AUTHOR 109
AUTHOR
Like the other three gospels, Mark is anonymous. The title, "According to Mark” (κατά Μάρκον [kata Markon]), 2was probably added when the Gospels were collected and there was need to distinguish Mark’s version of the gospel from the others. The gospel titles are generally thought to have been added in the second century but may have been added much earlier. 3Certainly we may say that the title indicates that by A.D. 125 or so an important segment of the early church thought that a person named Mark wrote the second gospel.
Mark’s connection with the second gospel is asserted or assumed by many early Christian writers. Perhaps the earliest (and certainly the most important) of the testimonies is that of Papias, who was bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia of Asia Minor until about A.D. 130. His statement about the second gospel is recorded in Eusebius’s History of the Church (Historia Ecclesiastica), written in 325.
And the presbyter used to say this, "Mark became Peter’s interpreter [hermeneutes] and wrote accurately all that he remembered, not indeed, in order, of the things said or done by the Lord. For he had not heard the Lord, nor had he followed him, but later on, as I said, followed Peter, who used to give teaching as necessity demanded but not making, as it were, an arrangement of the Lord’s oracles, so that Mark did nothing wrong in writing down single points as he remembered them. For to one thing he gave attention, to leave out nothing of what he had heard and to make no false statements in them.” (H.E. 3.39.15) 4
Three important claims about the second gospel emerge from this statement:
1. Mark wrote the gospel that, in Eusebius’s day, was identified with this name.
2. Mark was not an eyewitness but obtained his information from Peter. 5
3. Mark’s gospel lacks "order”, reflecting the occasional nature of Peter’s preaching. 6 The importance of these claims is magnified when we realize that the presbyter whom Papias is quoting is the presbyter John, probably the apostle John himself. If Papias is to be trusted, the identification of Mark as the author of the second gospel goes back to the first generation of Christians.
Later Christian writers confirm that Mark was the author of the second gospel and that he depended on Peter for his information: Ireneus, Adv. Haer. 3.1.2 (A.D. 180); Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 4.5 (c. 200); Clement of Alexandria, Hypotyposes (c. 200), according to Eusebius (H.E. 6.14.5-7); Origen, Comm. on Matt. (early third century), again according to Eusebius (H.E. 6.25.5); and, probably, the Muratorian Canon (a list of New Testament books drawn up c. 190 and so named because the sole manuscript to preserve the list, an incomplete Latin manuscript of the seventh or eighth century, was discovered and published by Cardinal L. A. Muratori in 1740). 7Some scholars dismiss these testimonies as secondhand evidence going back to Papias, believing that Papias invents his claim about Mark’s connection with Peter in order to defend the gospel against its detractors. 8But Papias does not appear to be defending Mark’s authorship or his connection with Peter but only the reliability of the gospel, against the charge that it lacked "order.” Moreover, no dissenting voice from the early church regarding the authorship of the second gospel is found. This is surprising, since the tendency in the early church was to associate apostles with the writing of the New Testament books. While we must not uncritically accept everything that early Christian writers say about the origins of the New Testament, we should not reject what they say without good reason. The early and uncontested claim that Mark wrote the second gospel based on Peter’s teaching can be overturned only by rather clear indications to the contrary from the gospel itself.
To assess this internal evidence, we must first identify the "Mark” intended by Papias and the other early Christian writers. That they refer to the (John) Mark mentioned in Acts (Acts 12:12, 25; 13:5, 13; 15:37) and in four New Testament epistles (Col. 4:10; Phlm. 24; 2 Tim. 4:11; 1 Peter 5:13) is almost certain. 9No other early Christian Mark would have been so well known as to be mentioned without further description. 10Son of a woman prominent in the early Jerusalem church (Christians had gathered at her home during Peter’s imprisonment [Acts 12:12]) and cousin of Barnabas (Col. 4:10), "John, also called Mark,” accompanied Paul and Barnabas as far as Pamphylia, in Asia Minor, on the first missionary journey (Acts 13:5, 13). For whatever reason (and speculation has been rampant), Mark left Paul and Barnabas before the first journey ended, and Paul therefore refused to take him along on his second extended preaching trip. Barnabas disagreed with Paul’s decision and separated himself from Paul, taking Mark along with him (Acts 15:36-40). Yet Paul and Mark were eventually reconciled: Paul mentions Mark’s presence with him during his Roman imprisonment (Phlm. 24; Col. 4:10). Peter, writing from Rome, also mentions that Mark was with him, calling him his son (1 Peter 5:13), perhaps implying that Mark had been converted through his ministry. 11Mark has also been identified as the "young man” who "fled naked” from Gethsemane when Jesus was arrested (Mark 14:51-52): it has been argued that this enigmatic reference, peculiar to Mark’s gospel, is an autobiographical reminiscence. 12This may be the case, but the identification may call into question Papias’s claim that Mark was not an eyewitness. 13
Does the little we know of John Mark from the New Testament present any difficulty to identifying him as the author of the second gospel? Some scholars think so, pointing to Mark’s alleged ignorance of Jewish customs and errors about Palestinian geography. 14But neither difficulty stands up to scrutiny; careful and sympathetic interpretation of the alleged problem passages reveals no errors in such matters. In contrast, two features of Mark and his career as they are presented in the New Testament fit the author of the second gospel. The Greek style of Mark’s gospel is simple and straightforward and full of the kind of Semitisms that one would expect of a Jerusalem-bred Christian. 15And Mark’s connection with Paul may help explain what many scholars have found to be a Pauline theological influence in the second gospel. Both features are far too general to offer any positive evidence toward an identification. But the important point is that nothing in the second gospel stands in the way of accepting the earliest tradition that identifies John Mark as its author. Our decision, then, will rest almost entirely on external evidence, and especially on the tradition handed down through Papias and Eusebius from the unnamed presbyter. Those who are skeptical of the reliability of Papias conclude that the author of the gospel is unknown. Yet, as we have seen, there is nothing in the New Testament that is inconsistent with Papias’s claim that Mark wrote the second gospel. And since we have no indication that anyone in the early church contested Papias’s claim, we see no reason not to accept it.
But can we also accept the tradition that Mark is dependent on the preaching of Peter? Here, again, skepticism is rampant. Modern approaches to the Gospels consider the gospel material to be the product of a long and complex process of traditions-history, a view that has difficulty accommodating the direct connection between Mark and Peter suggested by Papias. 17While recognizing this as something of a problem, two factors may mitigate its force. First, we must question whether the assuredness with which critics identify the origins and growth of traditions is always justified. In many cases the basis for such judgments does not appear to be strong, and we may well think that the derivation of a given pericope from Peter himself may satisfy the evidence equally well. Only a doctrinaire form critic would insist that all the gospel tradition must have been transmitted through the faceless "community.” 18Second, we must probably allow for Mark to have used sources other than Peter. As long as the apostle was a central source for the gospel, Papias’s claim stands.
On the other side of the ledger are factors that could be taken to point to Peter’s connection with the gospel. The vividness and detail of the second gospel is said to point to an eyewitness. Only Mark, for instance, mentions that the grass on which the five thousand sat was green (Mark 6:39). But even if valid (and some scholars insist that there was a tendency to add such detail to the tradition), this feature would do no more than show that there was some eyewitness testimony behind Mark’s gospel.
This focus may be narrowed by another feature of the gospel: the especially critical light in which the Twelve are displayed. While found in all four gospels, the picture of the disciples as cowardly, spiritually blind, and hard of heart is particularly vivid in Mark.
This, it is held, points to an apostolic viewpoint, for only an apostle would have been able to criticize the Twelve so harshly. Two other factors suggest that this apostolic witness may be Peter’s. First, Peter figures prominently in Mark, and some of the references are most naturally explained as coming from Peter himself (e.g. the references to Peter "remembering” [Mark 11:21; 14:72]). 19Second, C. H. Dodd has pointed out that Mark’s gospel follows a pattern very similar to that found in Peter’s rehearsal of the basic kerygma, the evangelistically oriented recitation of key events in Jesus’ life, found in Acts 10:36-41. 20We might add, finally, that Peter’s reference to Mark as "my son” in his first letter fits nicely with the relationship between Peter and Mark mentioned by Papias; it discourages one from thinking Papias simply invented such a relationship.
Each of these factors is commensurate with the tradition that Mark is based on Peter’s preaching, and one or two of them may even point slightly in that direction, but none of them, nor all of them together, is sufficient to establish the connection. Again, however, there seems to be no compelling reason to reject the common opinion of the early church on this matter.