ive
report [Greek: suntaxis] of the discourses or doings of Jesus, Mark was
only careful to be accurate, and did not trouble himself to arrange in
historical order [Greek: taxis] his narrative of the things which were
said or done by Jesus, but merely wrote down facts as he remembered
them. This description would lead us to expect a work composed of
fragmentary reminiscences of the teaching of Peter, without orderly
sequence or connection. The absence of orderly arrangement is the most
prominent feature in the description, and forms the burden of the whole.
Mark writes 'what he remembered;' 'he did not arrange in order the
things that were either said or done by Christ;' and then follow the
apologetic expressions of explanation--he was not himself a hearer or
follower of the Lord, but derived his information from the occasional
preaching of Peter, who did not attempt to give a consecutive narrative,
and, therefore, Mark was not wrong in merely writing things without
order as he happened to hear or remember them. Now it is impossible in
the work of Mark here described to recognise our present second Gospel,
which does not depart in any important degree from the order of the
other two Synoptics, and which, throughout, has the most evident
character of orderly arrangement.... The great majority of critics,
therefore, are agreed in concluding that the account of the Presbyter
John recorded by Papias does not apply to our second Canonical Gospel at
all" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. 1, pp. 460, 461). "This document, also, is
mentioned by Papias, as quoted by Eusebius; the account which they give
of it is not applicable to the work which we now have. For the 'Gospel
according to St. Mark' professes to give a continuous history of
Christ's life, as regularly as the other three Gospels, but the work
noticed by Papias is expressly stated to have been memoranda, taken down
from time to time as Peter delivered them, and it is not said that Mark
ever reduced these notes into the form of a more perfect history"
("Christian Records," Rev. Dr. Giles, pp. 94, 95). "It is difficult to
see in what respects Mark's Gospel is more loose and disjointed than
those of Matthew and Luke.... We are inclined to agree with those who
consider the expression [Greek: ou taxei] unsuitable to the present
Gospel of Mark. As far as we are able to understand the entire fragment,
it is most natural to consider John the Presbyter or Papias assigning a
sense to [Greek: o