St Mark and the Order of the Gospels

Today we celebrate the memory of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark. It is interesting and instructive to read the earliest recorded traditions about St Mark and the origins of his Gospel, all of which agree that the author of the second canonical Gospel was the companion of the Apostle Peter mentioned in I Pet. 5:13 (The church that is in Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you, and so doth Marcus my son).

Papias (60-130), bishop of Hieropolis (whom St Irenaeus recalls as "an ancient man who was a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp"), writes:

This also the presbyter [John] said: Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord's discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely. (Cited in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3.39.15.)

Later Clement of Alexandria (150-215) confirms this tradition. He writes the following, based on the tradition he heard from an early presbyter in Alexandria, concerning the order in which the Gospels were written:

The Gospels containing the genealogies were written first. The Gospel according to Mark had this occasion. As Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them out. And having composed the Gospel he gave it to those who had requested it. When Peter learned of this, he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it. But, last of all, John, perceiving that the external facts had been made plain in the Gospel, being urged by his friends, and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel. (Cited in Eusebius, EH, 6.14.6-7.)

St Irenaeus (c.115-202) writes:

Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia. (Against Heresies, 3.1.1.)

Origen (c. 185- c.254) writes:

Among the four Gospels, which are the only indisputable ones in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the first was written by Matthew, who was once a publican, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, and it was prepared for the converts from Judaism, and published in the Hebrew language. The second is by Mark, who composed it according to the instructions of Peter, who in his Catholic epistle acknowledges him as a son, saying, 'The church that is at Babylon elected together with you, salutes you, and so does Marcus, my son.' [1 Peter 5:13] And the third by Luke, the Gospel commended by Paul, and composed for Gentile converts. Last of all that by John. (Cited in Eusebius, EH, 6.25.4-6.)

Two centuries later, the Blessed Augustine (354-430) writes:

Now, those four evangelists whose names have gained the most remarkable circulation over the whole world, and whose number has been fixed as four—it may be for the simple reason that there are four divisions of that world through the universal length of which they, by their number as by a kind of mystical sign, indicated the advancing extension of the Church of Christ—are believed to have written in the order which follows: first Matthew, then Mark, thirdly Luke, lastly John [...] For Matthew is understood to have taken it in hand to construct the record of the incarnation of the Lord according to the royal lineage, and to give an account of most part of His deeds and words as they stood in relation to this present life of men. Mark follows him closely, and looks like his attendant and epitomizer. (Harmony of the Gospels, 1.2.3-4.)

What is perhaps most striking for the modern reader is that each of these authorities (with the exception of Papias, who is silent on the issue) writes that the Gospel of St Mark was written after that of St Matthew. Now, anyone who has taken a college course on the New Testament or read a single work of modern New Testament scholarship will recall that today it is nearly a point of dogma that St Mark's Gospel was the first to be written; this is the basic premise of nearly every modern attempt to solve the so-called synoptic problem. But it remains a stubborn fact that no one until the nineteenth century questioned that the Gospel of St Matthew, and not of St Mark, was written first. What exactly we should do with this information is a more difficult question, and one that I'm not competent to answer. If we are to take the authority of the ancient witnesses seriously – and I am convinced we should – then at the very least we should not accept the reigning (and admittedly elegant) two-source hypothesis (or hypotheses) without first giving serious thought to the witness of a tradition that dates back to the very origins of Christianity. For more on this question, see the Wiki entry on the Augustinian Hypothesis.

UPDATE: Kevin Edgecomb recommends Stephen Carlson's website for a "remarkably clear and helpful description of the Synoptic Problem." For more on the Griesbach Hypothesis (also known as the Two Gospel Hypothesis, which closely resembles the model proposed by Clement of Alexandria above, differing somewhat from the Augustinian Hypothesis, and is endorsed by Kevin and Esteban in the comments below) see here, here, and here.