Which gospel was written first?

The order in which we find the Gospels in our Bibles is most probably that in which they were written. Matthew is the evident link with the Old Testament, which it cites continually, and with which its subject and character correspond; while John is as evidently that which opens out the deepest and fullest glories of the Lord's person, as well as the highest character of His work. Mark, again, comes nearest to Matthew, plainly; while Luke, with all his differences, opens the way to John.

312 But it is as an historian we have to do with him: how little his statements can be trusted, a few instances will shew. First he states that Christ Himself continued on to be an old man, which he reckons as forty or fifty years, sanctifying old age as well as youth, as he tells us the Gospel and all the aged men who conversed with John testified (Lib. 2, C. 22). The Gospel we can answer for; the tradition of John, Irenaeus and the aged men must answer for. Whom, he adds, are we to believe most, those who had seen, not only John but the other apostles and heard these things from them … or Ptolemy, who had seen none of them? Massuet says, Perhaps he heard it only from Papias, who, says Eusebius, was a foolish old man. But, as Massuet observes, Irenaeus makes Christ not teach immediately after His baptism but wait till He was of full age, at thirty being only a youth, and so die an old man - diametrically, as he says, opposed to the plain testimony of scripture. But so much for tradition.

But we have another case directly to the point, as the commencement of the passage which is quoted to prove that episcopacy dates from the apostles' days and was established by their authority. "Now Matthew," says Irenaeus, "brought out amongst the Hebrews in their own dialect the written gospel (ten graphen euaggelion) when Peter and Paul were evangelizing in Rome and founding the church." I will add what the Benedictine edition remarks on this. All the Fathers hold Matthew to have first consigned the Gospel to writing; but how reconcile this with what is said of Peter and Paul, for Paul could not have been there before A.D. 64 or 65? Either, therefore, the other Fathers are to be abandoned or Irenaeus; either are alike inconvenient. The securest thing to say in so obscure a matter is, that nothing can be defined (c. Haer. lib. 3, C. 1, Benedictine edition [Massuet] 174). Eusebius follows his account (H. E. 5:28). Not only so, but this account which Massuet admits to be untenable and contradictory to all the statements of other Fathers, is the basis of all Irenaeus says on the succession, and of papal pretensions too.

D. Analytical comparison of Luke's Gospel with that attributed to Mark has revealed, especially in chapters 4 - 9 of the third Gospel, a similarity so close in order and wording in both Matthew and Luke to the parallel record in our second Gospel, as to lead many scholars to the conclusion that Mark's Gospel was used by each, with the necessary corollary, in keeping with the now prevalent opinion recorded in section C., that the shortest of the Synoptic Gospels was the one first written. This is a complete reversal of the view taken by Griesbach, Schleiermacher, Baur, Strauss, and Davidson, for whom the order was 1 Matthew, 2 Luke, 3 Mark (cf. note 2 in volume on Mark). Such are the vagaries of criticism previously illustrated by the paraded late date, as was supposed, of Deuteronomy, which has given place to the priority, maintained with no less dogmatism, of that book to the so-called "Priestly Code." The now supposed priority of Mark to Matthew underlies the book entitled "The Synoptic Question (Problem)," by Wernle, and the more recent works of Harnack, which may be consulted in English translations, as also in the latest writings of Professor Bernhard Weiss, which have been reviewed in the German "Journal of Theological Literature" by Dr. Harnack.

The Gospel of Mark is the briefest of the four Gospels. The traditional view, which holds that the Apostle Peter dictated this record into the pen of Mark, so that he was only an amanuensis, has been proven erroneous. Equally incorrect are other theories, that the Gospel of Mark was written first and served Matthew and Luke in giving their account, copying from it and making additions, or, the hypothesis that there was an original record, a common source, which the Evangelists used. All these opinions are mostly the inventions of men who disbelieve the inspiration of the chosen instruments of God in giving a fourfold picture of His blessed Son on earth. An unswerving faith in the inspiration of the four Evangelists solves all the supposed difficulties and discrepancies of which we hear so much in our days. Inspiration makes error impossible.

Now to call it self-evident is simply nonsense. No such facts can be self-evident. Why, or how, is it so? It is a matter of history and testimony. The testimony of the ancient historians and fathers of the church in some respects contradict it. They state that Matthew wrote his Gospel to leave it in Palestine before he went out to preach in the world. So far from being self-evident, the writings prove that most of them were written by their authors in the course of their service. For example, the Epistle to the Romans was written professedly before ever the apostle had been there; the Corinthians also, before he had been at Rome, but after he had been at Corinth; the Thessalonians, when he had just left Thessalonica, before he had begun his work at Corinth or Rome. Matthew's Gospel, if we are to believe the authority of the fathers, was written very early indeed, before there had been any preaching perhaps out of Palestine; John's very late indeed. It is not really the question to be settled. The question is, What place do the scriptures hold now? But the statement of Dr. Manning is neither certain nor admitted, and to say it is "self-evident" is impudent nonsense. Hard words, it may be said; but it is well to speak the truth sometimes.

In the early Curetonian Syriac version, Luke's is placed last of the four Gospels, probably because it was the latest to be translated into Syriac. In the Western MSS. existing when Jerome began his study of the New Testament, as in the recently discovered Akhmîm Codex now at Detroit, U.S.A.. although placed third (as already in the Muratorian Fragment), it follows John, and is before Mark. The order in which readers of the English Bible know it is that assigned to it by Origen, the great Christian scholar of the third century, in agreement with the majority of MSS. and versions that have come down to us. The view taken by some Germans in the middle of the last century that it was the first written is now much discredited. Indeed, Bishop Westcott's arrangement, 1 Mark, 2 Luke, 3 Matthew, has found support in Germany, as by Pfleiderer. But writers of such a different type as Professor Schmidt in America and Professor Orr in Great Britain dispute the priority of Mark to Matthew.

It was an old idea that our present Matthew was either a translation, or at least derived from a "Gospel according to the Hebrews." This is now discredited, and it would at any rate, if proved, be of no possible use to us. But it derives all the semblance of truth it ever had from the very obvious connection with the Old Testament in this first of the Gospels which approves also its place among them as the first. Not only are the quotations from the Old Testament comparatively more numerous than in the other; but these, where made by the evangelist himself, are fresh translations from the Hebrew original, while, where in the mouths of others, they are from that ordinarily in use, the Greek Septuagint. His own style is full of Hebraisms, and he anticipates with those for whom he writes a knowledge of Jewish customs and of the law, such as only Jews might be expected to possess.

MATTHEW has the first place rightly, for it was of first importance that the One in whom all the promises of God centred should be presented to the nation as the fulfilment of them in His own person, and prepared to establish all those promises at once, if received by the nation. Far wider purposes of blessing would result from His rejection; but first God's faithfulness must be verified, and the nation left without excuse for their treatment of their Messiah.

Dean Robinson adopts Professor Harnack's earliest date for Mark, which is A.D. 65; Professor B. Weiss's date is A.D. 67. The corresponding date for Matthew is A.D. 70 (the Epistle of Barnabas, quoting Matthew's Gospel, refers to the destruction of Jerusalem as quite recent); and for Luke, A.D. 80. Zahn's dates are, for Mark, A.D. 67; for Luke, A.D. 75; for Matthew, A.D. 85.

The chief result of assigning the earliest date of all to Mark has been that the critics' view of the development of Christian doctrine has been shaped by their interpretation of this Gospel in particular, which is regarded as exhibiting the teaching of the "historical" in distinction from the "Pauline" Christ. Mr. F. W. Newman, in his last book, "Hebrew Jesus," remarked (p. 57): "No one can reasonably doubt that the whole essence of the faith and religion of Jesus of Nazareth finds its expression in the Lord's Prayer." Strange to say, the prayer is not contained in the Gospel of Mark! For reply to the same writer's remarks in "Phases of Faith," p. 173, on the Synoptists in relation to the Deity of Christ, see J. N. Darby, "Irrationalism of Infidelity," p. 287.

Wellhausen (pp. 73-89) assigns priority in time to Mark. But Weiss, dating "Q" in the year 67, thinks it earlier than Mark's record (so Harnack, p. 193 f.; cf. Sanday "Life of Christ in Recent Research," p. 157). From the fact that it includes no account of the Lord's death, etc., Salmon (p. 247) and Ramsay have revived a suggestion of Paley, the celebrated writer on evidences, that some record was kept in Christ's lifetime; as to this, Loisy ("Gospel Studies," p. 11) remarks that the Twelve were "more accustomed to the fisherman's rod than to the pen of a scribe"; but this would be inapplicable to Matthew, who, moreover, would know both Greek and Aramaic (Zahn). As far as concerns Greek, knowledge of that language must, it seems, be credited to Philip and Andrew (John 12:20 f.) as well as to Matthew. A reason given by some who discredit Paley's idea is, that the vivid expectation which the disciples had of the speedy "completion of the age" would keep them from so recording the Lord's utterances (cf. Westcott Introduction, etc., p. 163). It has to be remembered, however, that the Lord's words about this came only at the end of His ministry. Whatever view be adopted, it must of course take into account the bearing of His words in John 14:26. There can be little doubt that the prevalent impression is that any record was oral only.