more or less fragmentary manner, the history and growth, of the early
Christian Church, and especially the work of Paul.

[Sidenote: _Purpose of Mark's Gospel_]

Very similar influences called forth the shortest and undoubtedly the
oldest of the four Gospels, the book of Mark. The testimony of the
contents confirms in general the early statement of Papias and other
Christian Fathers that it was written at Rome by John Mark, the disciple
and interpreter of the apostle Peter, after the death of his teacher.
The absence of many Old Testament quotations, the careful explanation of
all Jewish and Palestinian references which would not be intelligible to
a foreigner, the presence of certain Latin words, and many other
indications, all tend to establish the conclusion that it was written
for the Gentile and Jewish Christians, probably at Rome, and that its
purpose was simply historical.

[Sidenote: _The two-fold purpose of the Gospel of Matthew_]

The memoir of Jesus, which we know as the Gospel of Matthew, is from the
hand of a Jewish Christian and, as is shown by the amount of material
drawn from Mark's Gospel, must be placed at a later date. The great
number of quotations from the Old Testament, the interest in tracing the
fulfilment of the Messianic predictions, and the distinctively Jewish-
Christian point of view and method of interpretation, indicate clearly
that he wrote not with Gentile but Jewish Christians in mind.
Nevertheless, like that of Mark and Luke, his purpose was primarily to
present a faithful and, as far as his sources permitted, detailed
picture of the life and teachings of Jesus. His arrangement of his
material appears, however, to be logical rather than purely