while to find fault with my critics, had it not been that in reality this term fellow-students, at which some of them have stumbled, expresses, when taken in conjunction with the assertion that I wrote for English readers, the spirit and intention of my former Commentary and of that now published also. It appeared to me, that, although much interesting matter which has been brought to light by learned men must always be inaccessible to those who cannot examine the Gospels in the original, and cannot use learned commentaries upon them, yet there were many things which might be rendered intelligible, and some help given towards the solution of questions which must rise up in the minds of all thoughtful readers. This view was probably strengthened by the circumstance, that while in Cambridge I had, during two years a Bible Class in connection with the "Working Men's College." In this class we determined to study the Gospels; and before I resigned it we had completed an examination of the first two. In preparing materials for the lectures, which were given on Sunday evening, I carefully abstained from dwelling upon those topics which belonged more properly to the pulpit, and I rather selected those which were likely to open up to my students new lines of thought concerning passages with which they were all familiar. I found it very possible to interest the working men by this mode of dealing, and I had their own testimony that on many points connected with the Gospels they had gained new light from the lectures. These working men I have no hesitation in acknowledging as "fellow-students of God's Holy Word;" and possibly it might have been the remembrance of the evenings spent in the lecture-room, that suggested the phrase to my mind when I wrote the Introduction to the Commentary on S. Matthew's Gospel.

But it is not amongst working men only that readers are to be found, who, in studying the Scriptures, may use with advantage a Commentary such as I have endeavoured to supply. There is

in England a large class of highly intelligent persons, who have not had a learned education, and to whom nevertheless many questions, which require for their full discussion an apparatus of learning not possessed by them, may be rendered interesting and instructive. I do not say that I have succeeded in meeting the wants of this class, but I have endeavoured in some measure to do so; and, whether I have succeeded or not, I am sure that the wants are real and such as ought to be met and supplied.

Having thus attempted to make more apparent the design both of the former Commentary on S. Matthew and of the present Commentary on S. Mark, I will crave the reader's attention while I make some observations, by way of introduction, upon certain points connected with S. Mark's Gospel. In doing so I shall bear carefully in mind the class of readers for whom the Commentary is intended, and shall therefore abstain from the discussion of many points which would find place in a more complete introduction to S. Mark.

I.-The authorship of the Gospel.

In the introduction to the Commentary on S. Matthew I stated that all discussion concerning the claim of that Apostle to be regarded as the author of the Gospel bearing his name was beside my purpose; and in like manner I shall here assume, and not prove, that the Gospel bearing the name of S. Mark was really written by him. In truth there seems to be as little reason for doubting concerning the authorship as concerning any fact in ancient history. The tradition which assigns the second Gospel to S. Mark is universal, unvarying, uncontradicted; and the Mark to whom tradition points is he who comes under our notice several times in the Acts of the Apostles and incidentally in the Epistles.1

As to the identity of the Mark of Acts xii. 12, and the Marcus of 1 Pet. v. 13, see below, page xv.

a 2

I shall in another section of this Introduction put together the scattered notices which we have of his life; in this it is my intention, upon the assumption that S. Mark was really the author of the second Gospel, to say something concerning the connection between that Gospel and the Apostle Peter, to which attention will frequently be called in the following Commentary. Tradition, which assigns the authorship of the Gospel to S. Mark, no less certainly teaches that S. Peter was in some very decided manner connected with the authorship. The precise nature and extent of this connection have not been as yet settled beyond controversy by learned men, and it would be absurd to attempt a settlement in this place; it may be stated however that the controversy turns very much upon the meaning to be attached to a phrase, several times used concerning S. Mark, and which may be rendered the interpreter of Peter. Mark, according to a very general tradition, was the interpreter of Peter; but in what sense was he the interpreter? Was he an amanuensis or secretary? or was he one who translated the words of Peter from one language to another? or was he both?

These questions will be chiefly interesting to the readers of this volume as they are illustrated by the study of the Gospel itself. The readers whose wants I am chiefly endeavouring to meet are not likely to arrive at any satisfactory settlement of a difficult point, concerning which they will find competent authorities in conflict; but if they rise from the perusal of S. Mark's Gospel with the conviction that they have been in reality holding converse with S. Peter himself, that they have been listening to reports from an eyewitness, and that S. Mark, instead of being a collector of materials for the history of our Lord, is the mouthpiece of one of the most favoured of the Apostles, then they will feel that the connection of S. Mark with S. Peter is not a merely antiquarian curiosity, but a point of very living interest. Let a man's view of inspiration be what

it may, he can hardly regard it as a matter of indifference whether Peter left behind him his own record of our Lord's life or not; and with reference to the objections which have been too frequently made of late years to the character of the Gospels, as trustworthy records of what Jesus did and taught, the intimate connection of Peter with the authorship of one of them is a consideration of first-rate magnitude.

I would venture to put before the reader the following view as at least probable. S. Peter in all probability committed to writing memoranda of his Master's life; or, if they were not committed to writing, there might be certain portions upon which he chiefly dwelt and which he made the subject of his oral teaching; the history of the Lord's life thus given by S. Peter seems to have been translated into Greek from the Syro-Chaldaic, in which Peter wrote or delivered it, by S. Mark. I think that the phenomena of the Gospels require us to suppose that the substance of S. Mark's Gospel existed at one time in a written form in the Syro-Chaldaic language of S. Peter,-whether committed to writing by S. Peter himself, or put on record by S. Mark as his secretary, matters not; but I think also that the whole Gospel in its finished connected form never existed in that language, but only in the Greek of S. Mark, as we now have it.

I do not suppose that this view will meet with general acceptation; I only set it down as that, which, after a good deal of consideration, appears to me the most probable approximate solution of a question which is not likely ever to be answered completely. I am not anxious to persuade my readers to adopt it; if they can find a better, let them do so; I am much more anxious to make them see that the complete clearing up of the difficulty is not a matter of very much importance, while the recognition of S. Peter's intimate connection with the Gospel in some way or other undoubtedly is so. And I wish them to perceive that the want of a theory concerning S. Peter's authorship,

which shall be entirely free from cavil, need not preclude them from recognising S. Peter's hand continually throughout the narrative, and enjoying the feeling of satisfaction which will almost certainly arise from the conviction that they have in their hands the memoirs of S. Peter himself.

It should be added, that, although it is impossible for any careful reader not to perceive that the Gospel according to S. Mark is in some way intimately connected with S. Peter, it is not so easy to explain upon this supposition all the phenomena of the Gospel. I mean that in examining the facts and conversations which S. Mark has recorded, and noting those which from the other Gospels we perceive that he has omitted, it is not easy by referring to S. Peter as the virtual author of the work to say in all cases why this was inserted and that passed over. For examples: it may seem strange that the walking on the water, the blessing pronounced upon S. Peter on occasion of his famous confession of Jesus as the Son of God, and the miracle of the coin in the mouth of the fish, should all have been omitted from this Gospel. I have endeavoured in the Commentary to suggest in some cases reasons for such omissions, but I do not lay any great stress upon the reasons. I think it much more important to observe, that the Gospel of S. Mark has no appearance of having been written in accordance with any preconceived notion of what was likely or unlikely to come from the mouth or pen of S. Peter; if a dishonest person had written the book with the intention of giving it to the world in the name and under the authority of S. Peter, I feel confident that the work would have been very different from that which by God's providence has come into our possession. S. Peter's hand is in it beyond all question, but how his hand was applied, and to what extent the Gospel is his, cannot be put beyond doubt; and this very uncertainty is the best pledge that can possibly be given of the truth of that, which after all is the important point, namely, that