Chap. and Ver. 8. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, prefer an unwise and selfish request, and are faithfully dealt with . . 9. When the rest of the disciples knew what James and John had been asking, they were incensed; but Jesus unfolded the true glory of man, the glory of ministering and giving . 10. The company reaches Jericho, where Jesus restores sight to Bartimæus, a blind beggar . 11. The company reached Bethany, and two disciples are despatched to Bethphage to obtain a colt . 12. The colt is brought, and Jesus, riding on it, enters Jerusalem triumphally. 13. He returns in the evening to Bethany. 14. Coming in next day to Jerusalem, He sought figs on a leafy fig tree. Finding none, He invokes a blight on the tree. 15. He enters the temple and purifies it 16. The scribes and chief priests were intensely offended, and plotted how they might destroy Him' 17. In the evening He left the city; and next morning 18. A forgiving spirit must be joined with prayer x. 35-10 x. 41-45 x. 46-52 xi. 1-6 xi. 7-11 xi. 11 xi. 12-14 xi. 15-17 xi. 18 xi. 19-24 xi. 25, 26 xi. 27, 28 20. Jesus asked them a preliminary question, which they .. 22. The authorities were enraged, and sought to arrest Him, but feared the people 23. They then sent Pharisees and Herodians to get Him entrapped politically, if possible, in His words, but He saw through the manoeuvre and confounded His interrogators 24. Some Sadducees then tried to overthrow Him in argument; but they too were utterly foiled and nonplussed 25. A scribe asked Him which is the first commandment of all; and was delighted with the answer 26. None dared to interrogate Him any more xi. 29-33 xii. 1-11 xii. 12 xii. 13-17 xii. 18-27 xii. 28-34 xii. 34 27. Jesus exposed the shallowness of the scribes' teach 29. He noted the great liberality of a poor widow in giving 30. Sitting on the mount of Olives with His disciples He both nearer and more remote. 33. Some were offended at the waste of the ointment,' 34. When Jesus had vindicated the woman and rebuked the grumblers, Judas went to the chief priests to 35. Jesus observed the passover with His disciples; made 37. Peter expressed his confidence that he at least would not be stumbled. Jesus tells him that before the cock crowed twice he would be guilty of a triple 38. The agony in Gethsemane allowed Himself to be arrested 40. His disciples all forsake Him and flee. . xiii. 1-37 xiv. 1, 2 xiv. 4-10 xiv. 12-25 xiv. 26-28 xiv. 31-42 39. The traitor comes with his company, and Jesus xiv. 43-49 xiv. 50 xiv. 51, 52 xiv. 51 41. A young man is aroused out of bed as the noisy com- 42. Jesus is taken to the high priest's house to be 43. Peter follows afar off, and gets into the court of the 44. Jesus is accused, but could not be convicted. In answer to the high priest's adjuration, He con- 47. Peter thrice denies his Lord 48. In the morning the sanhedrim, after a hurried meet- 49. Pilate saw no evidence of criminality, and wished to xiv. 66-72 XV. 1 to ask Barabbas instead, and to demand that Jesus 51. He is led off to be crueified, and Simon of Cyrene is Chap. and Ver. Xv. 2-14 XV. 15-19 xv. 20, 21 xv. 22-28 52. He is crucified on Golgotha between two robbers 54. It is darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour; and 55. The veil of the temple was rent 56. The Roman centurion was awed, and felt convinced 57. The holy women were looking on afar off of which a stone was rolled 59. Two of the holy women behold where He was laid IV. THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS ON THE THIRD DAY AFTER HIS DECEASE. Chap. xvi. 1. After the sabbath, some of the women come to the xv. 29-32 xv. 33-37 XV. 38 XV. 39 xv. 40, 41 xv. 42-46 xv. 47 2. They are concerned about the great stone; but when 3. As they enter the sepulchre, an angel informs them 4. The women run to fulfil their errand 7. Afterward, He appeared to the eleven as they sat at 10. His apostles were faithful to their commission, and xvi. 14 xvi. 15-18 xvi. 19 xvi. 20 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. CHAPTER I. 1 THE beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of CHAPTER I. VER. 1. Beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The absence of the article shows that the expression is a kind of Title. Some have thought, indeed, that the evangelist intended it to be the title of his entire work. But on that hypothesis the word Beginning seems awkward. Alexander would interpret thus, This is the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or, Here begins the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Klostermann thinks that all the events of the public life of Christ were but the beginning of the Gospel. The contents of the immediately succeeding verses, however, prove that the evangelist was thinking of events that were preliminary to the public life of Christ. He is going back, in retrospect, to the dispensation of the Saviour's forerunner; and, in the events of that dispensation, he finds the Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course he might have gone further back still, and found other fountains, the feeders of the fountain at which he pauses. Or he might have continued to ascend till he reached the absolute Beginning, the Fountain of fountains. His purpose, however, was served by taking up his position beside the things that were the immediate antecedents of the public career of our Lord. When he calls these things the Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he was not so much thinking, as Petter and Bengel properly remark, of a Title for his book, or even of a Heading for its initial section, as of the actual commencement in time of the things themselves, which he proceeds to specify. As his thoughts, however, and the words which were their vestures, were to him the mere subjective mirrorings of the objective historical realities on which his gaze was fixed, they became, as he detained them in the presence of his consciousness, a kind of indistinct Title,-the expression the Gospel of Jesus Christ referring to the events of the life of the Saviour, as these are about to be narrated in the body of the following Memoirs, and the word Beginning referring to the introductory events of the career of John the Baptist, as represented in the few initial sentences which commence with ver. 4, and merge and melt into the greater history at ver. 9-11. It would be assuming an unnatural involu. tion were we, with Lachmann, to throw ver. 2 and 3 into a parenthesis, and to connect ver. 1 and 4 in such a manner that ver. 1 supplied the nominative God; 2 as it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my to the verb in ver. 4,—(The) beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God's Son, was John baptizing in the wilderness, etc. The genitive expression of Jesus Christ is, as grammarians phrase it, the genitive of the object, not the genitive of the subject; thus making the meaning of the whole expression to be the good news concerning Jesus Christ, not the good news proclaimed by Jesus Christ. It is true that Jesus Christ did proclaim His own gospel; but He is here represented as the Sum and Substance of the gospel which both He and His apostles proclaimed. See Rom. i. 1-3, 9, 16. Jesus Christ: the finely significant proper name of our Lord. He was called Jesus, because He was a Saviour. (See Matt. i. 21.) He was called Christ or Messiah, because He filled the office of Saviourhood by sovereign appointment. The Divine Father appointed Him, and hence as it were anointed Him. The word Christ is Greek; the word Messiah is Hebrew: and both the terms mean Anointed. There was poured out on our Lord, anointingly, by the hand of the Father, all that was needed to fit Him to be a Saviour. Great officers in church and state, among the Jews, and kings emphatically, were installed in their offices by anointing. Jesus, as the King of kings, had His anointing. The Son of God. Or, more literally, and as Sir John Cheke gives it, God's Son. Our Lord, in His life on earth, had claimed to be at once the Christ and God's Son. He was condemned by the Jewish Sanhedrim for insisting on the claim. (See Mark xiv. 61-64; comp. Matt. xxvi. 63-66.) His resurrection sublimely verified the legitimacy of His claim, and instamped an imperishable significancy on the double designation. Hence it was exceedingly appropriate in Mark to prefix to his Memoirs the twofold appellation. It has been doubted, however, whether the words God's Son were in the autograph text of the evangelist. Tischendorf has omitted them in his eighth edition. Schenkel assumes that the omission is correct. They are not found in the original Sinaitic manuscript (N*); and they are wanting in an important quotation of the passage by Irenæus (iii. 11), as also in five distinct quotations of Origen. But, on the other hand, they are found in all the early versions, and, with the exception of the original Sinaitic, in all the best manuscripts. They are found, likewise, in two passages of Irenæus. And indeed it seems to us that, in the other passage where they are omitted, they should be found. The preceding context seems to demand their presence. On the whole it is probable that the words are genuine, and that their omission in the quotations of so many of the early Fathers is to be accounted for on the principle, that the Fathers, in their references, used the freedom, for brevity's sake, of dropping out of view unessential clauses. And hence, indeed, Epiphanius, in quoting the passage before us, omits even the preceding words of Jesus Christ, and connects at once the words of the second verse with the expression Beginning of the Gospel. (Hæres., li. 6, p. 427, ed. 1682.) We do not pause to unfold here the theological significancy of the designation, God's Son. As applied to our Lord, it involves the great idea, that He had in Him a higher nature than man's. He was of one nature with God. Man needed a Divine Saviour. VER. 2. As it is written, or, more literally, As it has been written. Some |