occasion required, but not as one who was composing an orderly account of our Lord’s words.  Mark, therefore, committed no error when he thus wrote down certain things as he remembered them.  For he was careful of one thing, to omit nothing of the things which he heard and to make no false statements concerning them.”  These words of Papias are somewhat loose and indefinite.  But, when fairly interpreted, they seem to mean that as Peter taught according to the necessities of each occasion, not aiming to give a full history of our Lord in chronological order, so Mark wrote not all things pertaining to our Lord’s life and ministry, but certain things, those namely that he had learned from Peter’s discourses, without always observing the strict order of time.  We need not press the words “in order” and “certain things,” as if Papias meant to say that Mark’s gospel is only a loose collection of fragments.  It is a connected and self-consistent whole; but it does not profess to give in all cases the exact chronological order of events, nor to be an exhaustive account of our Saviour’s life and teachings.  Eusebius has preserved for us in his Ecclesiastical History the testimony of Irenaeus on the same point (Hist.  Eccl., 5. 8); also of Clement of Alexandria (Hist.  Eccl., 6.14); and of Origen (Hist.  Eccl., 6. 25).  He also gives his own (Hist.  Eccl., 2. 5).  We have besides these, the statements of Tertullian (Against Marcion, 6. 25); and Jerome (Epist. ad Hedib.  Quaest., 2).  All these witnesses, though not consistent among themselves in respect to several minor details, yet agree in respect to the two great facts, (1) that Mark was the companion of Peter and had a special relation to him, (2) that he was the author of the gospel which bears his name.  We add from Meyer (Introduction to Commentary on Mark) the following exposition of the word interpreter as applied to Mark in his relation to Peter:  “No valid ground of doubt can be alleged against it, provided only we do not understand the idea contained in the word interpreter to mean that Peter, not having sufficient mastery of the Greek, delivered his discourses in Aramaean, and had them interpreted by Mark into Greek; but rather that the office of a secretary is indicated, who wrote down the oral communications of his apostle (whether from dictation, or in the freer exercise of his own activity) and so became in the way of writing his interpreter to others.”

Mark’s connection with the apostle Paul, though interrupted by the incident recorded in the Acts of the Apostles (15:37-39), was afterwards renewed and he restored to the apostle’s confidence, as is manifest from the way in which he notices him.  Col. 4:10; 2 Tim. 4:11.  If, as is probable (see below, No. 22), Mark wrote between A.D. 60 and 70, his long intimacy with Peter and Paul qualified him in a special manner for his work.