Saint Mark the Evangelist (12–68)

John surnamed Mark: a double name, Jewish and Roman

Like many Jews of the diaspora or of the great cities, Mark bears two names: his Jewish name, John (Yohanan, "God is gracious"), and a Roman surname, Marcus, which would end up eclipsing the first.^[9] The Acts of the Apostles calls him successively "John surnamed Mark", "John" plain and simple, then "Mark": three designations of the same man, whose progressive use of the Latin name reflects the opening of the Gospel to the Greco-Roman world.^[10]

This double name is no detail. It places Mark in the Jewish-Hellenistic milieu of Jerusalem, at the hinge of two worlds — the same milieu from which Saint Stephen and the first deacons would come. Mark belongs to that first Christian generation which speaks Aramaic but already conceives the proclamation of the Gospel in Greek, the language in which he would write his book.

The house of Mary, first place of the Church at Jerusalem

Mark's mother, Mary of Jerusalem, owns a house large enough to shelter the gatherings of the first community. When Peter is freed from prison by the angel, it is quite naturally there that he goes.^[11]

"When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John surnamed Mark, where a good number were assembled and praying." — Acts of the Apostles 12:12^[12]

This house is one of the very first places of the Church identified by the New Testament; the tradition carried by the Syriac Orthodox community of Jerusalem even sees in it the place of the Cenacle — Last Supper and Pentecost — a debated hypothesis.^[13] Mark thus grew up at the very heart of the apostolic community, in a dwelling where he may have met Peter, James and the other Twelve from his adolescence.

The young man who fled naked (Mk 14:51-52)?

The Gospel of Mark contains an enigmatic detail, proper to it alone: at the moment of Jesus' arrest, a young man who was following Christ, wearing nothing but a linen cloth, fled naked, leaving the cloth in the guards' hands.^[14] No name is given. But many exegetes see in him the discreet signature of the evangelist himself, in the way the Beloved Disciple effaces himself in the fourth Gospel.^[15]

"A young man followed him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked." — Gospel according to Saint Mark 14:51-52^[16]

This hypothesis, which remains a devout reading and not a certainty, gives Mark's whole life its spiritual tone: that of a man who first fled — at Gethsemane as at Perga — before learning to remain until martyrdom.

Cousin of Barnabas, auxiliary of the first journey

Mark is the cousin of Barnabas, that generous Cypriot Levite who first welcomed the converted Paul and presented him to the apostles.^[17] It is through this kinship that Mark enters the history of the mission. When Paul and Barnabas set out from Antioch on their first missionary journey (about 46-47), they take Mark along as auxiliary (hyperetes), a term designating a servant, perhaps charged with catechesis and the material care of the mission.^[18]

The departure from Perga and the rupture between Paul and Barnabas

Having reached Perga in Pamphylia, after crossing Cyprus, Mark abruptly leaves the expedition and returns to Jerusalem.^[19] The text does not say why: fear of the dangers of the mountainous interior of Asia Minor, homesickness, disagreement over the openness to the Gentiles that Paul was beginning to preach? Tradition hesitates. But Paul, for his part, does not forget.

When, a few years later, Barnabas wants to take Mark along again for a second journey, Paul categorically refuses to take back the one who had "abandoned" them. The disagreement is so sharp that it separates the two apostles.^[20]

"Barnabas wanted to take John surnamed Mark along with them too, but Paul insisted that they should not take the one who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone on with them to the work. There arose such a sharp disagreement that they separated from each other." — Acts of the Apostles 15:37-39^[21]

Barnabas then takes Mark and sails for Cyprus, while Paul chooses Silas. Far from being a scandal, this separation shows that the young Church does not idealize its heroes: it hands down without embellishment their tensions, their wounds and their weaknesses. That is precisely what makes Mark's recovery so eloquent.

The reconciliation: "he is useful to me for ministry"

The story does not end with the rupture. Through Paul's last epistles, Mark reappears, and always in a good light. In the letter to the Colossians, written from the prison at Rome, Paul sends the greetings of "Mark, the cousin of Barnabas" and recommends welcoming him well.^[22] In the letter to Philemon, he counts him among his "fellow workers".^[23]

And in his very last letter, the second to Timothy, written shortly before his death, Paul asks that Mark be brought to him in words that have become famous:

"Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry." — 2nd Letter to Timothy 4:11^[24]

The deserter of Perga has become an irreplaceable support of the Apostle of the Gentiles at the hour of his death. This rehabilitation, sealed by Scripture itself, makes Mark the discreet patron of all fresh starts: holiness is not the absence of falls, but fidelity regained.

"My son Mark": the bond with the apostle Peter

If Mark was close to Paul, it is with Peter that his name is most lastingly associated. The first epistle of Peter, written from Rome — designated by the code name "Babylon" — ends with a greeting of fatherly tenderness:

"The Church of the elect in Babylon greets you, as does Mark, my son." — 1st Letter of Saint Peter 5:13^[33]

This "my son" indicates no fleshly filiation but a spiritual fatherhood: Mark is Peter's disciple, secretary and son in the faith, at Rome, in the 60s.^[34] From this daily closeness to the prince of the apostles his Gospel would be born.

The testimony of Papias and Eusebius

The most precious source on the composition of the second Gospel goes back to Papias of Hierapolis (about 60-135), whose testimony Eusebius of Caesarea preserved in his Ecclesiastical History. Papias reports the words of a figure he calls "the Elder" (probably John the Presbyter):

"Mark, having become Peter's interpreter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, everything he remembered of the Lord's words and deeds. For he had neither heard nor followed the Lord; but later, as I said, he followed Peter." — Papias, quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, III, 39, 15^[35]

This capital text, dated no later than 130, establishes three things. First, Mark is no eyewitness of Jesus' life: his Gospel is derived from Peter's preaching. Second, his faithfulness is stressed — he wrote "accurately". Finally, the order is not chronological but catechetical: Mark hands on what Peter preached, according to the needs of teaching.^[36]

The title of interpreter (hermeneutes) probably means that Mark translated Peter's Aramaic preaching into Greek for the hearers at Rome. The Gospel of Mark would thus be, to a large extent, Peter's memories set down in writing by the hand of his spiritual son.^[37]

The shortest of the Gospels, and its antiquity

Mark's Gospel counts only sixteen chapters: it is by far the briefest of the four. Far from being a late summary, the most widespread hypothesis today — Markan priority — holds it to be the oldest of the canonical Gospels, written probably at Rome in the 60s, perhaps after Peter's death; on this hypothesis, Matthew and Luke — see Saint Matthew and Saint Luke — would have taken over its framework.^[38] This reconstruction remains a hypothesis of literary criticism, with its presuppositions and its limits; the ancient tradition, beginning with Papias, attests first of all that Mark set down Peter's preaching in writing.^[39]

The Catholic tradition, faithful to Papias, does not set literary anteriority against apostolic authority: that Mark wrote first in no way diminishes the inspiration of the other evangelists, but on the contrary stresses how central Peter's preaching is to Christian memory. The hypothesis of a very late and anonymous redaction, sometimes put forward, runs up against the ancient witnesses — Papias, then Saint Irenaeus (Against Heresies, III, 1, 1) — who attribute this book to Mark, disciple and interpreter of Peter; Saint Justin does not name Mark, but already knows the matter of the second Gospel: in his Dialogue with Trypho (106), he mentions the surname Boanerges given to the sons of Zebedee, a detail proper to Mk 3:17 alone.^[40]

Peter's voice set down in writing at Rome

Several internal traits confirm the Roman and Petrine origin of the book. Mark explains Jewish customs to readers who do not know them, translates Aramaic words ("Talitha koum", "Ephphatha", "Abba"), and uses many Latinisms (denarius, centurio, praetorium).^[41] He is manifestly addressing a community of Christians come from paganism, living under the gaze of Rome — presumably the Church tried by Nero's persecution.

Remarkably, Mark's Gospel never flatters Peter: it reports unsparingly his slownesses, his denial, his rebukes. The Fathers saw in this a sign of authenticity — it is Peter's own humility showing through, refusing to embellish his own portrait through his disciple's pen.^[42]

The messianic secret and Christ the servant

Mark's Gospel presents a Jesus who acts more than he discourses: a Christ who travels through Galilee, heals, casts out demons, and often imposes silence about his identity — what exegetes call the "messianic secret". The summit of the book is no teaching but a confession at the foot of the Cross, that of the Roman centurion: "Truly, this man was the Son of God."^[43]

It is a Gospel of urgency (the Greek word euthus, "immediately", occurs there more than forty times) and of the Cross: everything converges toward the Passion, as if Mark wished to prepare a persecuted Church to follow its Master to the total gift. This spirituality of the suffering Servant, sober and virile, bears the mark of a man who would himself end in martyrdom.

The first bishop and the chair of Saint Mark

A unanimous tradition in the Christian East attributes to Mark the founding of the Church of Alexandria, intellectual metropolis of the ancient world. Eusebius of Caesarea reports that Mark was the first to preach in Egypt the Gospel he had written, and that he established Churches there, beginning with Alexandria.^[44]

"It is said that this Mark was the first to set out for Egypt, preached there the Gospel he had written, and founded Churches, at Alexandria first." — Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, II, 16, 1^[45]

He thus becomes the first bishop of Alexandria, founder of a see that the Coptic Orthodox Church claims as its own through an unbroken patriarchal succession: the Coptic pope of Alexandria is still called today the "successor of Saint Mark" and sits upon the "chair of Saint Mark".^[46]

The catechetical school of Alexandria

From Mark's apostolic seed would be born, in the 2nd century, one of the most illustrious institutions of ancient Christendom: the catechetical school of Alexandria, where Pantaenus, Clement and Origen would teach. A later tradition traces the origin of this school back to Mark himself; Eusebius attests only the founding of the Churches of Egypt by Mark and the succession of his first successor, Annianus (Ecclesiastical History, II, 16 and 24).^[47] The evangelist thus appears, in this tradition, not only as a Church founder but as the ancestor of a great theological tradition, the one that would give the Church Clement of Alexandria and Origen.

The martyrdom of 25 April: dragged through the streets of Boucolou

The oldest account of the martyrdom, preserved in the Martyrdom of Mark and the Coptic Synaxarium, places the evangelist's death about the year 68. One feast day, as Mark was celebrating the liturgy of the Resurrection in the district of Boucolou, near the sea, an angry pagan crowd — the feast falling on the same day as that of the god Serapis — rushed upon him.^[48]

"They put a rope around his neck and dragged him through the streets of the city, crying: 'Drag the buffalo to the place of the oxen!' The stones tore his flesh, and blood flowed upon the ground." — Martyrdom of Saint Mark, Coptic Synaxarium, 30 Baramoudah^[49]

Thrown into prison, comforted according to tradition by a vision of Christ, Mark was dragged again the next day until he gave up his soul. The pagans wanted to burn his body, but a violent storm scattered the crowd, and the Christians were able to gather his remains to bury them at Boucolou.^[50] Saint Jerome, in his catalogue of illustrious men, sums up soberly: Mark "died in the eighth year of Nero and was buried at Alexandria".^[51] The two traditions do not coincide exactly — the eighth year of Nero corresponds to the years 61-62, while the Coptic Synaxarium retains the year 68: the precise chronology of the martyrdom thus remains debated, though the fact itself of martyrdom at Alexandria is not in question.

The convert who rose from his flight

Saint Mark's great spiritual lesson can be summed up in one word: recovery. The young man tradition identifies with Mark at Gethsemane, the auxiliary who deserts at Perga, the disciple judged unworthy by Paul — it is this same man whom Peter calls "my son" and whom Paul claims at the hour of dying. Mark's holiness is not that of a spotless course, but that of a reconquered fidelity.

The Fathers loved this figure because it consoles: it says that the fall is not the last word, and that God knows how to make a martyr out of a runaway. Saint Paul himself, persecutor turned apostle, and Peter, who denied three times, frame Mark in this same school of mercy.

The evangelist of urgency and of the Cross

The spirituality Mark bequeathed to the Church lies entirely in his book: sober, swift, centered on the Cross. No infancy narratives, few long discourses; a Christ on the march calling men to follow him "immediately". Mark teaches a faith without detours, which does not contemplate Christ from afar but follows him on the way of the Passion.

This pedagogy of urgency speaks particularly to a persecuted Church — that of Rome under Nero, that of Alexandria on the day of his own martyrdom. The evangelist lives what he writes: his death, dragged to the end through the streets, is like the last, unwritten page of his Gospel of the Cross.

The disciple effaced behind Peter and Paul

Mark left neither great discourse nor personal doctrinal system: his greatness lies in having handed on another's voice. Interpreter of Peter, fellow worker of Paul, he effaces himself so that the Gospel may speak. In this he is the model of every true servant of the Word, whose mission is not to put himself forward but to make Christ audible.

"Mark, disciple and interpreter of Peter, wrote a brief Gospel at the request of the brethren at Rome, according to what he had heard narrated by Peter." — Saint Jerome, On Illustrious Men, chapter 8^[52]

That is why the liturgy celebrates him not as a theoretician but as a witness: the one through whom Peter's living memory reached us, and who sealed that transmission with his blood.

The winged lion: why Mark is a lion

Of all the evangelists, Mark is the one whose symbol is the most famous: the winged lion. This attribution comes from the vision of the four Living Creatures of Ezekiel and Revelation — man, lion, ox, eagle — which the Fathers referred to the four evangelists: the tetramorph.^[53]

The definitive distribution, fixed by Saint Jerome in the 4th century, assigns the lion to Mark because his Gospel opens in the desert, with the preaching of John the Baptist, "a voice crying in the desert" — and the desert is the lion's domain.^[54] The lion also evokes Christ's kingship and strength, as well as his Resurrection, according to the ancient legend of the lion cub awakened by its father on the third day. Saint Irenaeus, as early as the 2nd century, proposed another distribution, and Saint Augustine a third: proof that the symbolism took shape little by little, until Mark's lion imposed itself on all Christendom.^[55]

The relics: from Alexandria to Venice (828)

For centuries, Mark's body rested at Alexandria. But in 828, two Venetian merchants, Buono of Malamocco and Rustico of Torcello, stole the evangelist's relics to save them, according to the account, from Muslim desecration, and carried them to Venice.^[56] Tradition relates that they hid the body under cuts of pork to escape the Muslim customs officers' inspection.

The relics were solemnly received on 31 January 828 by Doge Giustiniano Participazio, who decided to raise a sanctuary for them: it would become the future Saint Mark's Basilica, jewel of Venice.^[57] The evangelist henceforth became the patron of La Serenissima, which adopted his winged lion as its emblem — still visible today on its flags and monuments.

"Pax tibi Marce" and the patronage of Venice

A Venetian legend relates that, in his lifetime, Mark was one day caught by a storm in the lagoon, and that an angel appeared to him, saying:

"Peace be with you, Mark, my evangelist; here your body shall rest." — Word of the angel to Saint Mark, according to Venetian tradition^[58]

These words — in Latin "Pax tibi Marce, evangelista meus" — are inscribed on the book held by the lion of Saint Mark in all Venetian iconography.^[59] They express the conviction that the translation of 828 was no theft but the fulfilment of a promise: Venice saw itself as the homeland willed by God for the evangelist's rest.

The return of a relic to the Copts in 1968

The fate of the relics found an ecumenical outcome in the 20th century. At the request of the Coptic pope Cyril VI, Pope Paul VI agreed to restore to the Church of Egypt part of Saint Mark's relics. The fragment was handed to a Coptic delegation at Rome on 22 June 1968, then transported to Cairo, where it was laid in the new Saint Mark's Cathedral, consecrated on 25 June 1968.^[60]

This gesture — giving back to Alexandria part of its founder after eleven centuries — was hailed as a strong sign of reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church, long separated since the Council of Chalcedon. Saint Mark, founder of both traditions, became once more a bond rather than an object of division.

Liturgical feast and patronages

The Latin Church and the Byzantine Orthodox Churches celebrate Saint Mark on 25 April; the Coptic Church celebrates his martyrdom on the 30th of the month of Baramoudah (8 May).^[61] He is the patron of Venice, but also of notaries and secretaries (by reason of his role as the "interpreter" who sets things down in writing), of glassmakers and opticians, and remains invoked for the Christian Churches of Egypt.

Represented as an evangelist writing, accompanied by the winged lion, or as bishop of Alexandria, Saint Mark remains one of the most universally recognizable figures of Christianity — the one whose brief Gospel handed down to every generation the living preaching of Peter.

• Saint Peter — the prince of the apostles, whose interpreter and "son" Mark was.
• Saint Paul — the Apostle of the Gentiles, whom Mark accompanied, abandoned, then found again.
• Saint Stephen — the protomartyr, from the same Jewish-Hellenistic milieu of Jerusalem.
• Saint Jerome — who fixed the attribution of the lion to Mark and informs us about his death.
• Saint Irenaeus of Lyon — earliest witness of the symbolism of the four evangelists.
• Saint John the Baptist — the "voice crying in the desert" with which Mark's Gospel opens.