Papias on Mark's Gospel Terence Y. Mullins Vigiliae Christianae Vol. 14, No. 4 (Dec., 1960), pp. 216-224 (9 pages)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1582193?read-now=1&seq=8#page_scan_tab_contents
ὃς πρὸς τὰς χρείας ἐποιεῖτο τὰς διδασκαλίας, ἀλλ' οὐχ ὥσπερ
σύνταξιν τῶν κυριακῶν ποιούμενος λογίων, ὥστε οὐδὲν ἥμαρτεν Μάρκος οὕτως
ἔνια γράψας ὡς ἀπεμνημόνευσεν
The Papias fragments quoted by Eusebius contain the statement that "Mark did nothing wrong in thus writing a few things (ἔνια) as he remembered them. The strangeness of the word ἔνια at this place has not altogether escaped the attention of the interpreters. Both Westcott and Zahn sensed that its presence is incongruous with the usual interpretation of the passage. Westcott tried to explain it in this manner, "The Gospel of St Mark is not a complete Life of Christ, but simply a memoir of 'some events' in it. It is not a chronological biography, but simply a collection of facts which seemed suited to the wants of a particular audience. St Mark had no personal acquaintance with the events which he recorded to enable him to place them in their natural order, but was wholly dependent on St Peter; and the special object of the Apostle excluded the idea of a complete narrative ...The generally persuasive linguistic interpretation falls victim to the author's unfamiliarity with to Theodore. "Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing a few things as he remembered them" clearly can also be interpreted the way Clement supposes in to Theodore:
Summary
The statement which actually constitutes Papias' defense of Mark says nothing about Mark's order being under attack. On the contrary, the use of ἔνια demands that Papias' defense of Mark be a defense of his having written a few things from memory. Moreover, the construction of the opening sentence permits the interpretation that Mark first translated Peter's written reminiscences and then added to them what he remembered from Peter's oral teaching. Taken together: what the opening sentence permits and what Papias' defense of Mark demands show the purport of the entire Papias passage to be that Mark first translated Peter's writing and then added to it other material from Peter's oral teaching. There were objections to the additions, and Papias meets these by pointing out that Mark, who was not merely the translator of Petrine writing but actually a disciple and follower of Peter himself, desired to preserve all the apostolic lore about Jesus that he could remember accurately and thus was not culpable in adding to his own translation some Petrine material from memory.
As for Mark, then, during Peter's stay in Rome he wrote an account of the Lord's doings, not, however, declaring all of them, nor yet hinting at the secret ones, but selecting what he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed. But when Peter died a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria, bringing both his own notes and those of Peter, from which he transferred to his former book the things suitable to whatever makes for progress toward knowledge.
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