ORIGIN OF ST. MARK'S GOSPEL. 375 interested in the discourses he delivered, that they begged of Mark, the companion of the Apostle, to reduce to writing the doctrines enunciated by the latter; and Mark, in accordance with their entreaties, compiled his Gospel. The Gospel so written, having been seen by St. Peter, was, with commendations of the hearers to whose devotion it had been indebted for its existence, confirmed by the Apostle, and ordered to be read publicly in their religious assemblies.* It is for this reason that Tertullian calls the Gospel according to St. Mark, the "Gospel of St. Peter; " and that St. Athanasius says of it, that "the Gospel of Mark was dictated by Peter, although published by Mark." To give consistency and completeness to the theory of the Gospel of St. Mark having been compiled under the circumstances just mentioned, it was natural and almost necessary to hold that it first appeared in the vernacular of the people to whom it was primarily addressed. Accordingly some have maintained that the Gospel of St. Mark was originally written in Latin; an opinion to which it may be said, however, that several distinguished authorities are adverse. The dutiful impartiality of Mark, and the fine candour of Peter, appear in this that the Gospel named after the former, and dictated by the latter, relates with no less particularity and aggravation of detail than any of the others, the facts of Peter's shameful fall and apostasy. The Epistle for St. Mark's Day is taken from the fourth chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, which sets forth the unity of the Spirit, and the diversity of the gifts and graces bestowed by Christ upon His Church. The special text of the following hymn by Dr. Doddridge is the eleventh verse of the same chapter:"He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers." *Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History; lib. ii., c. 16; iii., c. 39; &c., and St. Jerome: De Viris Illustribus. Father of mercies, in Thy house, The Saviour, when to heaven He rose, Hence sprang the Apostles' honoured name, Sacred beyond heroic fame : Hence dictates the prophetic sage, And hence the Evangelic page. In lowlier forms, to bless our eyes, Pastors from hence, and teachers rise; Who, though with feebler rays they shine, From Christ their varied gifts derive, So shall the bright succession run, Jesus, our Lord, their hearts shall know, Through the long round of endless days. Touching the later activities of St. Mark, it is related that he became the first Bishop of Aquileia, in the Venetian territory; and that afterwards he proceeded to Alexandria, where—with the intermission of a successful tour of about two years' duration, in the direction of Libya— he mainly fixed his residence, founding a noble church, in the oversight and direction of which he was as discreet as he was unwearied, and where his honourable and useful career was finally terminated by his martyrdom, about A.D. 68. St. Mark suffered at the season of "Easter, at the time the solemnities of Serapis happened to be celebrated. The people being excited to vindication of the honour of their idol, broke in upon St. Mark, while he was employed in divine worship; and binding his feet with cords, dragged him through the streets, and thrust him into prison, where in the night he had the comfort of a divine vision. Next day the enraged people renewed the tragedy, and used him in the same manner, till his flesh being raked off, and his blood run out, his spirits failed, and he expired. Some add, that they burnt his body, and that the Christians decently entombed his bones and ashes, near the place where he used to preach. But all this account is given by authors whose credit we cannot depend upon, and therefore must be received with grains of allowance." It is a commonly received opinion that the body of St. Mark was removed with great pomp from Alexandria to Venice about A.D. 800, where it is yet reverenced and exhibited in the stately church erected in his memory. His festival is observed by the people of Venice, of which city he is the patron saint, with uncommon solemnity; and to this day, as often as his Gospel is read in St. Mark's Church, the priest points his finger towards the body of the Evangelist with the prefatory words Evangelium secundum hunc. * The lines which follow are the translation of a Hymn from the Paris Breviary :-Vos succensa Deo splendida Lumina. They are from the pen of Dr. Isaac Williams, and stand, in Lyra Apostolica, at the head of a series of poems which have the general title of Commune Doctorum. We venture somewhat to narrow their application to the Evangelists, the Doctors of the Doctors, the teachers upon *Nelson's Festivals and Fasts. whom all succeeding doctrine, if it would stand securely must be based; and narrowing their application still further, we quote them in connection with that Evangelist who is so far typical that his festival falls first of them all, in the secular year, to be observed. Hail, glorious Lights, kindled at God's own urn, Bounteous by you the World's Deliverer mild Bring meat for manly hearts, and milk for babes in love. These bear, great God, Thy sword and shield, These rear the eternal Palace Hall, Skilled with one hand Thine arms to wield, Ye in your bright celestial panoply O'ercame dark Heresy ; And when her brood from Stygian night We too may grasp your arrows bright; Even till this hour we combat in your mail, And with no doubtful end-we combat and prevail. Hail! heavenly truth, guiding the pen Of wise and holy men; To thee, though thou be voiceless, doth belong A spirit's tongue, Which in the heart's deep home uttereth a song. At the conclusion of a notice of St. Mark, it may not be out of place to devote a few sentences to an investigation of the artistic and symbolical history of the Four Evangelists. This investigation we are able to make by deputy of a writer in the Kalendar of the English Church, in which its SYMBOLICAL HISTORY OF THE EVANGELISTS. 379 results appear in the following lucid and compendious form :-"The earliest type under which the Four Evangelists are figured is an emblem of the simplest kind: four scrolls placed in the four angles of a Greek cross, or four books (the Holy Gospels), represented allegorically those who wrote or promulgated them. The second type chosen was the four rivers of Paradise, Gihon, Tigris, Euphrates, and Pison; the river that was parted and became into four heads, being explained of Christ, the various acts of whose life on earth are divided between the Four Evangelists. Representations of this kind, in which the Saviour figured as a Lamb holding the Cross, or in His human form with a Lamb near Him, stands on an eminence, from which gush four rivers or fountains, are to be met with in the catacombs, on ancient sarcophagi preserved among the Christian relics in the Vatican, and in several old churches constructed between the second and the fifth century. At what period the four mysterious creatures in the vision of Ezekiel were first adopted as significant symbols of the Four Evangelists, does not seem clear. The Jewish doctors interpreted them as figuring the Four Archangels, SS. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel, and afterwards applied them as emblems of the four great Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. "The general application of the Four Creatures to the, Four Evangelists is of much earlier date than the separate and individual application of each symbol, which has varied at different times: that propounded by S. Jerome, in his commentary on Ezekiel, has since his time prevailed universally. Thus then (1), to S. Matthew was given the Angelic, or Human semblance, because he begins his Gospel with the human generation of Christ; or, according to others, because in his Gospel the Human Nature of the Saviour is more insisted on than the Divine. In the most ancient mosaics, the type is human, not angelic, for the head is that of a man with a beard. (2) S. Mark has the |