When we desert Scripture we find the facts doubtful, and even inconsistent. If Papias be trusted (quoted in Eusebius, //. E. iii, 39), Marie never was a disciple of our Lord, which he probaiily infers from 1 Pet. v, 13. Epiphanius, on the other liand, willing to do honor to the evangelist, adopts tlie tradition that he was one of the seventj'-two disciples who turned back from our Lord at the hard saying in John vi {Cont. liar, li, 6, p. 457, Dindorfs recent edition). The same had been said of Luke. Nothing can be decided on this point. The relation of j\Iark to Peter is of great importance for our view of his Gospel. Ancient writers with one con- sent make the evangelist, the interpreter (fp/a)i'fi)r/;c) of the apostle Peter (Papias in Eusel)ius, //. E. iii, 39 ; Irenanis, llcer. iii, 1; iii, 10, 6; Tertullian, c. Marc, iv, 5; Jerome, ad Uedih. vol. ix, etc.\ Some explain this word to mean that the oflicc of Mark was to translate
into the Greek tongue the Aramaic discourses of the apostle (Eichhorn, Bertholdt, etc.) ; while others adopt the more probable vie^v that Mark wrote a Gospel which conformed more exactly than the others to Peter's preaching, and thus " interpreted" it to the Church at large (Valesius, Alford, Lange, Fritzsche, Meyer, etc.). The passage from Eusebius favors the latter view ; it is a quotation from Papias. "This also [John] the elder said : Mark, being the interpreter of Peter, wrote down exactly whatever things he remembered, but yet not in the order in which Christ either spoke or did them ; for he was neither a hearer nor a follower of the Lord's, but he was afterwards, as I [Papias] said, a follower of Pe- ie?:" The words in italics refer to the word inteq)reter above, and the passage describes a disciple writing down what his master preached, and not an interpreter oraUy translating his words. See Mark, Gospel oi<\ The report that Jlark was the companion of I'eter at Rome is no doubt of great antiquity. Clement of Alexandria is quoted by Eusebius as giving it for " a tradition which he had received of the elders from the first" (Trapdooffiv riov aviKuBti' TrpLa(ivriptx)v, Eusebius, //. E. vi, 14; Clem. Alex. Hyp. p. 6). But the force of this is invali- dated by the suspicion that it rests on a misunderstand- ing of 1 I'et. V, 13, Babylon being wrongly taken for a tj'pical name of Kome (Eusebius, //. E. ii, 15 ; Jerome, De Vir. ill. c. 8). Sent on a mission to Egypt by Peter (Epiphanius, Iher. li, 6, p. 457, Dindorf ; Eusebius, //. E. ii, 16), Mark there founded the Church of Alexandria (Jerome, De Vir. ill. c. 8), and preached in various places (Nicephorus, //. E. ii, 43), then returned to Alexandria, of which Church he was bishop, and suffered a martj-r's death (Nicephorus, ibid, and Jerome, De Vi?: ill. c. 8) in the eighth year of Nero. According to the legend, his remains were obtained from Alexandria by the Vene- tians through a pious stratagem, and conveyed to their city, A.D. 827. Venice was thenceforward solemnly placed under his protection, and the lion, which medi- aeval theology had selected from the apocalyptic beasts as his emblem, became the standard of the republic. The place of the deposition of his body having been lost, a miracle was subsequently wrought for its discov- ery, A.D. 1094, which figures iii many famous Morks of art. Where his remains now lie is, according to the Roman Catholic Eustacius, " acknowledged to be an un- divulged secret ; or, perhaps, in less cautious language, to be utterly unknown." — Smith ; Kitto.
MARK, Gospel of, the second of the evangelical narratives in the N. T. In treating it we shall largely avail ourselves of the articles in the Dictionaries of Kitto and Smith.
I. A utliorsliip. — The voice of the Church with one consent assigns onr second Gospel to Mark, the "son" (1 Pet. V, 17) and "interpreter" (Papias, ap. Eusebius, //. E. iii, 39) of Peter. The existence of tliis ascrip- tion is tlie best evidence of its truth. Had not Mark been its author, no sulhcient reason can be given for its having borne the name of one so undistinguished in the history of the Church. His identity with the " John Mark" of the Acts and Epistles has usually been taken for granted, nor (see last article) is there any sufficient groinid for calling it in question. It must, however, be acknowledged that there is no early testimony for the fact — as there is none against it — which appears first in the preface to the Co?nme?itct?-y on the evangelist usually attributed to Victor of Antioch, cir. A.D. 407 (Cramer, Cate?ta, i, 263), and in a note of Ammonius {ibid, ii, iv), where it is mentioned with some expression of doubt 7-«x« oliTug trr-ii' Mi'ipKOQ u tvayye\t(T-iii; . . . TtiiavoQ c't 6 \6yoQ (Westcott, hiti-od. p. 212). An argument in favor ol their identity has been drawn with much acute- ness by Tregelles (.Jo?i?-?i. ofPhilol. 1855, p. 224 ; Home's liit?-od. to iV. T. p. 433) from the singular epithet "stump- fingered," KoXoliodc'iKTiiXoc , applied to the evangelist in the J'/rilosoj)/iiime?ia, vii, 30, as illustrated by the words of the Latin preface found in some MSS. " at least nearly coeval with Jerome," " amputasse sibi post fidcm poUi-