The Lost and Hostile Gospels: An Essay on the Toledoth Jeschu, and the Petrine and Pauline Gospels of the First Three Centuries of Which Fragments RemainBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
The Lost and Hostile Gospels: An Essay on the Toledoth Jeschu, and the Petrine and Pauline Gospels of the First Three Centuries of Which Fragments Remain
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Apocryphal Gospels
Mark iv. 26‐29, the parable of the seed springing up, a type of the growth
of the Gospel without further labour to the minister than that of
spreading it abroad. The meaning of this parable is different from that in
Matt. xii. 24‐30, and therefore the two parables are not to be regarded as
identical.
Mark viii. 22‐26. By omitting the narrative of what took place at
Bethsaida, an apparent gap occurs in the account of St. Matthew after xvi.
4‐12. The journey across the sea leads one to expect that Christ and his
disciples will land somewhere on the coast. But Matthew, without any
mention of a landing at Bethsaida, translates Jesus and the apostolic band
to Caesarea Philippi. But in Mark, Jesus and his disciples land at
Bethsaida, and after having performed a miracle of healing there on a
blind man—a miracle, the particulars of which are very full and
interesting—they go on foot to Caesarea Philippi (viii. 27). That the
compiler of the first Gospel should have left this incident out
deliberately is not credible.
Mark ix. 38, 39. In St. Matthew’s collection of the Logia of our Lord
there existed probably the saying of Christ, “He that is not with me is
against me” (Matt. xii. 30). St. Mark narrates the circumstances which
called forth this remark. But the deutero‐Matthew evidently did not know
of these circumstances; he therefore leaves the saying in his record
without explanation.(276)
Mark xii. 41‐44. The beautiful story of the poor widow throwing her two
mites into the treasury, and our blessed Lord’s commendation of her
charity, is not to be found in St. Matthew’s Gospel. Is it possible that
he could have omitted such an exquisite anecdote had he possessed it?
Mark xiv. 51, 52. The account of the young man following, having the linen
cloth cast about his naked body, who, when caught, left the linen cloth in
the hands of his captors and ran off naked—an account which so
unmistakably exhibits the narrative to have been the record of some eye‐
witness of the scene, is omitted in St. Matthew. On this no stress,
however, can be laid. The deutero‐Matthew may have thought the incident
too unimportant to be mentioned.
Enough has been said to show conclusively that the deutero‐Matthew, if we
may so term the compiler of the first Canonical Gospel, had not St. Mark’s
Gospel before him when he wrote his own, that he did not cut up the Gospel
of Mark, and work the shreds into his own web.
Both Gospels are mosaics, composed in the same way. But the Gospel of St.
Mark was composed only of the “recollections” of St. Peter, whereas that
of St. Matthew was more composite. Some of the pieces which were used by
Mark were used also by the deutero‐Matthew. This is patent: how it was so
needs explanation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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