SECTION I.

GENERAL VIEW AND DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS.

The Gospel according to Mark forms a definite contrast to the Gospel according to Matthew. The latter connects the New Testament with the Old, and represents our Lord in His historic character. The former, again, represents Him in His personal originality, in His primordial and pristine divine-human power as the absolutely new, powerfully active, all-moving, all-subduing, and defining principle of the world's history; as the redemptive power or the almighty redemption in person; or, in one word, the Lion of Judah (see above, vol. iii. p. 488; comp. vol. i. p. 202).

It is quite in correspondence with the peculiarity of this Gospel, that it begins at once with the public appearing of Christ without first relating the history of His childhood. In accordance with this view, Christ is here introduced at once as the Eternal Strong One.¹

The same peculiarity appears to us in that Mark gives us, for the most part, only the great deeds of Christ's redemptive miraculous power; of His sayings not many, and these chiefly the strongest only — His rebukes, His representation of the last judgment, and similar sayings (see above, i. 200). But we see it likewise in the whole form of his Gospel, in his vigorous, concentrated, pictorial, and lively way of presenting things.

The Evangelist was, from his personal character, specially fitted and called to write the life of Christ in this its second form — in the form of its power. A mind capable of forming a vigorous conception, and taking a lively view suiting the popular imagination, is revealed in his whole style of language — in the animated, graphic, popular, stirring tone of his discourse, which is strongly hebraistic,² and yet also readily appropriates foreign modes of expression.

The Gospel according to Mark is consequently to be considered, according to its tenor, as a definite and distinct organism having the beauty of life, whose individual parts unite into a living whole, and so mutually condition and explain each other.

The Evangelist gives us, first of all, the characteristic beginning of the Gospel. This beginning presents itself to us in John the Baptist's appearing in all his greatness as a prophet according to the Old Testament; and in that, after him, Jesus appears and becomes manifest in all His grandeur, through the infinite inferiority of the great Baptist when compared with Him. In accordance with this relation, Jesus appears in the place of the departing John, and begins the preaching of the Gospel (i. 1-15). And, immediately on His appearing, His divine power was made manifest in His first actions — in the calling of the first apostles, in His first preaching and miraculous cures (i. 16-45). In proportion to the power of His influence upon the people is the rapidity with which the scribes and Pharisees oppose Him in a series of scenes (ii. 1-iii. 6). With the increase of this opposition, however, which caused Him to work with reserve, corresponded the increasing reverence for Christ by the people, and the crowding of multitudes to Him, which determined Him to choose the twelve apostles (iii. 7-19). The tendency to opposition between the adherents and antagonists of our Lord soon gives rise to the decided open conflict of Jesus with the Galilean Pharisees (iii. 20-35). This results in the reserve of Christ, which is manifested in the delivering of His parables concerning the kingdom of God (iv. 1-34). But while He thus withdraws from the breath of blasphemy of His enemies, He advances to further unfolding of His might in the circle of the receptive. He rebukes the raging of the sea, vanquishes the fiercest demons, discovers and heals the most secret and severe sufferings, and overcomes death itself (iv. 35-v.) But as the power of Christ is irresistible, so it is conditioned by itself, by its own divine-ethical nature, and so consequently it appears conditioned in the presence of unbelief. The Evangelist shows us this in the account of the unbelief of the inhabitants of Nazareth. But while Christ marvels at their unbelief, and withdraws from it. He unfolds more gloriously than ever the sway of His power over the whole Galilean land, so that it excites Herod the tetrarch himself and comes against his evil deed like the true royal sway of the spiritual Prince of His people in Galilee (vi.) And now the Pharisee corporation-spirit of the whole land comes forth to oppose our Lord in a confederation, in which the scribes of Jerusalem have united with the Pharisees of Galilee, and by a fresh assault given Him occasion to declare openly against their maxims. He now puts into effect this declaration of His freedom by a journey through not only the heathen borders of Tyre and Sidon, but also the coasts of the likewise chiefly heathenish Decapolis (vii.-viii. 9). On His return to Galilee, it becomes evident that in this land He has no longer an abiding place, and He now withdraws into the region of Caesarea Philippi, to prepare His disciples for His deliverance to death. During this voluntary self banishment He again displays His miraculous power in a deed which Mark alone relates — the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida (viii. 10-ix. 29), Then follows the departure from Galilee, with solemn exhortations and warnings to His disciples (ix, 30-50). The Evangelist next sketches Briefly, yet with expressive peculiarity of outline, the immediately subsequent residence of Jesus in Perea (x. 1-31). In describing Jesus' departure for Jerusalem, Mark sets forth to its full extent the sore perplexity of the disciples; and in relating the request of Salome for her sons, he places the latter in the foreground (x. 32-45). With like distinctness he depicts Jesus' journey from Jericho to Jerusalem (x. 46-xi. 11). The day of the purifying of the temple has, with him, the impress mainly of a day of judgment, and so stands in close connection with the day of the decision of the conflict between our Lord and His antagonists in Jerusalem (xi. 12-xiii. 2). Next follow the chief features of the announcement of the end of the world, which concludes, in a way very characteristic of Mark, with the word of earnest address, Watch (xiii. 3-37). The history of the passion then opens with the account of the anointing of Jesus; and this history, notwithstanding its brevity, shows many features peculiar to Mark (xiv. xv.) But the Easter history, and that all throughout, specially bears the impress of his peculiarities, and thereby presents itself as the organic conclusion of his Gospel (xvi.)

───♦───