Recent reflections on the Gospel according to Mark

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Fall, 2005 by Sean P. Kealy

My Journey with Mark's Gospel

Each of us has perhaps a unique journey with an extraordinary work like Mark's Gospel. My own journey began as I was searching for a doctorate thesis under the guidance of the professor of Medieval Latin Studies at University College, Dublin, the Viennese Ludwig Bieler who wrote one of the first books on the Divine Man theory of Jesus. At his encouragement I searched the libraries of Europe for manuscripts of what the well-known German scholar Bernhard Bischoff had suggested was a commentary on Mark by the Irish monk Comianus in the first half of the seventh century.

Prior to the seventh century we had much of the Marcan material covered in the traditional commentaries on the other Gospels. The Fathers had left selective homilies on different parts of Mark. M. D. Hooker, in his article Gospel of Mark (199) mentions a non-surviving commentary on Mark by Origen, but I have found no evidence to support this claim (see Schildgen: 135). Victor of Antioch (late fifth century) had fashioned a commentary largely drawn from the Fathers, mainly Chrysostom, a commentary seemingly not available to Comianus. That was followed by the commentary of Bede (673735), who drew heavily on the Latin fathers, and by Theophylact of Ochryda (c. 1077). Significantly Erasmus published one of his very popular Latin paraphrases on Mark in 1524.

My tour of the European libraries was an eye opener, producing some one hundred manuscripts scattered across the great public and private libraries of Europe. Among what I found were some 45 manuscripts from the 12th century, 17 from the 13th, and 10 from the 15th century.

Adequately to understand Comianus' commentary and his influence, I found, a history of Mark and its interpretation was required to provide a background for its development and to see the basis for the often superficial comments of scholars on the history of Mark. My subsequent MARK'S GOSPEL, A HISTORY OF ITS INTERPRETATION, was the result and to my surprise was described by Howard Clark Kee in the centennial survey volume of the Society of Biblical Literature (260), as "an excellent comprehensive history and analysis of Marcan interpretation, arranged chronologically."

The popularity of this commentary of Comianus was amazing, as is evident from the widespread variety of manuscripts which have survived. This placed a large question mark against the many comments of scholars on the neglect of Mark since Augustine's remarks. Further his work in turn was extensively used in the well-known medieval encyclopaedic commentary the Glossa Ordinaria, which was the dominant commentary for three centuries, not to omit also St. Thomas Aquinas' popular anthology from the Fathers, his "Golden Chain" (Catena Aurea) and also the widely respected Counter-reformation commentary of Cornelius Lapide. Renaissance scholarship raised critical questions about its authorship so that it was not included in the early printed works of Jerome. Erasmus knew that the oldest manuscripts do not have an attribution to Jerome. Nevertheless it was printed in turn by Victorius (1564-1572), Trebechovius (1684), Martianay (1693-1706), Vallarsi (1734-42) and Migne (among the mantissa of Jerome) in 1845 and 1865 (Cahill: 38-43). But these are only indications that an interest was kept alive in Mark throughout the centuries. One could also mention the translations, harmonies, prooftexts, sermons, liturgical practices, the great codices such as Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus and wonderful gospel books such as the Book of Kells. In fact an adequate history of Mark has yet to be researched.