Gospel tradition is not to be held responsible for verbal agreement between the two parallel reports of the Lord's words. The differences are attributable to translation. So, too, regarding events. Exact correspondence of Mark with Matthew (or other gospels) is not to be looked for, especially as regards the order; because Mark had not himself been a disciple, and could not get the true order from Peter, whose anecdotes he reproduced; for when Mark wrote Peter was no longer living. Mark has reproduced faithfully and accurately his recollection of "things either said or done," as related by Peter. But Peter had had no such intention as Matthew of making a systematic compilation (_syntagma_) of the sayings of the Lord, and had only related his anecdotes "as occasion required." If the tradition regarding Matthew, as well as that regarding Mark, was derived from the Elder, he, too, as well as Papias, knew the Greek Matthew; regarding it as a "translation" of the apostolic _Logia_, he naturally makes Matthew the standard and accounts as above for the wide divergence of Mark as to order. The Jerusalem elder who thus differentiates the two great branches of gospel tradition into Matthæan Precepts and Petrine Sayings and Doings, is probably "the Elder John"; for this elder's "traditions" were so copiously cited by Papias as to lead Irenæus, and after him Eusebius, to the unwarranted inference of personal contact. Irenæus even identified the Elder John with the Apostle, thus transporting not only him, but the entire body of "Elders and disciples" from Jerusalem to Asia, a pregnant misapprehension to which we must return later. In the meantime we must note that this fundamental distinction between _syntagmas_ of the Precepts, and narratives of the Sayings and Doings, carries us back as far as it is possible to penetrate into the history of gospel composition. The primitive work of the Apostle Matthew, was probably done in and for Jerusalem and vicinity--certainly so if written in Aramaic. The date, if early tradition may be believed, was "when Peter and Paul were preaching and founding the church at Rome." Oral tradition must have begun the process even earlier.[16] Mark's work was done at Rome, according to internal evidence no less than by the unanimous voice of early tradition. It dates from "after the death of Peter" (64-5) according to ancient tradition. According to the internal evidence it was written certainly not long before, and probably some few years after, the overthrow of Jerusalem and the temple (70). At the time of Papias' writing, then (_c._ 145), all four gospels were probably known, though only Matthew and Mark were taken as authoritative because (indirectly) apostolic. At the time of prosecution of his inquiries the voice of (Palestinian) tradition was still "living and abiding." If, as tenses and phraseology seem to imply, this means Aristion and the Elder John (_ob._ 117?) it is reasonable to regard it as extending back over a