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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MAL-MAR |
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MARK, ST , the traditional author of the second ,Gospel. His name occurs in several books of the New Testament, and doubtless refers in all cases to the same person, though this has been questioned. In the Acts of the Apostles (xii. 12) we read of " John, whose surname was Mark," and gather that Peter was a familiar visitor at the house
When Mark appears once more, it is in Paul's company at Rome, as a fellow-worker joining in salutations to Christians at Colossae (Col. iv. 1o; Philem. 24). We gather, too, that his restoration to Paul's confidence took place some time earlier, as the Colossians had already been bidden by oral message or letter to welcome him if he should visit them. This points to a reconciliation during Paul's last sojourn in Jerusalem or Caesarea. Not long after Col. iv. lo Mark seems to have been sent by Paul to some place in the province of Asia, lying on the route between Ephesus and Rome. For in 2 Tim. iv. 11 Paul bids Timothy, " Pick up Mark and bring him with thee, for he is useful to me for ministering."Once more Mark's name occurs in the New Testament, this time with yet another leader, Peter, the friend of his earliest Christian years in Jerusalem, to whom he attached himself after the deaths of Barnabas and Paul. Peter's words, " Mark, my son," show how close was the spiritual tie between the older and the younger man (I Pet. v. 13); and as he is writing from Rome (" Babylon," since Paul's death and the change of policy it implied), this forms a link between the New Testament and early tradition, which speaks of Mark as an Evangelist writing his Gospel under the influence of Peter's preaching (in Rome). This is the essence of the tradition preserved from " the elders of former days " by Clement of Alexandria (in Eus. ii. 15, vi. 14), a tradition probably based on Papias's record (cf. Eus. iii. 39) of the explanation given by " the Elder " (John) as to the contrast in form between Mark's memoirs of Peter's discourses and the Gospel of Matthew (see GOSPELS; PAPIAS), but defining the place where these memoirs were written as Rome. That he acted to some degree as Peter's interpreter or dragoman (Epf7veur), owing to the apostle's imperfect mastery of Greek, is held by some but denied by others (e.g. by Zahn). His role throughout his career was servus servorum dei; and the fact that he was this successively to Barnabas, Paul and Peter, helps to show the essential harmony of their message .The identification of the author of the second Gospel with Mark, which we owe to tradition, enables us to fill in our. picture of him a little further. Thus it is possible that Mark was himself the youth (veaviorKor) to whom his Gospel refers as present at Jesus's arrest (xiv. 51 seq.; cf. his detailed knowledge as to the place of the last supper, 13 seq.). It is probably as evangelist, and not in his own person, that he became known as " he of the stunted extremities " (rcoXo(3o&6urv\os, " curt-fingered "), a title first found in Hippolytus (Haer. vii. 30), in a context which makes its metaphorical reference to his Gospel pretty evident.' It was too as evangelist that he became personally a subject of later interest
As to his last days and death nothing is really known. It is possibleeven probable, if we accept the theory that he had already 2 been there with Barnabasthat Alexandria was his final sphere of work, as the earliest tradition on the point implies (the Latin Prologue, and Eusebius as above, probably after Julius Africanus in the early 3rd century), and as was widely assumed in the 4th century. That he died and was buried there is first stated by Jerome (De vir. ill. 8), to which his Acts adds the glory
Medieval Legends. The majority of medieval writers on the subject state that Mark was a Levite; but this is probably no more than an inference from his supposed relationship to Barnabas. The Alexandrian tradition seems to have been that he was of Cyrenaean origin ; and Severus, a writer of the loth century, adds to this the statement that his father's name was Aristobulus, who, with his wife Mary, was driven from the Pentapolis to Jerusalem by an invasion of barbarians ' The divergent lines of the later attempts at a literal interpretatione.g. he amputated his thumb in order to.escape the Levitical priesthood (Latin Prologue), or it was a natural defect (Cod. Tolet.)suggest that all they had to start from was the epithet itself. 2 Nicephorus Callistus, Hist. Eccl. ii. 43, assumes this in his picturesque account of Mark's preaching in a quarter of the city which seems to have contained the tomb of the early bishops of Alexandria (cf. his Acts). (Severus Aschimon in Renaudot, Hist. patriarch. alex., p. 2). In the apocryphal Acts of Barnabas, which profess to be written by him, he speaks of himself as having been formerly a servant of Cyrillus, the high priest of Zeus, and as having been baptized at Iconium. The presbyter John, whom Papias quotes, says distinctly that " he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him ' (Eusebius, loc. cit.) ; and this positive statement is fatal to the tradition, which does not appear until about two hundred and fifty years afterwards, that he was one of the seventy disciples (Epiphanius, pseudo-Origen De recta in Deum fide, and the author of the Paschal Chronicle). Various other results of the tendency to fill up blank names in the gospel history must be set aside on the same ground; it was, for example, believed that Mark was one of the disciples who " went back " because of the " hard saying " (pseudo-Hippolyt., De LXX Apostolis in Cod. Barocc. Migne, Patrol. graec. x.955); there was an Alexandrian tradition that he was one of the servants at the miracle of Cana of Galilee, that he was the " man bearing a pitcher of water " in whose house
A tradition which was widely diffused, and which is not in itself improbable, was that he afterwards preached the gospel and presided over the church at Alexandria (the earliest extant testimony is that of Eusebius, H. E. ii. 16, 1; ii. 24; for the fully-developed legend of later times see Symeon Metaphrastes, Vita S. Marci, and Eutychius Origines ecclesiae Alexandrinae). There was another, though perhaps not incompatible, tradition that he preached the gospel and presided over the church at Aquileia in North Italy. The earliest testimony in favour of this tradition is the vague statement of Gregory of Nazianzus that Mark preached in Italy, but its existence in the 7th century is shown by the fact that in A.D. 629 Heraclius sent the patriarchal chair from Alexandria to Grado, to which city the patriarchate of Aquileia had been then transferred (Chron. patriarch. Gradens., in Ughelli, Italia sacra, tom. v. p. 1086; for other references to the general tradition see De Rubeis, Monum. eccles. aquileien., c. 1; Acta sanctorum, ad April, xxv.). It was through this tradition that Mark became connected with Venice, whither the patriarchate was further transferred from Grado; an early Venetian legend, which is represented in the Cappella Zen in the basilica of St Mark, antedates thi connexion by picturing the evangelist as having been stranded on the Rialto, while it was still an uninhabited island, and as having had the future greatness of the city revealed to him (Danduli, Chron. iv. 1, ap. Muratori
The earliest traditions appear to imply that he died a natural death (Eusebius, Jerome, and even Isidore of Seville) ; but the Martyrologies claim him as a martyr
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It has been at various times supposed that Mark wrote other works besides the Gospel. Several books of the New Testament have been attributed to him: viz. the Epistle to the Hebrews (Spanheim, Op. miscell. ii. 240), the Epistle of Jude (cf. Holtzmann, Die synoptischen Evangelien, p. 373), the Apocalypse (Hitzig, Ueber Johannes Marcus, Zurich, 1843). The apocryphal Acta Barnabae purport to have been written by him. There is a liturgy which bears his name, and which exists in two forms; the one form was found in a MS. of the 12th century in Calabria, and is, according to Renaudot, the foundation of the three liturgies of St Basil, St Gregory Nazianzen and St Cyril; the other is that which is used by the Maronite and Jacobite Syrians. Both forms have been published by Renaudot, Liturg. oriental. collect, i. 127, and ii. 176, and in Neale's History of the Holy Eastern Church; but neither has any substantial claim to belong to the ante-Nicene period of Christian literature. The symbol by which Mark is designated in Christian art is usually that of a lion. Each of the " four living creatures " of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse has been attributed to each of the four evangelistsin turn; Augustine and Bede think that Mark is designated by the " man "; Theophylact and others think that he is designated by the eagle; Anastasius Sinaita makes his symbol the ox; but medieval art acquiesced in the opinion of Jerome that he was indicated by the lion. Most of the martyrologies and calendars assign April 25 as the day on which he should be commemorated ; but the Martyr
opinion as to whether there was one Mark or more than one.See Canon Molini of Venice, De vita et lipsanis S. Marci Evangelistae, edited, after the author's death, by S. Pieralisi, the librarian of the Barberini library (1864) ; R. A. Lipsius, Die apokryphen Apostelgesch. and Apostellegenden (1883 foil). vol. ii. part 2, pp. 321-353. End of Article: MARK, ST If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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