Journal Title: Early Christianity
Abstract: In the Hellenism of the turn of the common era, τάξις, with its cognate notions and grammatical forms, constitutes a commonplace, understood generally as the “sequenced arrangement” necessary for rhetorical effectiveness. Mark’s Gospel is presented as rhetorically deficient because it lacks such a properly configured arrangement. By contrast, Matthew’s Gospel exhibits a commendable rhetorical narrative production, however difficult it may be for an audience to interpret its Hebrew/Aramaic. Eusebius defends Mark, nevertheless, by invoking the “living and enduring voice” of Peter that resonates clearly enough despite the din of Mark’s dis-organized whole. Matthew is pulled in by Eusebius as a ‘QED’ from “one from those early days,” viz., Papias, to authenticate Mark, not to show Matthew “therefore” needing or intending to improve upon Mark’s inadequacies. In fact, Mark’s basic plot ‘from Galilee to Jerusalem to the cross and raising up,’ as sounded through the voice of Peter, vouchsafes this incipient ‘synoptic’ pattern that will generate the distinctive ‘synoptic family’ of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. It is telling, if not ironic, that in drawing upon John “the elder’s” defense of Mark’s “arrangement,” Eusebius’s apologetic is, finally, an attempt to underwrite Mark within the rubric of Hellenistic narrative rhetoric.
Author: David Paul Moessner, A. A. Bradford Chair and Professor of Religion