The Life
Mark was born in Jerusalem of a wealthy family. His mother’s house adjoined the Garden of Gethsemane, and tradition holds that the Last Supper itself took place in the upper room there. He was a young man on the night the Lord was arrested. He followed at a distance, wrapped only in a linen cloth, and when the soldiers grabbed him, he ran away naked. He was a nephew of the Apostle Barnabas. He traveled with Paul, with Barnabas, and most especially with Peter, who calls him “my son” in his First Epistle. He wrote his Gospel in Rome under Peter’s guidance. He founded the Church of Alexandria in Egypt and was martyred there on Pascha 68 by a pagan mob. The Church remembers him on April 25.
When the Lord was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples scattered. Among those near at hand was a young man who had no time to dress — he had thrown a linen cloth around himself and run out to follow. The soldiers grabbed him. He pulled out of the cloth, left it behind, and ran away naked. The Gospel of Mark records this small, unimportant detail (Mark 14:51-52). It does not tell us the young man’s name. The Fathers have always understood it to be Mark himself, recording his own presence at the edge of the Gospel he would later write down.
Mark traveled with the Apostle Paul and his uncle Barnabas on the first missionary journey to Cyprus and then to Asia Minor. At Perga in Pamphylia he turned back. We are not told why — perhaps homesickness, perhaps the rigors of the road, perhaps because he was still very young. When Paul and Barnabas were planning their second journey, Paul refused to take him along. Barnabas insisted. The disagreement was so sharp that the two great apostles parted ways for a time. Barnabas took Mark to Cyprus. Years later Paul and Mark were reconciled and became close again. Paul, near the end of his life, wrote to Timothy from his Roman prison: “Take Mark and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11).
Mark eventually became one of the closest companions of the Apostle Peter. The two traveled together. Mark served as Peter’s interpreter when Peter preached in Greek-speaking communities. Peter trusted him entirely. In his First Epistle, Peter sends greetings to the churches and adds: “Marcus my son” (1 Peter 5:13). The relationship was that of a spiritual father to a beloved son. Out of this relationship the Gospel of Mark was born. The Christians in Rome asked Mark to write down what Peter had been preaching to them. Peter approved. Mark wrote. The Gospel of Mark is therefore, in a sense, the Gospel according to Peter — the apostolic preaching of the Rock of the Church, written down by his spiritual son.
The Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the four. It begins with John the Forerunner crying in the wilderness. It moves from miracle to miracle, sign to sign, with the Greek word “immediately” appearing more than forty times. The Lord heals; immediately he goes to the next town. He casts out a demon; immediately he goes to pray. He calls disciples; immediately they leave their nets and follow. The whole Gospel runs at high speed. It carries the reader breathlessly to the Cross and to the empty tomb. The Fathers have always seen in this pace the urgency of an apostolic preacher — Peter himself, almost — telling the world that the Kingdom of God has come, that the time is short, that no one should delay.
After his time with Peter in Rome, Mark went to Egypt. He preached at Alexandria, the second-greatest city of the Roman Empire. As he was walking into the city, his sandal broke. He went to a cobbler named Anianus to have it repaired. While Anianus was working on it, the awl pierced his finger and he cried out in Greek “Eis Theos!” — “One God!” Mark heard the words and used them as the opening for a conversation about the One God. He took some clay, mixed it with his spit, applied it to the wound — just as the Lord had done with the blind man — and the cut healed at once. Anianus and his whole household were baptized. He became the second bishop of Alexandria, succeeding Mark himself.
These are the very last words of the Gospel of Mark. They are about the apostles — about Mark’s spiritual father Peter, about Paul, about Barnabas his uncle, and about all who went out from the empty tomb to preach the Gospel. They went forth. The Lord worked with them. He confirmed their word with signs. The whole Gospel of Mark, full of action from beginning to end, ends not with a calm scene of resolution but with the disciples already going out into all the world. The mission has begun. The Lord is going with them. He will go with us too.
On Pascha morning in the year 68, Mark was celebrating the Divine Liturgy in Alexandria. A pagan mob, enraged by the success of his preaching against the worship of the city’s idols, broke in. They tied a rope around his neck and dragged him through the streets of Alexandria. They threw him in prison overnight. The next morning they dragged him through the streets again until he gave up his soul. The Christians took up his body and buried him in a stone crypt. He was about sixty years old. The Church remembers his martyrdom on April 25.
Mark matters to every Orthodox Christian for many reasons. He gave us the second of the four Gospels — the shortest, the most urgent, the one closest to apostolic preaching itself. He was the spiritual son of Peter, the nephew of Barnabas, the eventual companion of Paul. He founded the Church of Alexandria, which became one of the supreme centers of early Christianity. He composed the oldest of the apostolic Liturgies. He was a young man who had stumbled, returned home, and yet became one of the four Evangelists. He is the friend of every Christian who has ever turned back from the road, ever felt judged by an older mentor, ever wondered whether the Lord could still use them. The young man fleeing naked from Gethsemane became the lion of the Gospel.