Mark 13:37

πᾶσιν λέγω. “No one may think that the warning given to a few disciples is no concern of his; the warning is given to all believers.” It was probably given more than once and in more than one form. It has been preserved in more than one form and in a variety of settings, but this and Mark 14:38 are the only places in Mk, who in this chapter may have included words spoken on other occasions. Cf. Matthew 24:37-51; Matthew 25:1-13; Luke 12:35-40; Luke 17:26-35; Luke 21:34-36. Contrast Ezekiel 3:16-21; Ezekiel 33:1-9, where the responsibility is laid on the Prophet.

In his Introduction to Revelation 1-3 (p. xiii) Hort says: “It has long been a favourite idea with some Continental writers, an entirely mistaken one, I believe, that the record of our Lord’s own apocalyptic discourse in the first three Gospels includes a kernel or core transcribed from a purely Jewish Apocalypse.”

The latest theory with regard to Mark 13 is of a different character: it is stated with great ability by Mr Streeter, Studies in the Synoptic Problem (edited by Dr Sanday), pp. 180–183, 428–436. It is there argued that Mk has accepted as a genuine record of a discourse by Christ what is really a Christian Apocalypse, composed shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, to encourage the despondent by showing that the delay of the Coming had been foreseen by the Master, and especially to warn believers against Anti-Christs and false Christs. It is admitted that this composition contains a few genuine Sayings of our Lord, e.g. Mark 13:1-2; Mark 13:11; Mark 13:15-16, and most of 28–32; also that Mt. derived his version of the discourse from Mk, and not from another recension of this Christian Apocalypse.

The theory is very far from being proved, and being entirely destitute of documentary evidence it is incapable of proof. As an hypothesis it is not required. Even those who deny that Christ had any supernatural insight into the future cannot point to anything which must have been written after the event. The one solid fact is that some Sayings of our Lord as reported by Mt. “conform more closely to the conventional apocalyptic pattern” than similar Sayings as reported by Mk, and that there is still less of this conventional apocalyptic element in the Sayings which are reported by both Mt. and Lk. But, as Mr Streeter himself admits in a later volume (Foundations, p. 112), “the conclusions I was then inclined to draw from it were, I now think, somewhat too sweeping.” There is nothing in the substance of the discourse which is unworthy of the Master, and there is nothing in the wording of it that is conspicuously unlike the style of the Evangelist. In this respect it is very unlike the last twelve verses of Chap. 16, which cannot have been written by Mk. Even in those verses which are supposed to contain no genuine Sayings of Christ there are things which are characteristic of Mk’s style; e.g. the conversational ἐπηρώτα in the sing. (Mark 13:3); ἤρξατο (Mark 13:5); freq. asyndeton (Mark 13:7-9); the superfluous ἥν ἔκτισεν ὁ θεός (Mark 13:19), and οὓς ἐξελέξατο (Mark 13:20), and ἐπὶ θύραις (Mark 13:29), and ἀφεὶς τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ (Mark 13:34); asyndeton (Mark 13:23); the forcible but illogical combination of earth and heaven (Mark 13:27); asyndeton (Mark 13:33-34); the combination of participles, ἀφεὶς … καὶ δούς (Mark 13:34); loose constructions (Mark 13:34-35). It is hardly likely that so many features of Mk’s style would have been found in a discourse, all of which was taken from a source which ex hypothesi was already in writing. Mr Streeter himself points out that Mk “would not have composed the Apocalypse but, accepting it as authentic, inserted it whole.” It is more to the point to remark with Milligan (N.T. Documents, p. 146), that we here see to how large an extent Christ “availed Himself of current Jewish imagery in His teaching.” We may also remark that throughout the prediction it is the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem that is prominent; about Christ’s own death there is nothing.