Satan is responsible for a widespread myth accepted by much of academia that the four gospels of Christ, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were anonymous manuscripts for a couple of hundred years before the church got around to naming them for the sake of validity. That is not true. Historical data reveals there were no anonymous gospels. There are numerous old gospel manuscripts, some dating back to the second century, and all of them are attributed to either Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Gospel manuscripts were copied over and over and used to preach the gospel of Christ in churches. Anonymous manuscripts would have been worthless for this purpose and, if there were any, would have caused numerous errors when copied and that was not found to be the case.
Most of the noted church fathers of the second and third century either knew the Apostles themselves or those who did. Papias, Martyr, Irenaeus and Clement all wrote that the gospel of Matthew bears his name and was written by the Apostle Matthew based on reliable sources, usually first or secondhand knowledge. The consensus was that Matthew was written in Hebrew for the Jewish Christians to preserve a written record of the teachings of Jesus from an eyewitness for posterity . Matthew was written while Peter and Paul were still in Rome, which had to be before 66 AD. Matthew was thought to be the second gospel written.
The gospel of Mark was thought to be the first gospel written, by a well known Jew from Jerusalem named John Mark. Mark was a disciple, follower, interpreter and translator for the Apostle Peter, who was illiterate. Peter preached the gospel of Christ to the Gentiles in Rome and Mark wrote down all he said. The Christians in Rome convinced Mark to make a written record of the teachings of Peter on the life of Jesus while an eyewitness yet lived. This was corroborated in the writings of early church fathers like Papias, Irenaeus and Clement and based primarily on first and secondhand knowledge. Mark did not know Jesus personally. The gospel of Mark was written in Greek and sometime prior to 66 AD.