Saint Mark The Evangelist 
 
     

 

 

 
 

Saint Mark The Evangelist

25 April, Saint Mark The Evangelist

 

Mark, who is also identified with the John Mark of the New Testament, was, according to Christian tradition, the author of the Second Gospel. (He is not the same person as the man who fled naked when Jesus was arrested [Mark 14:51-52].) According to the Acts, his mother, Mary, owned a house in Jerusalem in which the earliest Christian community gathered (12:12). After visiting Jerusalem, Paul [January 25; June 29] and Barnabas [June 11] took Mark back with them to Antioch (12:25). Mark assisted them in the proclamation of the gospel in Cyprus (13:1-12), but upon their arrival by ship in Perga, he left them and returned to Jerusalem (13:13). Later, after returning to Antioch, Paul and Barnabas had an argument over Mark. Barnabas wanted to take Mark on their next journey, but Paul objected on the grounds that Mark had not persevered on the previous journey. Accordingly, Barnabas took Mark back to Cyprus, and Paul set out for Syria and Cilicia with Silas (15:36-41).

In the Letter to Philemon, Mark is mentioned among Paul’s fellow workers (v.24). When Paul was held captive in Rome, Mark was with him, giving him “comfort” (Col.4:10). In the same verse, Mark is mentioned as the cousin of Barnabas, and the Christians at Colossae are urged to receive Mark hospitably, if he should come there. Elsewhere Timothy [January 26] is asked to bring Mark to Paul, since he is useful for the apostle’s ministry (2 Tim. 4:11). The first letter attributed to Peter [June 29], written in all likelihood from Rome, mentions Mark as the “son” of Peter, a tern either of simple affection or an indication that Peter was Mark’s father in the faith. Mark’s presence in Rome with Peter would be consistent with the tradition that Mark took notes that recorded Peter’s memories of Jesus’ teachings and deeds. This tradition was written down by Papias of Hierapolis, according to the historian Eusebius, who also said that Mark was Peter’s “interpreter.” Mark probably wrote his Gospel there in Rome, but another tradition suggests that it was written in Alexandria.

Eusebius also recorded the tradition that Mark was the first to bring the Christian faith to Egypt, that he had made known there the Gospel that he had written, and that he had established churches in Alexandria. Eusebius also indicates that Mark was the first bishop of Alexandria. He is said to have been martyred there in the eighth year of Nero’s reign. Mark was venerated as a martyr in both East and West since the fourth century.

Early in the ninth century his body was brought by merchants to Venice to save it from desecration by the Arabs. The original church of St. Mark was destroyed by fire in 976, but the rebuilt cathedral contains both the relics from Alexandria and the twelfth-to-thirteenth-century mosaics of his life and death and of the transfer of his remains to Venice. Depicted as a winged lion, Mark is patron saint of Venice, Egypt, notaries, basket weavers, glass workers, opticians, and cattle breeders. His feast is on the general Roman Calendar and is also celebrated on this day by all the major Christian liturgical traditions.

 
 
 

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