Mark 8:27

Mark 8:27-30 . And Jesus went into the towns of Cesarea Philippi — These verses are explained at large in the notes on Matthew 16:13-20 . He charged them that they should tell no man of him — He enjoined on them silence for the present, 1st, That he might not encourage the people to set him up for a temporal king; 2d, That he might not provoke the scribes and Pharisees to destroy him before the time, and, 3d, That he might not forestall the brighter evidence which was to be given of his divine character after his resurrection.

Mark 8:27-38 . See on Matthew 16:13-27 . Comp. Luke 9:18-26 . ἐξῆλθεν ] from Bethsaida (Julias), Mark 8:22 . εἰς τ . κώμας Καισαρ .] into the villages belonging to the region of Caesarea. Mark 8:28 . With the reading ὅτι εἷς τῶν προφητῶν (see the critical remarks), εἶ is to be supplied. Matthew was the more careful to insert the name of Jeremiah from the collection of Logia, because he wrote for Jews. Mark 8:29 . Mark and Luke omit what Matthew relates in Mark 8:17-19 . Generally, Matthew is here fuller and more original in drawing from the collection of Logia. According to Victor Antiochenus and Theophylact (comp. Wetstein, Michaelis, and others), Mark has omitted it on purpose: ἵνα μὴ δόξῃ χαριζόμενος τῷ Πέτρῳ κ . τ . λ . According to B. Bauer, the narrative of Matthew has only originated from the consciousness of the hierarchy. Both these views are arbitrary, and the latter rests on quite a groundless presupposition. As the remarkable saying of Jesus to Peter, even if it had been omitted in the collection of Logia (Holtzmann), cannot have been unknown to Mark and cannot have its place supplied by Mark 3:16 , it must be assumed that he purposely abstained from including it in this narrative, and that probably from some sort of consideration, which appeared to him necessary, for Gentile-Christian readers.[115] Thus he appears to have foregone its insertion from higher motives. To Luke, with his Paulinism, this passing over of the matter was welcome.

The omission furnishes no argument against the Petrine derivation of our Gospel (in opposition to Baur, Markusevang. p. 133 f.), but it is doubtless irreconcilable with its subserving a special Petrine interest , such as is strongly urged by Hilgenfeld and Köstlin. Comp. Baur in the theol. Jahrb. 1853, p. 58 f. And to invoke the conception of a mediating Petrinism (see especially, Köstlin, p. 366 f.), is to enter on a field too vague and belonging to later times. Observe, moreover, that we have here as yet the simplest form of Peter’s confession. The confession itself has not now for the first time come to maturity, but it is a confirmation of the faith that has remained unchangeable from the beginning. Comp. on Matthew 15:17 . Mark 8:31 .[116] τῶν πρεσβ . κ . τῶν ἀρχ . κ . τῶν ΓΡΑΜΜ. ] Although these three form one corporation (the Sanhedrim), still each class is specially brought before us by repetition of the article, which is done with rhetorical solemnity . μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρ .] after the lapse of three days . Comp. Matthew 27:63 . More definitely, but ex eventu , Matt. and Luke have: τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ , with which ΜΕΤᾺ ΤΡ. ἩΜ. , according to the popular way of expression, is not at variance. See Krebs, Obs. p. 97 f.

(27-29) See Notes on Matthew 16:13-16 . The towns of Cæsarea Philippi.—Better, villages. He asked his disciples.—The tense of the Greek verb implies that it was not a single question only, but a continued and, as it were, searching inquiry. The time was come to test the faith of the disciples thoroughly.

Mark 8:27 . καὶ ἐξῆλθεν : the καὶ connects very loosely with what goes before, but presumably ἐξῆλθεν refers to Bethsaida. They leave it and go northwards towards Caesarea Philippi, up the Jordan valley, a distance of some twenty-five or thirty miles.— ὁ Ἰησοῦς : that Jesus is here expressly named is a hint that something very important is to be narrated, and the mention of the disciples along with Him indicates that it closely concerns them.— εἰς τὰς κώμας Κ . τ . φ ., to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, not to Caesarea Philippi itself. Mt. has τὰ μέρη . Apparently they did not enter the city itself. Jesus seems to have avoided the towns in which the Herodian passion for ambitious architecture was displayed. Besides at this time He desired solitude.— ἐν τῆ ὁδῷ , on the way, probably when the city of Caesarea Philippi came into view. Vide on Matthew 16:13 . But conversation leading up to the critical subject might begin as soon as they had got clear of Bethsaida. No time to be lost now that the Master had got the Twelve by themselves. Or was the Master, very silent on that journey, preparing His own mind for what was coming?— ἐπηρώτα , imperfect, because subordinate to the reply of the disciples, the main thing.— τίνα με , etc.: on the form of the question vide on Matthew 16:13 . Mark 8:27 to Mark 9:1 . At Caesarea Philippi ( Matthew 16:13-28 , Luke 9:18-27 ).

27–9:1 . Cæsarea Philippi. The Confession of St Peter 27 . And Jesus went out ] The Redeemer and His Apostles now set out in a northerly direction, and travelled some 25 or 30 miles along the eastern banks of the Jordan and beyond the waters of Merom, seeking the deepest solitude among the mountains, for an important crisis in His Life was at hand. The solitude of the beautiful district, whither the Saviour now journeyed, is illustrated by the fact that it is the only district of Palestine where a recent traveller found the pelican of the wilderness ( Psalm 102:6 ). See Thomson’s Land and the Book , pp. 260, 261; Caspari’s Introduction , p. 163, n. into the towns ] The little company at length reached the “ villages ,” as it is literally, or the “ parts ” or “ regions ” ( Matthew 16:13 ) of the remote city of Cæsarea Philippi, near which it is possible He may have passed in His circuit from Sidon a very few weeks before. See above, Mark 7:24 , n., Bishop Ellicott’s Lectures , p. 225.

Cæsarea Philippi ] “Sezarie of Philip” (Wyclif) lay on the north-east of the reedy and marshy plain of El Huleh , close to Dan, the extreme north of the boundaries of ancient Israel, (i) Its earliest name according to some was Baal-Gad ( Joshua 11:17 ; Joshua 12:7 ; Joshua 13:5 ) or Baal-Hermon ( Jdg 3:3 ; 1 Chronicles 5:23 ), when it was a Phœnician or Canaanite sanctuary of Baal under the aspect of “Gad,” or the god of good fortune, (ii) In later times it was known as Panium or Paneas , a name which it derived from a cavern near the town, “abrupt, prodigiously deep, and full of still water,” adopted by the Greeks of the Macedonian kingdom of Antioch, as the nearest likeness that Syria afforded of the beautiful limestone grottoes, which in their own country were inseparably associated with the worship of the sylvan Pan , and dedicated to that deity. Hence its modern appellation Baneas . (iii) The town retained this name under Herod the Great, who built here a splendid temple, of the whitest marble, which he dedicated to Augustus Cæsar, (iv) It afterwards became part of the territory of Herod Philip, tetrarch of Trachonitis, who enlarged and embellished it, and called it Cæsarea Philippi , partly after his own name, and partly after that of the Emperor Tiberius. Jos. Ant . xv. 10. 3; Bel. Jud . i 21. 3.