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Mark the Conflator

IN recent years it has come to be generally accepted that Mark's was the first Gospel to be written and that Matthew and Luke, independently of one another, used Mark as a source. This hypothesis runs counter to the universal early tradition that Matthew's was the first Gospel. It further ignores the only clear early statement about the order in which the Gospels were composed, that of Clement of Alexandria (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, VI, 14). Clement died early in the third century and he claimed to preserve the tradition, 'derived from the oldest presbyters', that Matthew and Luke were both written before Mark, and that Mark was a transcript of Peter's talks in Rome. If we accept Clement's testimony and there is no reason why we should not do so then any resemblances between Mark's Gospel and the Gospels of Matthew and Luke must be due to Mark's dependence on Matthew and Luke, not to their dependence on Mark. Bearing this in mind, it is instructive to compare the three Gospels when they report the same incidents and sayings. As the following pages demonstrate, time after time Mark appears to be conflating Matthew and Luke. (1) In his introduction to the story of the temptations, Matthew tells us (4, 1) that' Jesus was led up into the desert to be tempted by the devil'. Luke says (4, 1-2): 'Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was being led by the Spirit in the desert for forty days being tempted by the devil'. Mark's account (1, 12-13) takes an expression from each of the other two: 'And at once the Spirit drives him out into the desert. And he was in the desert for forty days being tempted by Satan.' (Incidentally, if on the contrary hypothesis Matthew and Luke were each independently using Mark, it is curious that they should both have decided to substitute 'the devil' for Mark's 'Satan'.) (2) The healing of Peter's mother-in-law is thus described by Matthew (8, 14-15): 'And Jesus, coming into the house of Peter, saw his mother-in-law prostrated and fevered. And he touched her hand and the fever left her. And she got up and served him.' Luke (4, 38-39) says this: 'Now rising up from the synagogue he entered into the house of Simon. But Simon's mother-in-law was in the grip of a high fever and they asked him about her. And standing