Rabbit trails, rabbit trails.
We have already discussed that Mark, is possibly the earliest written Gospel.
Dating seems to place it around as early as AD 62 to possibly AD 66.
I have already commented about Pauline Priority, and how a member claims Pauline influence on the Gospels since Paul was the first to preach the cross. A point I seriously doubt since the death on the cross, burial, and resurrection is all of the Gospels.
What remains is the age old question of the influence of the "Q" source on Mark.
And, to what, if any, were the influences of Pauline teachings on the Gospel of Mark.
"It is now quite generally held that the gospel of Mark reflects the influence of the teaching of Paul, though not, perhaps, in a direct and unmodified form. This influence is seen especially in such phrases as "the gospel of God,"(Mark 1:14. See my note above, p. 153, on the textual reading here, and also my article, "Studies in the Text of St. Mark,"
Anglican Theological Review, 20:103 ff.) in the ransom saying,(Mark 10:45) and in the words at the Last Supper, "This is my blood of the Covenant, which is shed for many."(Mark 14:24) On the other hand, the latest commentary in English, by Professor Branscomb, insists that these supposed examples of "Paulinism" really reflect the common Gentile Christianity of the time rather than the explicit or distinctive teaching of Paul. At once the question arises: What, then, was Paul’s relation to Gentile Christianity? What elements in it did he take for granted; what elements -- if any -- did he contribute to it? It has too often been assumed that Paul alone was responsible for Gentile Christianity, and that all of early Gentile Christianity therefore bore the impress of his thought. But it seems clear that a very important stage of early non-Jewish Christianity had been reached before Paul began his missionary career, and that he himself was dependent in no small degree upon this earlier development. That he owed a debt to "those who were in Christ [that is, Christians 1 before me," as he says, though not to the
Jerusalem apostles, (Gal. 1-2.) seems certain -- he himself appears to take it for granted his readers will know this. But to what degree, and upon what specific points?
(In)the book by Martin Werner of the Swiss University of Berne,
The influence of Pauline Theology in the Gospel of Mark: A Study in New Testament Theology, which appeared in 1923 as the first
Beiheft to the
Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft. It begins with a review of previous treatments of the problem, from Volkmar and Holsten to Holtzmann and Harnack, and with a discussion of the proper method of dealing with the subject. Earlier writers had recognized that Volkmar went too far in his attempted demonstration of Mark’s dependence upon Paul -- he found evidence of such dependence on almost every page of the Gospel -- but his view was such a welcome relief from the one-sided Tübingen theory, according to which Mark was a "neutral" in the great apostolic controversy over Jewish Christianity, that the main thesis of Volkmar was accepted without careful scrutiny of his supporting arguments. As to method, the older view was rooted in the traditional ecclesiastical theory of Mark’s derivation from Matthew -- which modern Synoptic study completely reverses -- and it took for granted a conception of "Paulinism" which made the Apostle to the Gentiles responsible for everything in primitive Christianity which could not be squared with a crass, reactionary Christian Judaism; it completely ignored the development of a Gentile type -- or types -- of Christianity apart from and even prior to the work of Paul.
For example, the cursing of the figtree was thought to be a "symbolical" judgment upon unfruitful Israel; the Transfiguration symbolized the superior glory of Christ in contrast to that of Moses ;(II Cor. 3:7.) the strange exorcist of Mark 9:38 represented a party in the early church, and the question, "Who is greatest ?" referred to the Jewish Christians versus the Gentiles; the leaven of the Pharisees was the theory of salvation by works (still attributed to Peter!); the healing of the blind man was the release of the disciples from "Jewish blindness"; names like Jaïrus and Bartimaeus contained subtle allegorical meanings; the Gerasene demoniac symbolized idolatrous heathenism; the rending of the temple veil meant the end of Judaism; the darkness at the Crucifixion symbolized the darkness of men’s minds apart from Christ; the healing of the deaf mute was the symbol of conversion -- either of Jews or Gentiles, it was not certain which! And so on. Werner examines each of these passages in detail and concludes that in none of them is the allegorical method of interpretation necessary, while in most it is positively excluded. Mark is a factual writer, not a symbolist or allegorist, and the allegorical principle does violence to his simple, direct manner of presentation; often it does violence to his actual text. The demonstration is complete, and we need only add that if anyone is still inclined to look for allegory in the Gospel of Mark, let him work carefully through the brief twenty-two pages in Werner s book where he refutes the theory in detail.
With the allegorical principle once set aside, much of the support for the supposed Paulinism of Mark disappears. As in most examples of allegorical or symbolical interpretation, the interpreter’s views are first subtly read into the text and then adroitly extracted by a pretended exegesis. But what is this "Paulinism," which is so subtly read in? It is extraordinary how widely interpreters differ. Even Harnack, in his
Luke the Physician, could write: "Whoever confessed Christ as Lord
(Kyrios), and renounced both the good things and the burdens of this life, and looked upon the Old Testament as God’s revelation, and looked forward to the resurrection, and proclaimed this to the Greeks without requiring them to be circumcised and to observe the ceremonial law-such a person was a Paulinist." (P.101; Eng. tr., p. 142.) Not everyone who holds the Gospel of Mark to be "Pauline" would accept this definition of Paulinism! And it certainly seems overly simple -- one can hardly distinguish this from the early Gentile Christianity reflected in the sources presumably underlying the first half of Acts; while the great cardinal doctrines of Paul, his distinctive and characteristic doctrines of salvation (or "justification") by faith, the new mystical life "in Christ," the Christian’s freedom from the Law (not only the ceremonial law), the guidance of the Spirit, the future of the Jewish people, Christ’s death to sin," the relation of flesh and spirit, the atonement upon the cross -- none of these distinctive and characteristic doctrines of Paul are included. What is required is not an examination of Mark in the light of common Gentile Christianity, which Paul shared and presupposed, but a point-blank comparison of every possible contact between the theology of Mark and that which was specifically and uniquely Paul’s own. The result will be a better-focused view of both theologies -- though Paul’s is the more explicit of the two, and Mark’s has to be inferred and read between the lines. Neither author was writing a systematic treatise in theology, but Paul is assuredly more of a theologian than Mark.
Paul of course assumes that Christ was the incarnation of a divine being; therefore his existence embraces three stages, one prior to his incarnation, one during his earthly-historical life, one following his resurrection and exaltation. It is a question if Mark shared this view, and distinguished these three stages. It is a further question how far Mark and Paul were in agreement in viewing the earthly-historical life of Jesus under the category of Messiahship or of a messianic career. Mark uses the term "Christ" only rarely, and where he does so it still bears its primitive significance as a title: Jesus is the "Messiah" of Jewish expectation, though the Jewish etymology and primary meaning, the "Anointed," is not stressed. On the other hand, for Paul "Christ" has become a personal name. This is probably not distinctive of Paul -- he got it from the primitive church -- though his own characteristic inversion "Christ Jesus" occurred (in the original text of Paul’s letters) probably as often as, or perhaps even oftener than, the familiar order "Jesus Christ." It is clear that Mark’s use of the term owes nothing to Paul; both Paul and Mark derive their usage from the common Christianity of the time, Paul often going beyond this to invert the order for emphasis; but of this characteristic Pauline advance not a trace is to be found in Mark.
When we turn to the title "Son of David," we are struck at once by the fact that Mark represents Jesus as repudiating the Davidic descent of the Messiah, as if it were a scribal interpretation (Mark 12:35-37) and not a matter of inspired prophecy; while Paul insists upon the Davidic descent(Rom. 1:3) as a matter not of historical evidence but of exegesis, though limiting it to the earthly life of Christ ( ) in contrast to his divine Sonship ( ) which was demonstrated by the Resurrection. It is almost as if Mark and Paul were dealing with the same problem, the importance of Davidic descent for the Christian Messiah; Paul solves it by recognizing Jesus as Son of David only "according to the flesh," Mark by denying the necessity of such descent. Mark of course distinguishes the stages of Jesus’ preresurrection and post-resurrection Messiahship, but there is no trace in Mark of the Pauline terminology "according to the flesh" and "according to the Spirit" -- not to mention the question whether or not Mark thought of Christ as pre-existent (probably not). It appears to be quite impossible that Mark can have been influenced by Paul at this point.
Even more remarkable is the contrast between Mark and Paul when we turn to the title "Son of Man." For Mark this is the self-designation used by Jesus himself, and used only by Jesus, not by others. It occurs fourteen times in the Gospel, and is unquestionably understood by Mark to refer to Jesus’ heavenly office or nature -- "a supernatural being who ranks between God and the angels." (P. 42.) Mark assumes that his readers will recognize the reference to Jesus, and will find its meaning in "the scriptures."(Mark 9:12; 14:21) But back of Mark is certainly a process of exegesis, which
combined sayings in the Old Testament that could be understood to refer to the coming of the Son of Man with other sayings that could be interpreted to prophesy the sufferings, death, and resurrection of someone -- presumably now also the Messiah or the Son of Man. What is distinctive and most striking about this exegesis -- "the one unheard-of novelty" -- is the conception of the Son of Man living upon earth
prior to his coming in glory: he not only will come, sometime in the future, on the clouds of heaven; he has already come, has suffered, has died, has risen again!
Now one might expect that this pattern of interpretation would have been retained by Paul, if historical -- that is, if set forth by Jesus himself or found in the earliest tradition of his sayings or expounded in the early church -- or one might even think it possible that Mark derived from Paul some hint of this system of exegesis of the Old Testament and of interpretation of the career of Jesus as a heavenly being appearing upon earth prior to his exaltation and his dying (as a heavenly being) upon the cross, though unrecognized in his true nature until the Resurrection. But the astonishing fact is that Paul never uses the term "Son of Man"! As against Johannes Weiss’s exegesis of I Corinthians 15:45-47, Werner insists that Paul’s "man who is from heaven" is simply exegesis of the first two chapters of Genesis, and has nothing to do with Daniel 7; the very order is reversed -- the earthly man comes first, the heavenly is the second. (This cannot possibly refer to the two stages in Christ’s existence: Christ is not ; and the two "men" are
contrasted, Adam and Christ.) What Paul is controverting is the idea that there were two steps in the creation of man, first the Primal Man, the heavenly, spiritual
Urmensch, then the mortal copy of this immortal being, the first representative of the human species -- a widespread Hellenistic conception which had left traces of its influence even upon Judaism. On the other hand, Mark’s use of the term "Son of Man" owes nothing to Paul -- since Paul does not use it -- but is centered in the early Christian interpretation of the Son of Man vision of Daniel 7. That both Mark and Paul think of Christ as a supernatural being does not argue the dependence of one upon the other -- the whole development of Gentile Christianity, Pauline and non-Pauline, took that for granted.
Furthermore, the whole conception of the earthly life of Jesus is different in Mark and in Paul. Mark is endeavoring to show, among other things, that Jesus was Messiah "even during his earthly life" -- as Johannes Weiss put it. Therefore the gift of the Spirit at the beginning of his messianic career; therefore the resulting "mighty works" of healing, exorcism, and miracle; therefore the cries of the demons, with their supernatural insight, upon recognizing him; therefore the divine attestations at the Baptism and Transfiguration. For Paul, on the contrary, the endowment of the Spirit is renounced by the heavenly Messiah at his incarnation, and resumed again at his resurrection; as for miracles, "wonders and signs" of his supernatural office, nature, or power -- they are totally lacking! (Note that Paul mentions none of Jesus’ miracles, though his raising of the dead would have provided a very strong argument in I Cor. 15, for example.) Paul’s fundamental conception of the
kenôsis, and of the hiding of the divine glory during Jesus’ earthly life, is flatly contradicted by Mark’s story of the Transfiguration. Thus, as Paul Wernle put it, "The Christology of Mark conflicts with that of Paul at almost every point."
So also with the view of Christ’s resurrection.(Pp. 72 ff.) For Mark, Jesus’ resurrection involved the empty tomb; his resurrection body was still his natural body, transmuted, transfigured, glorified. But for Paul the doctrine of Christ’s resurrection is not in the least dependent upon the empty tomb. In fact, the resuscitation and glorification of Jesus’ physical body was an impossible conception, for it would still be
, "flesh," not
, "spirit"; and the whole force of his argument in I Corinthians 15 involves the
substitution of a glorious spiritual body for the earthly, "fleshly" body in the Resurrection. "God giveth it a body" -- and the same applies to Christ. Mark of course does not share Paul’s abhorrence of "the flesh," that is,
, and so he can think of the transfiguration of Christ’s earthly body -- as on the Mount of Transfiguration, probably viewed as an anticipation of the Resurrection -- without the least question of the continuity of Christ’s physical body.
On every point of Christology, accordingly, the supposed influence of Paul upon Mark turns out to be, by Werner’s demonstration, merely evidence for the dependence of Mark upon the common Gentile Christianity of his time, in fact in its pre-Pauline or non-Pauline form; and this in spite of the agreements -- which are natural, considering Paul’s dependence likewise upon "those who were in Christ before him." The distinctive, unique, positively Pauline development of these doctrines is simply not to be found anywhere in the Gospel of Mark.
Paul’s own distinctive contributions to Christian thought are to be sharply distinguished from what he received by tradition; and it will be found, when these are segregated, that they point to several sources: (
a) his own personal experience, that of an intense spiritual nature with a keen imagination and a desperately sensitive conscience; (
b) a peculiar exegesis of the Old Testament, partly rabbinic, partly early Christian, but more probably derived from his own reading and pondering of the Greek version of the Jewish scriptures;
(c) .a set of cosmological and anthropological views that owed not a little to the vast mélange of Hellenism and Orientalism flooding the world where he grew up, and providing him with the unique setting for still other ideas, of sin, Satan, death, of the sinful and therefore mortal nature of man -- as "flesh" -- of the "spiritual" forces arrayed against God and his Messiah and all the faithful, of the victory to be won by the Messiah when he should at last appear -- all these ideas were shaped to the mold of certain half-Jewish, half-pagan ideas which Paul seems to have derived from the world about him. The Diaspora Judaism that Paul knew in Cilicia must have been very different from the Judaism of Palestine, and even from the Diaspora Judaism of Philo in Alexandria!
I cannot at this point enter into the discussion of types of Diaspora Judaism affected by contact with paganism; I wish only to record my conviction (1) that Paul’s Judaism was not of the orthodox Palestinian type, which later became normal, and normative; and (2) that early Gentile Christianity, both before Paul and also outside the area of his influence, was far more substantial than the Book of Acts and the surviving Pauline letters have led many to assume. It is this type of Christian teaching, "common Gentile Christianity," rather than Paulinism, that lies behind the Gospel of Mark."
The Earliest Gospel, By: Fredrick C. Grant; Chapter 9: Was Mark a Pauline Gospel?
God Bless
Till all are one.
