Mk. iii. 21, 31-5 (cf. Mt. xii. 46-50; Lk. viii. 19-21). The story of Mk. iii. 31-5 is that of the coming of Mary and of the brothers of Jesus, while our Lord is surrounded by a crowd, apparently in a house. When Jesus is informed that they are without seeking Him, He says, “Who is my mother and my brethren?”, and looking round upon the assembled company, He continues, “Behold, my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother”. The account in Mt. is almost identical, and St. Luke's story, while much briefer, is substantially the same. But St. Mark's narrative must be read in the light of Mk. iii. 21 (cf. Gould, ICC., St. Mk., pp. 61, 67)—a passage which is omitted in Mt. and in Lk. There, we are told that the friends of Jesus (οἱ παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ, probably “His kinsmen”) went out to lay hold on Him, in the belief that He was mad. This fact must unquestionably be held to explain the action of the family of Jesus in the incident of Mk. iii. 31-5, and the question arises, Did Mary share in the fears and intentions of the rest?[13]
A second passage is Mk. vi. 4, where Jesus declares that a prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. The phrase “among his own kin”, which both Mt. (xiii. 57) and Lk. (iv. 24) omit, is said to point in the same direction as Mk. iii. 21, 31-5.[14] A third incident adduced is that recorded in Mk. xii. 35-7 (Mt. xxii. 41-6; Lk. xx. 41-4), where Jesus raises the question, how the Messiah can be at once David's Son and David's Lord. “Here again”, writes Mr. Thompson, “Jesus assumes the reality of that human parentage on which His Davidic descent relies.... Thus it appears that on three separate occasions (and there are no others) when Jesus, according to the earliest Gospel, spoke about His birth, He used language naturally compatible with human parentage, and not naturally compatible with anything else” (op. cit., p. 138).
It will be seen that these passages raise more than the question whether St. Mark knew of the Virgin Birth. They raise the question of the knowledge of Jesus, and indeed the whole question of the historical character of the Miraculous Conception.
Clearly, the question of the knowledge of Jesus is a determinative consideration. Few indeed will care to argue for the Virgin Birth tradition, if it can be proved that Jesus knew nothing of it, but believed Himself to be the son of Joseph. Just for this very reason we ought to be scrupulously careful in treating the question. A scientific inquiry will hesitate to draw an inference which makes further research superfluous. And in the present case hesitation is amply justified. We cannot share Mr. Thompson's conviction that the words of Jesus acknowledge a natural parentage. (1) Such exegesis must suffer an obvious discount if we find that the Evangelist knew nothing of the Virgin Birth. (2) We cannot be certain that Mary shared the fears and intentions of her children. (3) We do not know the tone in which Jesus spoke, nor can we be sure that He intended to repudiate His family. It may be so; but our opinion on these matters [pg 011] must rest upon what we believe about the Virgin Birth; the evidence is too uncertain to reverse the process.
As regards the Evangelist, we may say at once that we could account much more easily for the passages cited, if St. Mark did not know of the doctrine. But it is doubtful if we can say more, so long as we confine ourselves to what St. Mark has actually written.