(ii.) Some three or four years pass before we meet Mark again in the history. The great con- troversy as to the freedom of the Gentile converts had been closed, pulwardly at least, by the decision of ‘the Council’ at Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch. At Antioch (if without further discussion we may assume the identity of the visit to Jerusalem recorded in Ac 15 with that recorded in Gal 2) there took place the events which St. Paul briefly narrates in Gal 24", St. Peter followed to Antioch the emissaries of the Church at Jerusalem, and proved himself loyal to the concordat of ‘the Council.’ But the arrival of ‘certain from James’ wrought a disastrous change. Fearing those of the circumcision,’ he withdrew from full fellowship with Gentile believers. His example was the signal for a general revolt.
* With this interpretation, as indeed with the common on
(cf. Cod. E), though less conspicuously, εἶχον τε εἶχον μεθ᾽ ἑαυτῶν. This sense of ἔχειν is common (especially in the participle) in all Greek, e.g. Xen. Cyr. iv. 2. 29—‘et swpissime Thucydides ceterique omnes’ (Stephanus, Thes., ed. Hase, iii. 2616), Here εἶχον takes up συνπαραλαβόντες, v.2,
All the Jewish Christians at Antioch (οἱ λοιποὶ ᾿Ιουδαῖοι) joined in his time-serving policy, and the pressure of their opinion seduced even (xal) Bar- nabas, St. Paul’s old and close companion. St. Paul’s public rebuke of St. Peter and (by implica- tion) of Barnabas and the rest closes the his- tory, so far as he has chosen to reveal it. It has an obvious bearing on the relations of St. Paul with Mark. We know that Mark was at Antioch shortly after these events (Ac 1587, The three leaders with whom he was most intimately associated, St. Peter, St. Paul, Barnabas, were there bees It seems an almost certain infer- ence that Mark had come as the companion of one of them. If so, he was among ol λοιποὶ ᾿Ιουδαῖοι, who proved traitors; and his example and opinion must have been conspicuous among the influences which led Barnabas astray. We can understand that to St. Paul’s mind his later conduct set its seal upon his earlier. His loyalty to ‘the truth of the gospel’ was more than ques- tionable, and his influence over Barnabas was harmful. When Barnabas proposed that Mark should again be their companion, an indignant reference to his former desertion of ‘the work’ (1538) was sufficient answer. If we realize the significance, personal and doctrinal, of the histo in Gal 2, we can understand the παροξυσμός whic separated Barnabas from Paul. The notice that Mark with Barnabas sailed to Cyprus immediately after these events is the last cetexenge to him in the Acts.
(iii.) After an interval of ten or twelve years we meet with Mark again in St. Paul’s letters to the Colossians (419) and to Philemon (v.™). Mark is at Rome. His presence there is ‘a solace’ to St. Paul. In both Epistles the apostle speaks of him as one of the few whom he can call ‘ fellow-workers’ (contrast Ph 11), The happy change in the re- lations between St. Paul and Mark is an important indication of the triumph of St. Paul’s ‘catholic’ views of Christianity among the higher type of Jewish Christians. It is clear from St. Paul’s language that Mark had contemplated, and it appears was still contemplating, a journey to Asia; and the Asiatic Chiistane had alread received from St. Paul a brief message commend- ing him to them.
(iv.) Some three or four ets later, St. Paul’s last Epistle associates Mark with Timothy. The words (2 Ti 4") seem to imply that the two were no strangers to each other, and that Timothy was already acquainted with Mark’s movements. Timothy, it seems probable, was still at Ephesus (Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, p. 437). He is bidden to come to Rome by the shortest route (v.*), and to execute a commission at Troas on the way (ν. 3). From Troas he was doubtless to cross to Neapolis, to travel along the Egnatian Road to Dyrrhachium, to cross to Brundisium, and to hasten to Rome by the Via Appia. At some point in the journey he is to ‘pick up’ Mark (v."). If that point was in the neighbourhood of Ephesus, the notice is perhaps an indication that Mark had carried out his purpose of visiting Asia (Col 4°). If not, it cannot be a place which is otherwise associated with Mark either by history or by tradition. To this direc- tion St. Paul, remembering the help rendered to him by Mark in his former captivity, adds the reason of it—éorw γάρ μοι εὔχρηστος els διακονίαν. The last three words, as Swete observes (p. xv), ‘assign to Mark his precise place in the history of the Apostolic age.’
(v.) One more notice of Mark is found in the apostolic writings. In his First Epistle, written at Rome (see article BABYLON IN NT), St. Peter sends to the churches of Asia Minor the salutation of ‘Marcus my son.’ This greeting makes it prob-
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able that Mark had visited some of the churches to which the apostle is writing (see above (iii.) (iv.)). It is certain from these words that Mark was with St. Peter at Rome—an important point of contact between the NT and early Christian tradition. The tenderness of the phrase ὁ υἱός μου is explained by St. Peter’s early intimacy with Mark in ‘the house of Mary.’