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CyrilSebastian
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Once the four canonical Gospels were written, was the placement in order always: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John?
:bible1::bible1::bible1:
:bible1::bible1::bible1:
- Status
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thistle
Guest
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SonCatcher
Guest
As far as I’m aware, all ancient collections kept them in that order. The tradition was that they were kept in the order they were written (Matthew first), though current scholarship indicates Mark was actually written before Matthew as we have received it today.
The reason for the discrepancy is a matter of speculation. For example, perhaps Matthew wrote first in Aramaic and when the importance of the Greek-speaking community became apparent he re-wrote it in Greek, using Mark as a guide (so he wouldn’t have to translate large swaths). It is known that the NT writers quoted from the Septuagint. It would make sense for Matthew to do the same.
The epistles, however, were ordered according to author, recipient and length.
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patrick457
Guest
That’s the standard order, yes. But there’s an alternative order which puts the two apostles first (Matthew-John), followed by the other two in order of length, from longest to shortest (Luke-Mark). This is the so-called ‘Western order’ of the gospels, because of its frequency in early Latin manuscripts and writers and churches in the western Mediterranean. Our standard order (Matthew-Mark-Luke-John), on the other hand, was more common in the East. AFAIK it was St. Jerome who was instrumental in spreading the Eastern order to the West and making it the standard order.
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JohnR77
Guest
Hi,
St. Augustine groups Matthew and John together in an order of dignity (not as a chronological order of having been written.) because they were the only Apostles to write. He states
gives us one of the earliest accounts as to how the Gospels were written.
Matthew and then Luke were the first written.
defendingthebride.com/ss/mark/fathers.html
So, the order of writing was
Matthew, Luke, Mark, John.
However, the order of publication was
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
So, the early churches filled their libraries in that order. Read more at
defendingthebride.com/ss/mark/
.
St. Augustine groups Matthew and John together in an order of dignity (not as a chronological order of having been written.) because they were the only Apostles to write. He states
“But as respects the task of composing that record of the gospel which is to be accepted as ordained by divine authority, there were (only) two, belonging to the number of those whom the Lord chose before the passover, that obtained places—namely, the first place and the last. For the first place in order was held by Matthew, and the last by John.” http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1602102.htm
Clement of Alexandria (c 150-215)
gives us one of the earliest accounts as to how the Gospels were written.
Matthew and then Luke were the first written.
defendingthebride.com/ss/mark/fathers.html
So, the order of writing was
Matthew, Luke, Mark, John.
However, the order of publication was
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
So, the early churches filled their libraries in that order. Read more at
defendingthebride.com/ss/mark/
.
C
CyrilSebastian
Guest
Code:
In How the Synoptic Problem was solved, it was interesting to learn:
It was realized that the acceptance of the Markan priorty theory would destroy the reliability of the ancient historians and the Gospel writers and thereby undermine Christianity.
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patrick457
Guest
Just to fill in:
Clement of Alexandria does seem to attest to a Matthew-Luke-Mark order for the synoptics - which was claimed as “a tradition which he had received from the elders before him.” This is actually a quote from Eusebius’ Church History, where he provides an extract of what Clement wroe:
Again, in the same books Clement has set down a tradition which he had received from the elders before him, in regard to the order of the Gospels, to the following effect. He says that the Gospels containing the genealogies were written first, and that the Gospel according to Mark was composed in the following circumstances:—
But the thing is, he is really the only one from antiquity we know of that attests to this idea. Virtually every other ancient source other than Clement we have which do refer to or write about the order of the composition and publication of the gospels always seem to advocate the standard sequence of Matthew-Mark-Luke. (Personally, I don’t find the attempts of some people to find other supposed sources claiming a Matthew-Luke-Mark order or explaining away the sources which apparently refer to the order of Matthew-Mark-Luke as referring to the ‘order of publication’ rather than ‘order of composition’ to be very convincing. In fact I would say that IMHO their attempts to invoke stuff like the Western order of the gospels and the ‘Lukan jump’ of the Byzantine lectionary is somewhat contrived and circumstantial.)
As Jimmy Akin points out here, Clement’s explanation itself has a crucial difference with the Griesbach-Farmer theory (the theory advocated in the link thistle provided). Griesbachians hold that Mark’s gospel is a combination and an abridged version of Matthew and Luke - or in one version, that Peter did so and Mark had transcribed what Peter had composed/abridged. But what Clement says is slightly different, which is that Mark wrote it apparently without Peter’s direct involvement, because “he remembered what had been said” by Peter in his preaching.
In fact, there is even the question of whether Clement was really referring to the chronological order the gospels were published at all. Stephen Carlson in his article Clement of Alexandria on the Order of the Gospels actually argues that we’ve been reading the whole thing wrong. The word “written first” in the phrase “the Gospels containing the genealogies were written first” (just to remind you, this isn’t Clement directly speaking but Eusebius’ paraphrase of what Clement probably wrote) in Greek is progregraphthai (προγεγράφθαι); Carlson argues that while the word is usually translated and understood in the temporal sense, it is more possible that the other possible meaning of the word is intended here - “to write before the public.” (Progegraphthai is actually the word commonly used to describe public notices or proclamations.)
Hence, Clement (or rather, Eusebius paraphrasing Clement) is not so much saying that “the gospels containing the genealogies” (i.e. Matthew and Luke) were chronologically the first to be written, but rather, that those gospels were “written before the public;” in other words, these two gospels were targeted towards all Christians, not just to a specific segment or community. (Interestingly, this goes against an element of that modern theory where specific gospels are traced to specific communities!
) Which would segue nicely with the quote Eusebius provided about Mark:
Peter having preached the word publicly at Rome, and by the Spirit proclaimed the Gospel, those who were present, who were numerous, entreated Mark, inasmuch as he had attended him from an early period, and remembered what had been said, to write down what had been spoken. On his composing the Gospel, he handed it to those who had made the request to him; which coming to Peter’s knowledge, he neither hindered nor encouraged.
If we go by this theory, Clement focused on the manner, not the time, in which Mark was written and disseminated. As per the story Clement received, Some of Peter’s audience wanted a record of Peter’s preaching and went to his associate Mark for it. Mark complied and circulated his gospel among them. When Peter found out about it, Peter did not stop or promote it. So Clement was making a contrast between Matthew and Luke (which were written for a wider audience) and Mark’s gospel (which was initially distributed to a limited number of people), without making any explicit statement as to the actual order of the gospel’s composition/publication.
Clement of Alexandria does seem to attest to a Matthew-Luke-Mark order for the synoptics - which was claimed as “a tradition which he had received from the elders before him.” This is actually a quote from Eusebius’ Church History, where he provides an extract of what Clement wroe:
Again, in the same books Clement has set down a tradition which he had received from the elders before him, in regard to the order of the Gospels, to the following effect. He says that the Gospels containing the genealogies were written first, and that the Gospel according to Mark was composed in the following circumstances:—
Code:
Peter having preached the word publicly at Rome, and by the Spirit proclaimed the Gospel, those who were present, who were numerous, entreated Mark, inasmuch as he had attended him from an early period, and remembered what had been said, to write down what had been spoken. On his composing the Gospel, he handed it to those who had made the request to him; which coming to Peter’s knowledge, he neither hindered nor encouraged. But John, the last of all, seeing that what was corporeal was set forth in the Gospels, on the entreaty of his intimate friends, and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel.As Jimmy Akin points out here, Clement’s explanation itself has a crucial difference with the Griesbach-Farmer theory (the theory advocated in the link thistle provided). Griesbachians hold that Mark’s gospel is a combination and an abridged version of Matthew and Luke - or in one version, that Peter did so and Mark had transcribed what Peter had composed/abridged. But what Clement says is slightly different, which is that Mark wrote it apparently without Peter’s direct involvement, because “he remembered what had been said” by Peter in his preaching.
In fact, there is even the question of whether Clement was really referring to the chronological order the gospels were published at all. Stephen Carlson in his article Clement of Alexandria on the Order of the Gospels actually argues that we’ve been reading the whole thing wrong. The word “written first” in the phrase “the Gospels containing the genealogies were written first” (just to remind you, this isn’t Clement directly speaking but Eusebius’ paraphrase of what Clement probably wrote) in Greek is progregraphthai (προγεγράφθαι); Carlson argues that while the word is usually translated and understood in the temporal sense, it is more possible that the other possible meaning of the word is intended here - “to write before the public.” (Progegraphthai is actually the word commonly used to describe public notices or proclamations.)
Hence, Clement (or rather, Eusebius paraphrasing Clement) is not so much saying that “the gospels containing the genealogies” (i.e. Matthew and Luke) were chronologically the first to be written, but rather, that those gospels were “written before the public;” in other words, these two gospels were targeted towards all Christians, not just to a specific segment or community. (Interestingly, this goes against an element of that modern theory where specific gospels are traced to specific communities!
) Which would segue nicely with the quote Eusebius provided about Mark:Peter having preached the word publicly at Rome, and by the Spirit proclaimed the Gospel, those who were present, who were numerous, entreated Mark, inasmuch as he had attended him from an early period, and remembered what had been said, to write down what had been spoken. On his composing the Gospel, he handed it to those who had made the request to him; which coming to Peter’s knowledge, he neither hindered nor encouraged.
If we go by this theory, Clement focused on the manner, not the time, in which Mark was written and disseminated. As per the story Clement received, Some of Peter’s audience wanted a record of Peter’s preaching and went to his associate Mark for it. Mark complied and circulated his gospel among them. When Peter found out about it, Peter did not stop or promote it. So Clement was making a contrast between Matthew and Luke (which were written for a wider audience) and Mark’s gospel (which was initially distributed to a limited number of people), without making any explicit statement as to the actual order of the gospel’s composition/publication.
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patrick457
Guest
Our earliest explicit source describing the authorship of the gospels is Papias, who lived around the early 2nd century and had contacts with people who knew the Apostles (or, if we identify ‘John the Elder’ with John the Apostle, then there’s also that connection.) His writings only exist in fragments; in particular, one (Exposition on the Oracles of the Lord) is partially quoted in Eusebius. Now what’s interesting is that Papias himself doesn’t explicitly identify which gospel was written first, although the way Eusebius quotes Papias, it seems that Papias described the circumstances of the composition of Mark’s gospel first before he described Matthew compiling the sayings of Jesus “in the Hebrew dialect.”
The Elder used to say: Mark, in his capacity as Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately as many things as he recalled from memory—though not in an ordered form—of the things either said or done by the Lord. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied him, but later, as I said, Peter, who used to give his teachings in the form of chreiai (a sort of brief anecdote about a particular person; could also sometimes be as short as a single statement by said person), but had no intention of providing an ordered arrangement of the logia (‘sayings’, ‘oracles’) of the Lord. Consequently Mark did nothing wrong when he wrote down some individual items just as he related them from memory. For he made it his one concern not to omit anything he had heard or to falsify anything.
…]
Therefore Matthew put the logia in an ordered arrangement in the Hebrew language, but each person interpreted them as best he could.
There are actually a minority of scholars who had the theory that Papias actually had Markan priority in mind here. The most recent of these is Francis Watson, who argues in his book Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective that Papias actually testifies to something like the so-called Farrer-Goulder theory (Mark first, no Q). According to Watson, Papias (based on the way he speaks of Mark writing his gospel first, then Matthew) believed Mark wrote first. Although at the same time, he thought Mark’s gospel was deficient in a way: it was ‘accurate’ (because he wrote everything he heard from Peter), but it was ‘not in order’. As per this interpretation, in contrast to Mark’s disordered account, Matthew improved upon Mark’s work by ‘ordering together’ the logia or sayings of Jesus (Watson thinks the word oun ‘so, therefore’ when the topic shifts from Mark to Matthew is key, implying Matthew wrote after Mark), and later gospel writers, in turn, used (‘interpreted’?) it for their gospels. (Luke claims in his prologue that he has written “an orderly account;” was it a light stab at the more ‘disordered’ gospels that preceded him and which he may have used?)
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patrick457
Guest
(Continued from the last post)
The first source to seemingly identify Matthew as writing first is St. Irenaeus, who also apparently made some (uncredited) use of Papias’ testimony, but at the same time put a different spin on the story in places and added more.
Matthew also published a gospel in writing among the Hebrews in their own language, while Peter & Paul were preaching the gospel and founding the church in Rome. But after their death, Mark, the disciple & interpreter of Peter, also transmitted to us in writing what Peter used to preach. And Luke, Paul’s associate, also set down in a book the gospel that Paul used to preach. Later, John, the Lord’s disciple — the one who lay on his lap — also set out the gospel while living at Ephesus in Asia Minor. (Against Heresies 3.1.1)
The only thing in Irenaeus’ statement that would lead someone to infer the chronological priority of Matthew is his attempt to link the canonical gospels with the activity of Peter and Paul. He claims that a Hebrew edition of this gospel was in circulation during the lifetime of the leading apostles, while the other two gospels were composed “after their death” - or more accurately, after their ‘departure’ or ‘exodus’. Some people will say that the Greek word exoden does not necessarily have to mean Peter’s and Paul’s deaths (although the word can have that euphemistic meaning in Christian usage); the statement might as well mean ‘after Peter and Paul left Rome’.
Now If you read closely, Irenaeus was not explicitly mentioning the order of composition of the synoptics. While he claims John wrote “later,” he lists Matthew, Mark and Luke with parallel grammatical conjunctions (“also…also…also”). Nor did he mention any literary relationship between the gospels. What we can only get from Irenaeus is:
(1) Matthew published “a gospel in writing among the Hebrews” while Peter and Paul was in Rome. Insterestingly, Irenaeus claims historical priority only for a Hebrew version of Matthew (which is no longer in existence) but does not mention anything about a Greek version of this work.
(2) When Peter and Paul ‘departed’ (died/left), Mark (Peter’s associate) and Luke (Paul’s associate) composed their gospels. No mention of which of the two came first.
(3) John was written “later.”
Irenaeus is worthy of mention because most or all the later writers that came after him are probably dependent in some way to his statement about the gospels.
But if, as mentioned, Papias did have Markan priority in mind (as Watson and at least a couple scholars before him claim), why then does Irenaeus reverse the sequence, giving priority to Matthew (a position it held permanently afterwards)? Those who hold this theory believe that this was motivated by theological reasons: Matthew was the only gospel in the synoptics believed to be written by an apostle himself - Mark and Luke, on the other hand, are second-generation writings. There’s also the popularity factor: Matthew and John, the two gospels attributed to two apostles, were - if we go by the number of manuscripts - the two most popular gospels in early Christianity. (Mark, on the other hand, was the least popular of the four - there are only two surviving manuscripts of it which predate the 4th century.) So Matthew was put first out of the three in order to increase its credibility and highlight its apostolic status. It was unthinkable after all for disciples of eyewitnesses to write before an actual eyewitness did.
The first source to seemingly identify Matthew as writing first is St. Irenaeus, who also apparently made some (uncredited) use of Papias’ testimony, but at the same time put a different spin on the story in places and added more.
Matthew also published a gospel in writing among the Hebrews in their own language, while Peter & Paul were preaching the gospel and founding the church in Rome. But after their death, Mark, the disciple & interpreter of Peter, also transmitted to us in writing what Peter used to preach. And Luke, Paul’s associate, also set down in a book the gospel that Paul used to preach. Later, John, the Lord’s disciple — the one who lay on his lap — also set out the gospel while living at Ephesus in Asia Minor. (Against Heresies 3.1.1)
The only thing in Irenaeus’ statement that would lead someone to infer the chronological priority of Matthew is his attempt to link the canonical gospels with the activity of Peter and Paul. He claims that a Hebrew edition of this gospel was in circulation during the lifetime of the leading apostles, while the other two gospels were composed “after their death” - or more accurately, after their ‘departure’ or ‘exodus’. Some people will say that the Greek word exoden does not necessarily have to mean Peter’s and Paul’s deaths (although the word can have that euphemistic meaning in Christian usage); the statement might as well mean ‘after Peter and Paul left Rome’.
Now If you read closely, Irenaeus was not explicitly mentioning the order of composition of the synoptics. While he claims John wrote “later,” he lists Matthew, Mark and Luke with parallel grammatical conjunctions (“also…also…also”). Nor did he mention any literary relationship between the gospels. What we can only get from Irenaeus is:
(1) Matthew published “a gospel in writing among the Hebrews” while Peter and Paul was in Rome. Insterestingly, Irenaeus claims historical priority only for a Hebrew version of Matthew (which is no longer in existence) but does not mention anything about a Greek version of this work.
(2) When Peter and Paul ‘departed’ (died/left), Mark (Peter’s associate) and Luke (Paul’s associate) composed their gospels. No mention of which of the two came first.
(3) John was written “later.”
Irenaeus is worthy of mention because most or all the later writers that came after him are probably dependent in some way to his statement about the gospels.
But if, as mentioned, Papias did have Markan priority in mind (as Watson and at least a couple scholars before him claim), why then does Irenaeus reverse the sequence, giving priority to Matthew (a position it held permanently afterwards)? Those who hold this theory believe that this was motivated by theological reasons: Matthew was the only gospel in the synoptics believed to be written by an apostle himself - Mark and Luke, on the other hand, are second-generation writings. There’s also the popularity factor: Matthew and John, the two gospels attributed to two apostles, were - if we go by the number of manuscripts - the two most popular gospels in early Christianity. (Mark, on the other hand, was the least popular of the four - there are only two surviving manuscripts of it which predate the 4th century.) So Matthew was put first out of the three in order to increase its credibility and highlight its apostolic status. It was unthinkable after all for disciples of eyewitnesses to write before an actual eyewitness did.
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patrick457
Guest
(Continued)
We go [to the so-called](http://www.textexcavation.com/lat(name removed by moderator)rologues.html) Anti-Marcionite prologues from the late 2nd century. The prologues follow the standard order Matthew-Mark-Luke-John. Unfortunately, the prologue for Matthew was completely lost, so our surviving text begins with Mark. The entry about Mark has some similarities with Irenaeus (Mark being an interpreter of Peter who heard Peter preach) and Clement of Alexandria (Mark writing his gospel at the behest of Roman Christians), but it also exhibits agreements with Irenaeus against Papias (Mark being thought to write after Peter ‘departed’, in contrast with Papias’ very much alive Peter) and original information (the bit about Mark being nicknamed Colobodactylus ‘Stubby-fingers’, him writing the gospel “in Italy” as opposed to Rome specifically). A longer version of the Markan prologue in Latin even has Peter explicily approving Mark’s gospel “by his own authority for the reading of the church,” which as we’ve seen contradicts the version of the story found in Clement of Alexandria, where Peter “neither hindered nor encouraged” what Mark was doing.
Now the prologue for Luke explicitly identifies Luke as being written after Matthew’s and Mark’s gospels were already written: “although gospels had already been written - indeed by Matthew in Judaea but by Mark in Italy - moved by the Holy Spirit he wrote down this gospel in the parts of Achaia, signifying in the preface that the others were written before his, but also that it was of the greatest importance for him to expound with the greatest diligence the whole series of events in his narration for the Greek believers, so that they would not be led astray by the lure of Jewish fables, or, seduced by the fables of the heretics and stupid solicitations, fall away from the truth.”
Now for Origen (184/185 - 253/254).
The first written (gospel) was that according to Matthew, who was once a toll-collector but later an apostle of Jesus Christ. He published it for those who became believers from Judaism, since it was composed in the Hebrew language.
The second was that according to Mark, who wrote it according to Peter’s instructions. Peter also acknowledged him as his son in his general letter, saying in these words: “She who is in Babylon, chosen with you, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark” (1 Pet. 5:13).
And the third was that according to Luke, who wrote for those who were from the Gentiles, the gospel that was praised by Paul.
And after them all, that according to John. (quoted by Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. 6.25)
Origen.
Origen explicitly claims that the soon-to-be-standard Eastern order of the gospels represented the chronological sequence in which they were composed. He also repeats some information we’ve already heard from Irenaeus and Papias (Matthew composed a gospel in “the Hebrew language”). But he also shows a possibledifference from Irenaeus and the Prologues in that Peter and Paul are implied to be still alive when Mark and Luke wrote down their gospels (Mark “wrote it according to Peter’s instructions;” Luke’s gospel “was praised by Paul”).
In fact, Origen somewhat contradicts his predecessor Clement and the longer version of the Markan Prologue; in both accounts, Mark was asked to write a gospel by Roman Christians (in Clement’s version, he even wrote without Peter knowing about it at first), but here, it is Peter himself who instructs Mark to write a gospel. Also note that Origen claims (like Papias or Irenaeus) that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, without saying anything about Greek versions of this gospel.
We skip a century to St. Jerome. Around 393 he wrote down De Viris Illustribus (Of Illustrious Men), a Christian Who’s Who designed to counter pagan claims that the Christian intellectual tradition was inferior to pagan philosophy. He also includes a biography of the gospel authors in it. Jerome says about Matthew:
Matthew – who was also (called) Levi – was an apostle and former tax-collector. He first composed the gospel of Christ in Hebrew letters and words in Judea for those from the circumcision who had believed. Who later translated (his gospel) into Greek, is not quite certain. Moreover, the Hebrew itself is still held today in the library at Caesarea (Maritima), which the martyr Pamphilus carefully put together. I also was able to make a copy from the Nazarenes, who use this volume in Beroea, a city in Syria.
He repeats the old formula we’ve seen since Irenaeus - Matthew wrote his gospel “in Hebrew letters” and that this gospel was the first to be written. Unlike his predecessors, though, he takes care to note the Greek version, saying that “it is not quite certain” who, translated ‘Hebrew’ Matthew and where and when it was translated. Jerome the Hebrew lover also claims that the manuscript of Hebrew Matthew was kept in the library of Caesarea Maritima and that he obtained a copy via the ‘Nazarenes’ - a Jewish Christian sect. He also occasionally quoted from what he believed to be Hebrew Matthew from time to time in his writings. (BTW, modern scholars mostly believe Jerome was duped; what he obtained from the Nazarenes is believed to be not the actual putative gospel written by Matthew himself but a Nazarene text which is probably a deritative of Greek Matthew.)
We go [to the so-called](http://www.textexcavation.com/lat(name removed by moderator)rologues.html) Anti-Marcionite prologues from the late 2nd century. The prologues follow the standard order Matthew-Mark-Luke-John. Unfortunately, the prologue for Matthew was completely lost, so our surviving text begins with Mark. The entry about Mark has some similarities with Irenaeus (Mark being an interpreter of Peter who heard Peter preach) and Clement of Alexandria (Mark writing his gospel at the behest of Roman Christians), but it also exhibits agreements with Irenaeus against Papias (Mark being thought to write after Peter ‘departed’, in contrast with Papias’ very much alive Peter) and original information (the bit about Mark being nicknamed Colobodactylus ‘Stubby-fingers’, him writing the gospel “in Italy” as opposed to Rome specifically). A longer version of the Markan prologue in Latin even has Peter explicily approving Mark’s gospel “by his own authority for the reading of the church,” which as we’ve seen contradicts the version of the story found in Clement of Alexandria, where Peter “neither hindered nor encouraged” what Mark was doing.
Now the prologue for Luke explicitly identifies Luke as being written after Matthew’s and Mark’s gospels were already written: “although gospels had already been written - indeed by Matthew in Judaea but by Mark in Italy - moved by the Holy Spirit he wrote down this gospel in the parts of Achaia, signifying in the preface that the others were written before his, but also that it was of the greatest importance for him to expound with the greatest diligence the whole series of events in his narration for the Greek believers, so that they would not be led astray by the lure of Jewish fables, or, seduced by the fables of the heretics and stupid solicitations, fall away from the truth.”
Now for Origen (184/185 - 253/254).
The first written (gospel) was that according to Matthew, who was once a toll-collector but later an apostle of Jesus Christ. He published it for those who became believers from Judaism, since it was composed in the Hebrew language.
The second was that according to Mark, who wrote it according to Peter’s instructions. Peter also acknowledged him as his son in his general letter, saying in these words: “She who is in Babylon, chosen with you, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark” (1 Pet. 5:13).
And the third was that according to Luke, who wrote for those who were from the Gentiles, the gospel that was praised by Paul.
And after them all, that according to John. (quoted by Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. 6.25)
Origen.
Origen explicitly claims that the soon-to-be-standard Eastern order of the gospels represented the chronological sequence in which they were composed. He also repeats some information we’ve already heard from Irenaeus and Papias (Matthew composed a gospel in “the Hebrew language”). But he also shows a possibledifference from Irenaeus and the Prologues in that Peter and Paul are implied to be still alive when Mark and Luke wrote down their gospels (Mark “wrote it according to Peter’s instructions;” Luke’s gospel “was praised by Paul”).
In fact, Origen somewhat contradicts his predecessor Clement and the longer version of the Markan Prologue; in both accounts, Mark was asked to write a gospel by Roman Christians (in Clement’s version, he even wrote without Peter knowing about it at first), but here, it is Peter himself who instructs Mark to write a gospel. Also note that Origen claims (like Papias or Irenaeus) that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, without saying anything about Greek versions of this gospel.
We skip a century to St. Jerome. Around 393 he wrote down De Viris Illustribus (Of Illustrious Men), a Christian Who’s Who designed to counter pagan claims that the Christian intellectual tradition was inferior to pagan philosophy. He also includes a biography of the gospel authors in it. Jerome says about Matthew:
Matthew – who was also (called) Levi – was an apostle and former tax-collector. He first composed the gospel of Christ in Hebrew letters and words in Judea for those from the circumcision who had believed. Who later translated (his gospel) into Greek, is not quite certain. Moreover, the Hebrew itself is still held today in the library at Caesarea (Maritima), which the martyr Pamphilus carefully put together. I also was able to make a copy from the Nazarenes, who use this volume in Beroea, a city in Syria.
He repeats the old formula we’ve seen since Irenaeus - Matthew wrote his gospel “in Hebrew letters” and that this gospel was the first to be written. Unlike his predecessors, though, he takes care to note the Greek version, saying that “it is not quite certain” who, translated ‘Hebrew’ Matthew and where and when it was translated. Jerome the Hebrew lover also claims that the manuscript of Hebrew Matthew was kept in the library of Caesarea Maritima and that he obtained a copy via the ‘Nazarenes’ - a Jewish Christian sect. He also occasionally quoted from what he believed to be Hebrew Matthew from time to time in his writings. (BTW, modern scholars mostly believe Jerome was duped; what he obtained from the Nazarenes is believed to be not the actual putative gospel written by Matthew himself but a Nazarene text which is probably a deritative of Greek Matthew.)
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patrick457
Guest
(Continued)
As for Mark, here’s what Jerome has to say:
Mark was a disciple and interpreter of Peter. Having been requested by the brethren in Rome, he wrote a brief Gospel just from what he heard Peter relate. When Peter heard this, he approved and published it on his own authority for reading in the churches, just as Clement wrote in the sixth book of his Outlines – also Papias, the bishop of Hierapolis. (De viris illus. 8)
Again, Jerome repeats the traditional statement since Irenaeus: Mark was “a disciple and interpreter of Peter.” What is interesting is that his version of events is a hybrid of what we’ve seen from the Anti-Marcionite Prologues and Clement: here it is the Christians of Rome who ask Mark to provide a record of Peter’s preaching (contra Origen), but unlike Clement (where Peter remains ambivalent about the matter), Peter explicitly approves what Mark was doing (but in agreement with the longer Latin version of the AMP - which itself might have probably been an interpolation influenced by Jerome - and Origen). Also note that contradicting Irenaeus and the AMP, Jerome’s Peter, like Origen’s and Clement’s, is still alive when Mark was writing his gospel.
Although Jerome credits his information about the composition of the gospel of Mark to Clement and Papias, it is uncertain whether he had read these authors himself. For one, his report simply summarizes the citations of these authors in Eusebius’s Church History (2.25.2, 3.39.14-15, & 6.14.5-7), which Jerome himself had translated into Latin. Not to mention that his claim that Peter approved Mark’s task contradicts what Clement actually said, and goes beyond what Papias had written. Jerome’s idea that Peter, the bishop of Rome, personally authorized the gospel of Mark for the use of other churches was probably influenced by his views on papal authority.
Jerome then goes on about Mark going to Alexandria and founding a church there (as an aside, he also has a slightly-inaccurate claim about Philo describing the church of Alexandria under Mark’s direction, perhaps based on a misunderstanding of Philo’s description of the Egyptian Jewish sect known as the Therapeutae), then claims that Mark died in “the eighth year of Nero” (AD 61) - which kind of creates problems for the dating of his alleged association with Peter, traditionally believed to have died during Nero’s persecution of Roman Christians (AD 64-67).
As for Luke:
Luke (was) a physician from Antioch. As his writings indicate, he was not ignorant of the Greek speech. As a follower of the apostle Paul and his companion in all his traveling, he wrote a gospel. About him Paul said: “We have sent with him the brother whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches” (2 Cor. 8:18); and to the Colossians: “Luke the dearest physician greets you” (4:14), and to Timothy: “Luke alone is with me” (2 Tim. 4:11)… Some suspect that whenever Paul says “according to my gospel” in his letters (e.g., Rom 16:23), he means Luke’s volume and that Luke was taught the gospel not only by Paul, who had not been with the Lord in the flesh, but also by the other apostles.
Jerome here solves a problem in the traditional account: Paul - the reputed source of Luke’s information - was not himself an eye-witness to the events Luke describes (which makes Luke third-generation). Jerome gets around the difficulty by suggesting that the information in the gospel of Luke was supplied by anonymous “other apostles.” Now although Jerome himself translated the gospels from Greek into Latin, he apparently never suspected that there was a direct literary relationship between the synoptic gospels. That was for St. Augustine to postulate.
As for Mark, here’s what Jerome has to say:
Mark was a disciple and interpreter of Peter. Having been requested by the brethren in Rome, he wrote a brief Gospel just from what he heard Peter relate. When Peter heard this, he approved and published it on his own authority for reading in the churches, just as Clement wrote in the sixth book of his Outlines – also Papias, the bishop of Hierapolis. (De viris illus. 8)
Again, Jerome repeats the traditional statement since Irenaeus: Mark was “a disciple and interpreter of Peter.” What is interesting is that his version of events is a hybrid of what we’ve seen from the Anti-Marcionite Prologues and Clement: here it is the Christians of Rome who ask Mark to provide a record of Peter’s preaching (contra Origen), but unlike Clement (where Peter remains ambivalent about the matter), Peter explicitly approves what Mark was doing (but in agreement with the longer Latin version of the AMP - which itself might have probably been an interpolation influenced by Jerome - and Origen). Also note that contradicting Irenaeus and the AMP, Jerome’s Peter, like Origen’s and Clement’s, is still alive when Mark was writing his gospel.
Although Jerome credits his information about the composition of the gospel of Mark to Clement and Papias, it is uncertain whether he had read these authors himself. For one, his report simply summarizes the citations of these authors in Eusebius’s Church History (2.25.2, 3.39.14-15, & 6.14.5-7), which Jerome himself had translated into Latin. Not to mention that his claim that Peter approved Mark’s task contradicts what Clement actually said, and goes beyond what Papias had written. Jerome’s idea that Peter, the bishop of Rome, personally authorized the gospel of Mark for the use of other churches was probably influenced by his views on papal authority.
Jerome then goes on about Mark going to Alexandria and founding a church there (as an aside, he also has a slightly-inaccurate claim about Philo describing the church of Alexandria under Mark’s direction, perhaps based on a misunderstanding of Philo’s description of the Egyptian Jewish sect known as the Therapeutae), then claims that Mark died in “the eighth year of Nero” (AD 61) - which kind of creates problems for the dating of his alleged association with Peter, traditionally believed to have died during Nero’s persecution of Roman Christians (AD 64-67).
As for Luke:
Luke (was) a physician from Antioch. As his writings indicate, he was not ignorant of the Greek speech. As a follower of the apostle Paul and his companion in all his traveling, he wrote a gospel. About him Paul said: “We have sent with him the brother whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches” (2 Cor. 8:18); and to the Colossians: “Luke the dearest physician greets you” (4:14), and to Timothy: “Luke alone is with me” (2 Tim. 4:11)… Some suspect that whenever Paul says “according to my gospel” in his letters (e.g., Rom 16:23), he means Luke’s volume and that Luke was taught the gospel not only by Paul, who had not been with the Lord in the flesh, but also by the other apostles.
Jerome here solves a problem in the traditional account: Paul - the reputed source of Luke’s information - was not himself an eye-witness to the events Luke describes (which makes Luke third-generation). Jerome gets around the difficulty by suggesting that the information in the gospel of Luke was supplied by anonymous “other apostles.” Now although Jerome himself translated the gospels from Greek into Latin, he apparently never suspected that there was a direct literary relationship between the synoptic gospels. That was for St. Augustine to postulate.
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patrick457
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(Continued)
Augustine wrote a work known as the Consensus of the Gospels, targeted against those who claimed discrepancies between Matthew, Mark, Luke and John invalidated their accounts - in that work, he gave possible harmonies and solutions to the ‘contradictions’ between the four gospels.
Augustine took for granted the order of the gospels was the order in which they were composed. ("Now, those four evangelists whose names have gained the most remarkable circulation over the whole world, and whose number has been fixed as four … are believed to have written in the order which follows: first Matthew, then Mark, thirdly Luke, lastly John. ") Moreover, he assumed that each writer had read the work of every predecessor. Thus, Augustine was the first to recognize a direct literary dependence of one synoptic gospel upon another. You might say that Augustine is to be credited/to be blamed for the development of the study of the synoptic problem.
Of these four, it is true, only Matthew is reckoned to have written in the Hebrew language; the others in Greek. Although each of these [gospel writers] may appear to preserve a certain order of narration proper to himself, this certainly should not be taken as though each individual writer chose to write in ignorance of what his predecessor had done, or left out things, which nonetheless another (gospel) is discovered to have recorded, as matters about which there was no information. Rather, the fact is that as each of them received the gift of inspiration, they abstained from adding to their distinct works any extra shared compositions. For Matthew is understood to have undertaken to construct the record of the incarnation of the Lord according to the royal lineage, and to give an account of most of His words and deeds as they relate to this present human life.
Mark follows him closely, and looks like his assistant and epitomizer. For in his narrative he gives nothing apart from the others that agrees with John. He has little to record distinctly on his own. He has still less in common with Luke that is distinct from the rest. But he has a very great number of passages in common with Matthew. He also narrates much in words almost the same in number and identity as those used by Matthew, where this agreement is either with that evangelist alone, or with him in connection with the rest.
Luke, on the other hand, appears to have been concerned instead with the priestly lineage and character of the Lord. For although in his own way he takes [Jesus’] descent back to David, he has followed not the royal pedigree, but the line of those who were not kings. He has also traced that genealogy to a point in David’s son Nathan, who likewise was no king. Yet, it was not so in Matthew. For in tracing the lineage through king Solomon, he has followed with strict regularity the succession of the other kings…
Augustine’s attempt to explain why Luke’s genealogy differed from the one in Matthew made him the first person to recognize that later gospels were creative revisions of earlier works. That is, gospels present not only additions to but deliberate alterations of their sources that reflect the themes stressed by their authors. In a way, Augustine gave birth to what would later become redaction criticism.
Of these four, it is true, only Matthew is reckoned to have written in the Hebrew language; the others in Greek. And however they may appear to have kept each of them a certain order of narration proper to himself, this certainly is not to be taken as if each individual writer chose to write in ignorance of what his predecessor had done…
According to Augustine’s scenario: (1) Matthew, the first gospel, wrote the basic story of Jesus’ human life; (2) Mark condensed Matthew (the infamous idea of Mark being sidelined as Matthew’s “attendant and abbreviator”); then (3) Luke edited Matthew and Mark, omitting passages they covered. Finally, (4) John wrote to fill in what the others omitted.
Augustine wrote a work known as the Consensus of the Gospels, targeted against those who claimed discrepancies between Matthew, Mark, Luke and John invalidated their accounts - in that work, he gave possible harmonies and solutions to the ‘contradictions’ between the four gospels.
Augustine took for granted the order of the gospels was the order in which they were composed. ("Now, those four evangelists whose names have gained the most remarkable circulation over the whole world, and whose number has been fixed as four … are believed to have written in the order which follows: first Matthew, then Mark, thirdly Luke, lastly John. ") Moreover, he assumed that each writer had read the work of every predecessor. Thus, Augustine was the first to recognize a direct literary dependence of one synoptic gospel upon another. You might say that Augustine is to be credited/to be blamed for the development of the study of the synoptic problem.
Of these four, it is true, only Matthew is reckoned to have written in the Hebrew language; the others in Greek. Although each of these [gospel writers] may appear to preserve a certain order of narration proper to himself, this certainly should not be taken as though each individual writer chose to write in ignorance of what his predecessor had done, or left out things, which nonetheless another (gospel) is discovered to have recorded, as matters about which there was no information. Rather, the fact is that as each of them received the gift of inspiration, they abstained from adding to their distinct works any extra shared compositions. For Matthew is understood to have undertaken to construct the record of the incarnation of the Lord according to the royal lineage, and to give an account of most of His words and deeds as they relate to this present human life.
Mark follows him closely, and looks like his assistant and epitomizer. For in his narrative he gives nothing apart from the others that agrees with John. He has little to record distinctly on his own. He has still less in common with Luke that is distinct from the rest. But he has a very great number of passages in common with Matthew. He also narrates much in words almost the same in number and identity as those used by Matthew, where this agreement is either with that evangelist alone, or with him in connection with the rest.
Luke, on the other hand, appears to have been concerned instead with the priestly lineage and character of the Lord. For although in his own way he takes [Jesus’] descent back to David, he has followed not the royal pedigree, but the line of those who were not kings. He has also traced that genealogy to a point in David’s son Nathan, who likewise was no king. Yet, it was not so in Matthew. For in tracing the lineage through king Solomon, he has followed with strict regularity the succession of the other kings…
Augustine’s attempt to explain why Luke’s genealogy differed from the one in Matthew made him the first person to recognize that later gospels were creative revisions of earlier works. That is, gospels present not only additions to but deliberate alterations of their sources that reflect the themes stressed by their authors. In a way, Augustine gave birth to what would later become redaction criticism.
Of these four, it is true, only Matthew is reckoned to have written in the Hebrew language; the others in Greek. And however they may appear to have kept each of them a certain order of narration proper to himself, this certainly is not to be taken as if each individual writer chose to write in ignorance of what his predecessor had done…
According to Augustine’s scenario: (1) Matthew, the first gospel, wrote the basic story of Jesus’ human life; (2) Mark condensed Matthew (the infamous idea of Mark being sidelined as Matthew’s “attendant and abbreviator”); then (3) Luke edited Matthew and Mark, omitting passages they covered. Finally, (4) John wrote to fill in what the others omitted.
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patrick457
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(Last post!)
Nobody dared question Augustine until the 18th century, when a German scholar named J. B. Koppe pointed out that Augustine was wrong in claiming that (1) Mark was simply Matthew’s abbreviator, and (2) the text of Mark had little in common with Luke (in fact, Mark often deviated from Matthew’s wording, and Luke regularly preferred Mark’s version). Based on these ideas, theologian Johann Jakob Griesbach formulated his own theory, which proposed that perhaps, Mark was abbreviating both Matthew and Luke. Griesbach’s theory was soon preferred by most German Protestant scholars, but there were those who doubted that his picture of Mark being simply a sort of ancient Reader’s Digest really reflected how ancient scribes and oral tradition worked.
Soon, Griesbach’s theory was ditched in favor of a new theory which combined the ideas of Markan priority and the idea of a proto-gospel (named after Papias’ logia as the ‘Logia-source’, in German Logienquelle - Quelle or Q for short). The reason for the eventual rejection of Griesbach’s idea has a number of reasons. One is because at that time, Markan priority was seen as a stronger defense to the historicity of the gospels than Matthean priority was. (Confused? The logic goes like this: during the 18th century, the current idea was that Matthew was written after the period of the eyewitnesses; so for the people at that time, assuming that Matthew was written first and that the other gospels were based on it was felt to make the historicity of the gospels suspect.) Griesbach’s theory was really stigmatized because prominent members of the (in)famous Tübingen school (such as David Strauss and his teacher Ferdinand Christian Baur) used it to develop their theories which resulted in radical skepticism about the gospels’ historical reliability. So the reason why Markan priority and the two-source hypothesis came to the fore was probably because it satisfied a theological need: over against the Matthean priority proposed by Griesbach’s theory championed by the ultra-skeptical Tübingen school, those who argued for the reliability of the gospels championed Mark and Q instead. So for more than a century, Griesbach’s theory was left to dust, until in the 1960s, a Methodist minister and scholar named William Farmer rediscovered it, soon to be joined in the 1970s (for the Catholic side) by Dom Bernard Orchard.
(Now much has been made of the Kulturkampf’s (1871-8) propagandistic, anti-Catholic use of the Markan priority-Q theory - which are really two separate theories, developed at different times; ‘Markan priority’ does not equal ‘two-source hypothesis’ - since it ostensibly helped negate one of the well-known Catholic proof-texts: Matthew 16:18, both theories existed even before the Kulturkampf and are originally neutral. To me, the whole “One should reject the two-source hypothesis because the Kulturkampf used it” argument one might encounter - and I encounter it from time to time! - is about as convincing as “Using incense in worship is bad because pagans used it” or “Nobody should use this invention because its inventor was a drug addict.” We might as well throw away our Caravaggios - Caravaggio was a brawler and a murderer.
)
So to sum, as far as we can tell, our earliest explicit source for the idea that Matthew was first was Irenaeus (Papias, our earliest source for the traditions about the authorship of the gospels, is too ambiguous), while the earliest sources explicitly saying that the reflects the order of writing/publication are the anti-Marcionite prologues and Origen. Clement of Alexandria’s statement about being progregraphthai is often read as Matthew and Luke being “written first” (i.e. before Mark), but it’s equally possible that what he simply meant was that Matthew and Luke were “written in public,” for general use among all Christians (as opposed to Mark, which originally had a limited target audience) - so he was not talking about the chronological order at all.
What’s interesting about these sources is that they really contradict each other on Peter’s status. Everyone since Papias unanimously claim that Mark was Peter’s follower and ‘interpreter’, but was Peter still alive when Mark composed his gospel, or was he already dead? Was Mark asked to write by Roman Christians who wanted a record of Peter’s preaching (without Peter’s knowledge), or under instructions from Peter himself? Did Peter - if he was still alive - approve Mark’s gospel, or did he decline giving a definite opinion about it (“neither hindered nor encouraged”)?
Nobody dared question Augustine until the 18th century, when a German scholar named J. B. Koppe pointed out that Augustine was wrong in claiming that (1) Mark was simply Matthew’s abbreviator, and (2) the text of Mark had little in common with Luke (in fact, Mark often deviated from Matthew’s wording, and Luke regularly preferred Mark’s version). Based on these ideas, theologian Johann Jakob Griesbach formulated his own theory, which proposed that perhaps, Mark was abbreviating both Matthew and Luke. Griesbach’s theory was soon preferred by most German Protestant scholars, but there were those who doubted that his picture of Mark being simply a sort of ancient Reader’s Digest really reflected how ancient scribes and oral tradition worked.
Soon, Griesbach’s theory was ditched in favor of a new theory which combined the ideas of Markan priority and the idea of a proto-gospel (named after Papias’ logia as the ‘Logia-source’, in German Logienquelle - Quelle or Q for short). The reason for the eventual rejection of Griesbach’s idea has a number of reasons. One is because at that time, Markan priority was seen as a stronger defense to the historicity of the gospels than Matthean priority was. (Confused? The logic goes like this: during the 18th century, the current idea was that Matthew was written after the period of the eyewitnesses; so for the people at that time, assuming that Matthew was written first and that the other gospels were based on it was felt to make the historicity of the gospels suspect.) Griesbach’s theory was really stigmatized because prominent members of the (in)famous Tübingen school (such as David Strauss and his teacher Ferdinand Christian Baur) used it to develop their theories which resulted in radical skepticism about the gospels’ historical reliability. So the reason why Markan priority and the two-source hypothesis came to the fore was probably because it satisfied a theological need: over against the Matthean priority proposed by Griesbach’s theory championed by the ultra-skeptical Tübingen school, those who argued for the reliability of the gospels championed Mark and Q instead. So for more than a century, Griesbach’s theory was left to dust, until in the 1960s, a Methodist minister and scholar named William Farmer rediscovered it, soon to be joined in the 1970s (for the Catholic side) by Dom Bernard Orchard.
(Now much has been made of the Kulturkampf’s (1871-8) propagandistic, anti-Catholic use of the Markan priority-Q theory - which are really two separate theories, developed at different times; ‘Markan priority’ does not equal ‘two-source hypothesis’ - since it ostensibly helped negate one of the well-known Catholic proof-texts: Matthew 16:18, both theories existed even before the Kulturkampf and are originally neutral. To me, the whole “One should reject the two-source hypothesis because the Kulturkampf used it” argument one might encounter - and I encounter it from time to time! - is about as convincing as “Using incense in worship is bad because pagans used it” or “Nobody should use this invention because its inventor was a drug addict.” We might as well throw away our Caravaggios - Caravaggio was a brawler and a murderer.
)So to sum, as far as we can tell, our earliest explicit source for the idea that Matthew was first was Irenaeus (Papias, our earliest source for the traditions about the authorship of the gospels, is too ambiguous), while the earliest sources explicitly saying that the reflects the order of writing/publication are the anti-Marcionite prologues and Origen. Clement of Alexandria’s statement about being progregraphthai is often read as Matthew and Luke being “written first” (i.e. before Mark), but it’s equally possible that what he simply meant was that Matthew and Luke were “written in public,” for general use among all Christians (as opposed to Mark, which originally had a limited target audience) - so he was not talking about the chronological order at all.
What’s interesting about these sources is that they really contradict each other on Peter’s status. Everyone since Papias unanimously claim that Mark was Peter’s follower and ‘interpreter’, but was Peter still alive when Mark composed his gospel, or was he already dead? Was Mark asked to write by Roman Christians who wanted a record of Peter’s preaching (without Peter’s knowledge), or under instructions from Peter himself? Did Peter - if he was still alive - approve Mark’s gospel, or did he decline giving a definite opinion about it (“neither hindered nor encouraged”)?
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