Here is the old difficulty again. If such materials were known to
"Mark," what imaginable reason could he have for not using them?
Surely displacement of the long episode of John the Baptist--even
perhaps of the story of the Gadarene swine--by portions of the Sermon
on the Mount or by one or two of the beautiful parables in the twofold
and single traditions would have been great improvements; and might
have been effected, even though "Mark" was as much pressed for space
as some have imagined. But there is no ground for that imagination;
Mark has actually found room for four or five parables; why should he
not have given the best, if he had known of them? Admitting he was the
mere _pedissequus et breviator_ of Matthew, that even Augustine
supposed him to be, what could induce him to omit the Lord's Prayer?
Whether more or less of the materials of the twofold tradition D, and
of the peculiar traditions F and G, were or were not current in some
of the communities, as early as, or perhaps earlier than, the triple
tradition, it is not necessary for me to discuss; nor to consider
those solutions of the Synoptic problem which assume that it existed
earlier, and was already combined with more or less narrative. Those
who are working out the final solution of the Synoptic problem are
taking into account, more than hitherto, the possibility that the
widely separated Christian communities of Palestine, Asia Minor,
Egypt, and Italy, especially after the Jewish war of A.
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