Everyone who opens the New Testament has a question: why are there four Gospels? Why is the same story told four times in the Holy Scriptures? The Gospel of John, however, is somewhat different from the three previous ones. But the first three Gospels in many respects repeat each other almost verbatim — this is immediately evident if you write the text in three columns. But that's exactly what it is – almost verbatim, always with some differences in details.

Why is that?

Since ancient times, attempts have been made many times to bring together four or at least three Gospels into one whole, into a single narrative. The first such attempt was made at the dawn of Christianity by Tatian. Tatian's Gospel, which combined four stories in one, was used, but did not enter into the practice of the Church. The last such attempt was made by the Kiev priest Leonid Lutkovsky. He combined the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke into one, and to them he added the Gospel of John as different. His work was published by Literaturnaya Gazeta, but did not appeal to readers. No one published it a second time. For the reason, apparently, that the first three evangelists, not to mention John, are very different from each other.

The Gospel of Mark is the first in terms of the time of writing. It is quite short compared to the rest. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus says less than in the accounts of Matthew, Luke, or John. There is a way of printing the New Testament when the words of Christ, speaking in Latin, ipsissima verba, are highlighted in red. So, there is much less red text in the Gospel of Mark than in the other three. Instead, the reader's attention is constantly fixed on what Jesus is doing. Miracles are described here in more detail than in Matthew, who tells about them concisely, briefly.

Although the English "from Mark", "from Matthew" indicates that this Gospel was written from beginning to end by one or another evangelist, tradition states that the Gospel of Mark was written for preaching among the Romans, on the basis of the preaching of the Apostle Peter in Rome. Mark repeated in his sermon what Peter had said, and then Mark's disciples composed the Gospel ano, secundum, "according to Mark." This does not mean by Marc, but according to Marc, that is, "according to the sermon." And in French, for example, it is not par St. Marc, but selon St. Marc, that is, "according to the sermon of Mark, according to what Mark once said."

It seems that the Gospel of Mark is really addressed to the Romans. From the Roman literature of the era of Emperor Augustus, close in time to the Gospel, we know that the Romans were a nation of warriors and poets. They are emotional, decisive, explosive, they do not like to reason, they know how to fight, suffer and perceive the world without halftones. They are very acutely aware of what Horace called "color vitae" – the colors of life. The Romans do not like abstractions – they are not the Greeks, who gave the world wonderful historians and philosophers, they are the ancestors of modern Italians. That is why the Gospel of Mark is filled with vivid visual images that are not found in Matthew, Luke, or John. And in this bright world, where everything was perceived to a greater extent through sight, the short Gospel of Mark with vivid descriptions of miracles, where Jesus speaks little, but acts a lot, such a Gospel could really be perceived as one's own...

Here is the scene when the Savior calms the storm on the Sea of Galilee. It is described in all four Gospels, but only Mark has such a detail, for example. Everyone says that Jesus slept during the storm. And Mark adds: "aft at the head" — that is, he gives us a purely visual image. And we immediately imagine how He slept: "at the stern at the head."

Another example. A rich young man runs to Jesus to ask: "Good teacher! What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Mark has a detail: "ran up... fell on his knees before Him and asked." This movement of the young man who falls to his knees has been preserved only by the Gospel of Mark.

Jesus tells the disciples that whoever wants to be first must be last. And whoever does not humble himself like a child will not enter the Kingdom of God. This episode is found in both Matthew and Mark. In Matthew we read: "Jesus called a child, and set him in the midst of them, and said..." And in Mark, the word "said" is preceded by a participle phrase: "embracing him." This is again a bright visual detail.

A blind man named Bartimaeus cries out: "Jesus, Son of David! have mercy on me." The blind man is called to Jesus, and he runs up, throwing off his cloak. This detail, this movement – the blind man throws off his cloak and remains in only his tunic – is preserved only in the Gospel of Mark.

A woman with an alabaster, a small vessel with precious fragrant myrrh, comes to pour this myrrh either on the feet or on the head of Jesus. Mark depicts another characteristic movement: having broken the alabaster, the woman poured myrrh. She broke the vessel so that no one else could pour anything into it. And this scene is also found only in the Gospel of Mark.

On almost every page of the Gospel of Mark one can find such details that, without changing the content as a whole, without even adding any new strokes to the teaching of Jesus, give us the opportunity, as it were, to see what was happening, introducing into the story visual, as a rule, dynamic details: a discarded cloak, a broken vessel, a young man falling on his knees. Sometimes, as in the description of the Lord's entry into Jerusalem, they simply specify the narrative. The disciples go to some house to untie the donkey. Mark clarifies that the donkey was tied to the gate outside, in an alley. Not inside the courtyard, not on the street, but exactly outside and in the alley. These details are not found in any of the other Gospels.

Another distinguishing feature of Mark's Gospel is its language. He is extremely bad. In the Acts of the Holy Apostles, Peter and John exclaim: "We cannot but say what we have seen and heard" (4:20). The Evangelist Mark thinks approximately the same way, and this phrase from the Acts could be used as an epigraph to the Gospel of Mark. It is very difficult for him to write. He had never been a writer and never would be. He is the one whom the Evangelist John would later call the word "witness." Realizing that it is necessary to tell about Jesus, despite the fact that it is very difficult for him, he tells. He speaks in strange, sometimes funny, at times almost incomprehensible Greek, uses some unexpected images.

For example, in the story of the multiplication of the loaves, Jesus tells all the participants in this miracle to sit in rows. "Like vegetables in the garden," Mark observes. The authors of the Synodal Translation did not even dare to include this figurative comparison in their text. They simply wrote: "in rows" (and the Greek text here reproduces the structure of the Aramaic source, where this expression is repeated twice – "beds, beds"). Whether this is true or not, I hear here the voice of the Apostle Peter, his catechetical discourses, which formed the basis of the Gospel of Mark. This is an echo of the living preaching of a simple Galilean fisherman, in whose mouth such an expression is quite appropriate.