MrMacSon wrote:Ben C. Smith wrote:MrMacSon wrote:And alluding to
the fact that there is only
one mention of a 'Gospel according to Mark' before the time of Eusebius -
- a mention by Irenaeus. The silence is glaring.
Wait. Why are you disqualifying the mentions of Mark's gospel by Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Origen, and Victorinus of Pettau?
I was aware of Origen's mentions of Mark's gospels in passing (in
Homilies on Joshua and
Homilies on luke), and the fact that Hippolytus has been proposed by Lightfoot as an author of the Muratorian Fragment.
The Muratorian fragment does not actually mention Mark; it starts at Luke, calling it the third gospel, and then goes on to John, calling it the fourth. So Matthew and Mark were probably there, but the fragment is, well, fragmented. I was referring to
Refutation of All Heresies 7.30.1: "When, therefore, Marcion or any one of his dogs barks against the demiurge, bearing forth reasons from a comparison of good and bad, we must say to them that neither the apostle Paul nor stubby-fingered Mark announced these things. For none of these is written in the gospel [according] to Mark."
But I wasn't aware of the others (I hadn't checked Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria; and have never heard of Victorinus of Pettau).
The Latin translation of Clement by Cassiodorus has: "Mark, follower of Peter, while Peter was preaching the gospel openly at Rome before certain Caesarean knights and proferring many testimonies of Christ, was petitioned by them that they might be able to commit what things were being said to memory, and wrote from these things that were said by Peter the gospel which is called according to Mark, just as Luke is recognized by the style both to have written the acts of the apostles and to have translated the epistle of Paul to the Hebrews."
Tertullian and Victorinus both wrote in Latin. Victorinus dates to late century III, shortly before Eusebius. Tertullian writes in
Against Marcion 4.5.3: "That same authority of the apostolic churches will stand as witness also for the other gospels, which no less [than that of Luke] we possess by their agency and according to their text, I mean those of John and Matthew, though that which Mark produced is stated to be of Peter, whose interpreter Mark was. The narrative of Luke also they usually attribute to Paul." Victorinus writes : "The four animals are the four gospels. The first, he says, was similar to a lion, the second similar to a calf, the third similar to a man, the fourth similar to an eagle flying, [each] having six wings, eyes roundabout both within and without. And, he says, they do not cease to say: Holy, holy, holy, omnipotent Lord God. .... Mark, the interpreter of Peter, having remembered the things that he taught in his duty wrote it down, but not in order, and began with the word of prophecy announced beforehand through Isaiah. .... Mark starts off thus: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ just as it was written in Isaiah; it begins with the spirit flying, thus it also has the effigy of a flying eagle."
Ben.