in the Christian churches, whether in documentary form, or through the labours of catechists, contemporaneously with the source we have already scrutinised. Whether there was any closer connexion between the two it is perhaps impossible to tell. Scholars have come to no convincing conclusion. Wellhausen thinks Mark the earlier, and that where the other source departs from Mark we see traces of the progressive Christianising of the record that is, of its lapsing from the mind of Jesus, who was not a Christian but a Jew, to the mind of the later church about Jesus; Weiss, after the studies of a lifetime, persists in the belief that Mark is the later of the two, and in many essential respects was dependent on the other.' Whether the theory of successive editions of Mark would enable criticism to find a way of reconciling these contrary opinions is a doubtful question, but hardly of importance in this connexion. To all intents and purposes, except those of literary criticism, Mark and Q are contemporary witnesses to Jesus: each of them tells us what was believed about Him in the church not far from A.D. 70, and the only thing that is of interest is whether or not they concur in their testimony. This will appear as we proceed.

Mark opens with a title or superscription which cannot be ignored: 'the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God.' As these words show, he has a conception of Jesus and of the meaning of His life, death and resurrection; and it is in the light of this conception that he interprets the facts. Jesus is to him the Messiah, and

Weiss has succeeded in convincing Harnack that Mark was acquainted with Q, though Harnack thinks this important result may have to be limited to this intent, that Mark at least knew the circle in which Q (or great parts of Q), before being fixed in writing, existed in a fixed oral form which was practically the same. See note on p. 176 above. This limitation, however, really means that Harnack is not convinced by Weiss's arguments, so as to accept Weiss's view of the literary relations of Mark and Q; it is Harnack's recognition of the fact that a larger part must be given to oral tradition, as well as to documents, in explaining the composition of our gospels.

the story of His life, when read out in its religious significance, is gospel or glad tidings. It was not possible for him to tell the story otherwise than he has done, for this is the truth of Jesus as it has been apprehended by him. No doubt a life of Jesus could have been written by one who never became a believer-by an agent, for example, of the Jewish or of the Roman government-who observed Him from the outside, as it were, without sympathy, and without being drawn into unison with His mind and purpose; but it would not follow that such a life would. be truer than the representation of Jesus made by a believer. On the contrary, the very things that in a great spiritual life are most real and most significant would baffle the supposed impartial observer; he would either be unconscious of them, or they would mock his power of description and comprehension. Only a person responsive to the kind of influence Jesus exerted is qualified to convey a true impression of what He was. It may be quite natural for him, in trying to convey such an impression, to set the facts with which he has to deal in a certain light; but just in proportion as he reverences Jesus-just in proportion as he believes in Him and calls Him Lordwill it be unnatural for him to distort facts or to invent them.

MARK'S HISTORY THE HISTORY OF THE SON OF GOD

That the story of Mark is the story of the Christ, of One whose consciousness from first to last is that of the Messianic King through whom the reign of God is to be established, is shown by the fact that like the source already examined Mark begins with the Baptism and the Temptation of Jesus. He has no interest in anything that precedes; he brings Jesus on the stage in the hour in which His divine sonship is proclaimed, and it is in this character that he conceives Him living and

acting all through. What the sonship to God means is rather to be made out from the gospel-which is, so to speak, a progressive illustration of it-than deduced from the words. The term Christ or Messiah, though used in the title, is not at this point used in the history. Perhaps that is to preclude misleading inferences. As the Son of God referred to in the ideal picture of the second psalm, Jesus is the Anointed in and through whom God's Kingdom is to be established; He is the Messiah; but the nature of His Messiahship and of the sovereignty it is to establish awaits definition in His life. It may quite well be that the Christ of God is not the same as the Christ of fanatical Jewish hopes. This apart, however, there is not for the evangelist any consciousness of himself on the part of Jesus except the Messianic self-consciousness; it is as Son of God that He lives, moves, and has His being, and it is in this character and consciousness that He is exhibited in the gospel. It is more than daring simply to set this aside. If we know anything at all of Jesus, we know that He was baptized by John, and that the baptism represented a crisis in His experience: if it did not mean what all our authorities represent it to mean, we may as well cease to ask questions about Him. From first to last in the gospel, Jesus acts as one conscious of a unique vocation, a unique endowment, a unique relation to God and men. It is easy to decide on à priori grounds that this is impossible, and not merely to leave the only Christianity known to history without explanation, but to pronounce it a complete mistake; it is easy to do this, but it is not writing history. If the life of Jesus reflected itself, in minds which submitted to its influence, in the form which we see in the gospel, then all the probabilities are that that form is substantially correct. This word or that may have suffered modification in transmission-this incident or that

may have been pointed or deflected as it was preached in this or that environment-but the attitude of Jesus to God and to men, and the attitude which this required on the part of men to Jesus, cannot have been misconceived and cannot be misrepresented. It is the direct and unconscious reflexion of an immediate impression, and the possibility of error is excluded.

Jesus is introduced in Mark as 'calling' men to follow Him, as preaching in the synagogues, 'as one having authority,' and as casting out demons (Mark 1 16-28). The evangelist does not represent Him as making formal claims from the outset, or putting His consciousness of His relation to God and man into challenging words, but the spiritual power with which He was invested in the baptism, and which marks Him out as the Son of God, underlies all His words and deeds. The Messiahship is exhibited, but not stated: this at least is how the evangelist understands it. That he is right in so understanding it is clear from the words of Jesus Himself (in Matt. 11"), which we have considered above (p. 230 f.). To heal the sick and to preach the gospel to the poor, inadequate and unsatisfactory as some onlookers might think it, is emphatically to do 'the works of the Christ.' We do not read the opening scenes in Mark as they were meant to be read if we do not perceive that the Messianic consciousness of Jesus is latent in them and is the key to which they are all set.

A TYPICAL dúvapes OR MIGHTY WORK IN WHICH JESUS' CONSCIOUSNESS OF HIMSELF IS REVEALED

(Mark 2 1-12)

This will become unmistakable if we examine such a typical instance in Mark of the duvapers to which Jesus appeals (Matt. 11 21 ff) as the healing of the paralytic in ch. 2 1-12. There are several points of interest in this

narrative which it is important to notice. When the man was brought to Jesus, Jesus said to him, Child, thy sins are forgiven. Some scribes who sat by accused Him of blasphemy: Who can forgive sins but God only? Jesus had His own way of dealing with the charge, but there are moderns who clear Him at a much easier rate. His words, they tell us, were merely declaratory: as He looked on the face of the paralytic man, He saw that he was truly penitent for his sins-presumably those which had induced the palsy; and knowing that under the rule of a paternal God penitence and pardon are correlative terms, He simply announced to the man what was true. quite independently of the announcement, that his sins no longer stood against him in the reckoning of God. This, however, is entirely out of keeping with what follows. Jesus does not claim power on earth to declare that sins are forgiven, but to forgive them (ver. 10); and the scribes were quite right in assuming that He exercised the prerogative of pardon. He Himself proceeds to act upon their assumption. It is easy to say, Thy sins are forgiven, but not easy to tell whether anything is accomplished by the words. Who can tell whether the spiritual miracle which they assume for of all things that we can conceive the forgiveness of sins is the most purely supernatural-really takes place? Who can certify us that the load is really lifted from the bad conscience, that despair passes away, that the gate of righteousness opens again to the man who had shut it in his own face? It is an objection of this kind, an objection not to a declaration but to what purports to be a real exercise of the prerogative of pardon, that Jesus meets in what follows. It is easy to say to a paralysed man, Arise, take up thy bed and walk; but it is hazardous, because if nothing happens the pretensions of the would-be healer are exposed. Jesus puts Himself to this test, and heals the body