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Benedicta Ward, The First Commentary on Mark: An Annotated Translation. Translated by Michael Cahill. Pp. xiv + 154. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. isbn 0 19 511601 1. £33.50, The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 57, Issue 1, April 2006, Pages 337–338, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flj052
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Extract
This translation is the English version of Dr Cahill's admirable new edition of the Latin text (Expositio Evangelii secundum Marcum; CCSL, 82; Turnhout: Brepols, 1997). Dr Cahill is rightly cautious about both date and authorship of his text, which was at one time attributed to Jerome. After many painstaking discussions in articles, Dr Cahill has decided to hedge his bets and leave it that it is an anonymous work of the early sixth century. This makes it the earliest known commentary on St Mark. The parallels with Bede's commentary on Mark (c.700) are well worth making. It may be that Bede did not know this work, since he wrote as if his was the only commentary on Mark, which he made in parallel with his commentary on Luke.
This brief commentary is set in the form of a letter, so often used in spiritual writings for its personalizing value; in this case it was addressed to those the author was responsible for teaching, presumably young monks, though this need not indicate that he was an abbot. After all, the greatest scholar and teacher in the early Middle Ages, Bede, held no position of authority in his monastery at any time in his life, but that did not mean that he was in any way limited in his teaching of the young. The didactic intention of the author is clear throughout: ‘I have sprinkled you with these things so that you may become whiter than snow and so that you may be transfigured on the mountain and gleam like snow’ (p. 133).
