22.  Ancient tradition favors the idea that Mark wrote his gospel in Rome.  Had he written in Egypt, as Chrysostom thinks, we can hardly suppose that Clement of Alexandria would have been ignorant of the fact, as his testimony shows that he was.  In respect to date, the accounts of the ancients differ so much among themselves that it is difficult to arrive at any definite conclusion.  We may probably place it between A.D. 64 and 70.  The language in which Mark wrote was Greek.  This is attested by the united voice of antiquity.  The subscriptions annexed to some manuscripts of the Old Syriac, and that in the Philoxenian Syriac version, to the effect that Mark wrote in Roman, that is, in Latin, are of no authority.  They are the conjectures of ignorant men, who inferred from the fact that Mark wrote in Rome that he must have used the Latin tongue.

The story of the pretended Latin autograph of Mark’s gospel preserved in the Library of St. Mark at Venice is now exploded.  The manuscript to which this high honor was assigned is part of the Codex Forojuliensis, which gives the text of the Latin Vulgate.  The text was edited by Blanchini in the appendix to his Evangeliarium Quadruplex, Fourfold Gospel.  The gospel of Mark having been cut out and removed to Venice was exalted to be the autograph of Mark.  See Tregelles in Horne, vol. 4, chap. 23.  The fact that Mark wrote out of Palestine and for Gentile readers at once accounts for the numerous explanatory clauses by which his gospel is distinguished from that of Matthew.  Examples are:  chaps. 7:3, 4; 12:42; 13:3; 14:12; 15:42; and the frequent interpretations of Aramaean words:  3:17; 5:41; 7:11, 34; 10:46; 14:36; 15:34.

23.  The opening words of Matthew’s gospel are:  “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham,” by which, as already remarked, he indicates his purpose to show that Jesus of Nazareth is the long promised Messiah of David’s line, and the seed of Abraham, in whom all nations are to be blessed.  Mark, on the contrary, passing by our Lord’s genealogy, commences thus:  “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  He recognizes him, indeed as the son of David, and the promised Messiah and king of Israel.  Chaps. 10:47, 48; 11:10; 15:32.  But, writing among Gentiles and for Gentiles, the great fact which he is intent on setting forth is the person and character of Jesus as the Son of God.  Matthew gives special attention to the Saviour’s discourses.  With these considerably more than a third of his gospel is occupied.  Mark, on the contrary, devotes himself mainly to the narrative of our Lord’s works.  With this is interwoven a multitude of his sayings; since it was the Saviour’s custom to teach in connection with surrounding incidents.  But if we compare the set discourses of our Lord recorded by Mark with those which Matthew gives, they will hardly amount to a fifth part in quantity.  Between the narrative parts of Matthew and Mark, on the contrary, there is not a very great disparity in respect to the space occupied by each.