5.
Wherefore also Mark, the interpreter and follower of Peter, does thus commence his Gospel narrative: "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; as it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way. 1 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make the paths straight before our God." Plainly does the commencement of the Gospel quote the words of the holy prophets, and point out Him at once, whom they confessed as God and Lord; Him, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who had also made promise to Him, that He would send His messenger before His face, who was John, crying in the wilderness, in "the spirit and power of Elias," 2 "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight paths before our God."
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The Greek of this passage in St. Mark i. 2 reads, tas tribous autou, i.e., His paths, which varies from the Hebrew original, to which the text of Irenaeus seems to revert, unless indeed his copy of the Gospels contained the reading of the Codex Bezae. [See book iii. cap. xii. 3, 14, below; also, xiv. 2 and xxiii. 3. On this Codex, see Burgon, Revision Revised, p. 12, etc., and references.] ↩
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Luke i. 17. ↩
