hing. This evidence is overwhelming, and it is
uncontradicted by any early authority. The statement of Papias is as
follows: "And the elder said this also: Mark, having become the
interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately everything that he
remembered of the things that were either said or done by Christ; but,
however, not in order. For neither did he hear the Lord, nor did he
follow Him; but afterwards, as I said, he attended Peter, who adapted
his instructions to the needs of his hearers, but had no design of
giving a connected account of the Lord's words. So then Mark committed
no error in thus writing down certain things as he remembered them; for
he made it his special care not to omit anything that he heard, or to
set down any false statement therein." [1] By calling St. Mark an
_interpreter_, Papias perhaps means that he translated statements made
in Aramaic into Greek, which was the language most used by the
Christians of Rome until the 3rd century after Christ. By saying that
St. Mark wrote _not in order_, Papias probably means that the Gospel is
not a systematic history of all our Lord's ministry, or an orderly
arrangement of subjects placed together with a view to instruction like
those in Matthew. So far as we are able to test them, the facts are
related chronologically in the great majority of cases.

Papias does not tell us when St. Mark wrote his Gospel. Irenaeus
writes: "Matthew also published a written Gospel among the Hebrews in
their own dialect, Peter and Paul preaching the Gospel at Rome, and
laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the
disciple and interpreter of Peter, delivered to us in writing the
things that had been preached by Peter." [2] {52} St. Peter and St.
Paul probably died not later than A.D. 65. Eusebius quotes from
Clement of Alexandria "that Peter having publicly preached the word at
Rome, and having spoken the Gospel by the Spirit, many present exhorted
Mark to write the things which had been spoken, since he had long
accompanied Peter, and remembered what he had said; and that when he
had composed the Gospel, he delivered it to them who had asked it of
him, which when Peter knew, he neither forbad nor encouraged it." [3]
Clement is here relying upon "the presbyters of old," and the antiquity
of the tradition is proved by the fact that it does not claim St.
Peter's direct sanction for the Gospel. Both Irenaeus and Clement were
probably born ab