[1][2] The tradition handed down by the Church Fathers regarded Matthew as the first Gospel written in Hebrew, which was later used as a source by Mark and Luke.

[4] Augustine of Hippo wrote in the 5th century: "Now, those four evangelists whose names have gained the most remarkable circulation over the whole world, and whose number has been fixed as four, ...are believed to have written in the order which follows: first Matthew, then Mark, thirdly Luke, lastly John."

[5] This view of Gospel origins, however, began to be challenged in the late 18th century, when Gottlob Christian Storr proposed in 1786 that Mark was the first to be written.

Their ideas were not immediately accepted, but Heinrich Julius Holtzmann's endorsement in 1863 of a qualified form of Marcan priority[11] won general favor.

[12] In 1899 J. C. Hawkins took up the question with a careful statistical analysis and argued for Marcan priority without Proto-Mark,[13] and other British scholars[14][15] soon followed to strengthen the argument, which then received wide acceptance.

[16] If Marcan priority is accepted, the next logical question is how to explain the extensive material, some 200 verses, shared between Matthew and Luke but not found at all in Mark—the double tradition.

A modern tweak of this view that maintains Matthaean priority is the two-gospel (Griesbach) hypothesis which holds that Mark used both Matthew and Luke as a source (thus, in order, Matthew—Luke—Mark).

Lucan priority has been revived in recent decades in the complex form of the Jerusalem school hypothesis, which also places Mark in the middle.

Some variations on Marcan priority propose an additional revision of Mark—a Proto-Mark (Ur-Mark) if earlier than the canonical Gospel, or a Deutero-Mark if later—serving as a source for Matthew and/or Luke.

Many lines of evidence point to Mark having some sort of special place in the relationship among the Synoptics, as the "middle term" between Matthew and Luke.

[26] Famously, the so-called "Lachmann fallacy", concerning the order of pericopae in Mark, was once used to argue for Marcan priority but is now seen as a largely neutral observation.

[26] Modern arguments for or against Marcan priority tend to center on redactional plausibility, asking, for example, whether it is more reasonable that Matthew and Luke could have written as they did with Mark in hand, or that Mark could have written as he did with Matthew and Luke in hand, and whether any coherent rationale can be discerned underlying the redactional activity of the later evangelists.

Such issues often intersect with the synoptic problem; for example, B. H. Streeter famously dismissed many of the "minor agreements" so troublesome for the two-source theory by appealing to textual corruption driven typically by harmonization.

Mark is also notably fond of εὐθὺς (euthùs, "immediately") and πάλιν (pálin, "again"), frequently uses dual expressions, and often prefers the historical present.

Supporters of Marcan priority see this as Matthew and Luke improving the style of the material they incorporate from Mark.

[34] Powers argues that Mark's purpose is fundamentally kerygmatic, needing to hold the attention of outsiders hearing the Gospel preached for the first time, and so focuses on who Jesus was and what he did, eschewing the sort of lengthy teachings that dominate the double tradition and most of Special Matthew.

[35] So, with Mark's selection process better understood, these omissions per se are no longer viewed as such compelling evidence for Marcan priority.

the healing of the man born blind in John 9), and the naked runaway is an obscure incident with no obvious meaning or purpose.

Marcan priority sees Matthew and Luke trimming away trivial narrative details in favor of the extensive material they wished to add elsewhere.

[44] Often the differences in Mark from the parallels in Matthew and Luke are "hard readings" (Lectio Difficilior), which seem to portray Jesus or the apostles in a negative light or in ways that a later redactor would likely find uncongenial.

[52][53] Some prominent examples: Supporters of Marcan posteriority advance these as clear cases of Mark conflating the parallel accounts from Matthew and Luke.

Where Mark mentions someone by name, someone not well-known originally who could have been left anonymous, Bauckham argues that it is because his audience at the time could refer to them as living eyewitnesses.

[...] Matthew wrote the Gospel in Hebrew, Mark in Latin from Simon in the city of Rome, Luke in Greek,"[97] and this is echoed in many later sources[98] such as Gregory of Nazianzus.

[109] From Clement (c. 195), who probably also knew the work of Papias, comes a unique and much-discussed statement that the gospels with genealogies (i.e., Matthew and Luke) were "written before" (progegraphthai), in contrast to Mark.

[110] Farmer touted this as support for Marcan posteriority,[111] but Carlson argued that the word was better interpreted as "openly published", in contrast to Mark's initially private circulation.

[112] Origen (c. 250), a pupil of Clement who also knew the work of Irenaeus well, enumerates the Gospels as follows: "As learned by tradition… the first written was Matthew… the second, Mark… the third, Luke… after all of them, John.