The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;
Ver. 1. The beginning of the Gospel, &c.] The history of our Saviour's life and death, St Mark is recorded to have written at the request of the Romans. a In the Latin tongue, say some (who pretend to have seen the original copy at Venice), but it is more likely in Greek, a tongue (then) very well known to the Romans also. He begins with John's ministry, passing over Christ's birth and private life for brevity' sake (as it may seem) though Papists feign many idle relations thereof, and so expose us to the jeers of Jewish and Turkish miscreants. There are those who make Mark an epitomator of Matthew. But forasmuch as he neither begins like Matthew, nor keeps the same order, but relateth some things that Matthew hath not, and other things much larger than Matthew hath them; judicious Calvin thinks that he had not seen St Matthew's Gospel when he wrote his (as neither had St Luke seen either of them): but that being acted by the same Spirit, they agree so harmoniously and happily; an undoubted argument of the Divinity of the Scripture, which therefore a Greek Father calls παναρμονιωτατην, every way suitable to itself. (Nazianzen.)
a Euseb. Hist. Eccles. ii. 15, ex Clementc.