ST. MARK THE EVANGELIST (APRIL 25TH)

  

St Mark the Evangelist, 1657, by Emmanuel Tzanes, on the Google Art Project

By Bp. Joseph Boyd

Introduction 

St. Mark is an oft overlooked character in Western Christianity. He is believed to have been John Mark, whose mother's house was used as a meeting place for the Apostles. (Acts 12:12) Some traditions assert that he may have been the young disciple mentioned in passing in several places in the Gospel of Mark, who followed Christ after His arrest. (Mark 14:51) He is commonly pictured as a bystander, an inconsequential figure, a mere sidekick of Sts. Paul and Barnabas, but he was also present with St. Peter in Rome before his martyrdom. (Acts 12:25, 13: 5) He is painted as a late-comer to the project of writing the Gospels, dependent on the Gospel of Matthew, which mirrors the same content and often uses the same words and phrases, but in different order, and a “lesser witness” to the Life of Christ. 

Churches Founded by St. Mark 

St. Mark’s influence is felt prominently amongst Coptic Orthodox Christians, who look to him as the founder of the Egyptian Church, and claim him as the root of their Apostolic Succession. The Copts credit him with preaching in Egypt, Pentapolis, Judea, Asia Minor, and Italy during which time he ordained bishops, priests, and deacons; of establishing the "School of Alexandria" which defended Christianity against the pagan philosophical school of Alexandria and conceived a large number of the great Fathers of the Church; and of writing the Divine Liturgy of the Holy Eucharist which was edited by St. Cyril of Alexandria to become the Divine Liturgy known today as the Coptic Liturgy of St. Cyril. St. Mark’s enduring symbol is the face of a lion, one of the four faces of the Cherubim that guard the Throne of God, and this symbol is used by the Coptic, Greek and Melkite Patriarchates that claim a lineage descending from him. 

The Importance of St. Mark in the Gospels 

Fr. Dr. Paul Tarazi makes a very controversial claim in his writing on the New Testament, that unlike the precedence that St. Jerome gives to the Book of Matthew as supposedly being written in Hebrew, the First Gospel, it was actually the Book of Mark that was the first documentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not only does he argue this from the perspective of the length of St. Mark, which is the shortest Gospel, but also from the way in which his material can be found in the other Gospels, much like the theoretical “Q” document. Within Mark, while the organization and structure are different than the other Gospels, we have the clearest and most concise telling of Jesus’ message, divorced from the need to illustrate a timeline or tell a story of His life.

St. Mark the Evangelist, by Andreas Mantegna, 1448

“Mark is not the story of Jesus, nor is it even about him. It is rather the story-like exposition of [Christ’s] authoritative teaching. It fabric is of the same fabric as the Old Testament, which is neither about God nor His story - Let alone the story of Israel or of the (ancient) Jews - but a story-like exposition of God’s teaching.” (Tarazi, The New Testament Introduction: Volume 4, Matthew and the Canon, 2009, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, p. 39) Such a shocking negation can be made when one realizes that Mark not only did NOT address the origins of Christ or sew together a cohesive narrative based on later questions about Christ’s authority or its divergence with the Jerusalem Leaders, but that the message is the substantial part of the presentation. Mark not only does not offer details, but is concerned with creating a response in the hearer, as his constant use of the word “εὐθέως” ("at once" or "directly") conveys! It was written in the long tradition of the “Toledoth” (תּוֹלְדוֹת), the generational exposition, to communicate Christ’s teachings, His Word, which is the “Seed”, the “Zara” (זָרַע) that is the Gospel. 

St. Mark’s Prioritization of the Pauline Gospel 

St. Mark’s priority through the use of the word “εὐαγγέλιον”, which is the word chosen by St. Mark to represent the sum of the message, but upon which Matthew expands, calling it the “Gospel of the Kingdom” (“το ευαγγελιον της βασιλειας” in Matthew 24:14). (Ibid, 30) St. Mark was a fully repentant convert from the Jerusalem Camp of Judaisers and followed the Gospel preached by St. Paul to the Greeks to its logical conclusions. St. Mark’s role within the community is similar to his description of John the Baptist, preaching a message of repentance, preparing the way for the Message of Christ, the Pauline Gospel, which expanded the Christian narrative to include the Gentiles as engrafted members in God’s Covenant, a Judaism that is only complete with the coming of “another”. In such a way, John the Baptist is clearly functioning as an archetype for the whole of the Old Testament. (Ibid, 93-94) 

“Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” 

John the Baptist/St. Mark’s role transformed in the Gospel of Matthew, from the one who prepares the way to the one who preaches the same message as Christ, no longer confused about the role of Christ and certainly not establishing a religion in competition to the coming of the True Messiah. “John’s [the Baptist] message is none other than Jesus’, meaning that Matthew consecrates the full equivalence between the words of the former and those of the latter: to hear John the Baptist is to hear Jesus. That is to say, the Gospel of Mark is itself the gospel and there is none other.” (Ibid, 105) This shows how St. Mark, for the writer of the Gospel of Matthew had become “Scripture”, an irreducible part of the witness of the Pauline Gospel to the Early Gentile Church, and the seal of authenticity for anything else that would follow in the same “lineage”. “Matthew proved to be the consummate “scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven”, a “householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Mt 13:52), the “old” in this case being the Old Testament scripture, and the “new” the Markan material.” (Ibid, 106) In this way, Tarazi and many other contemporary biblical scholars believe that St. Mark actually wrote the first Gospel, and was the cornerstone on which all the other Gospels were built. “The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.” (Psalm 118:22, Acts 4:11) 

The Martyrdom of St. Mark 

St. Mark’s profound influence may be minimized and misunderstood today, but even in his death, St. Mark proclaimed the Gospel and became the seed of a mighty Apostolic Church. According to Coptic Tradition, in the year 68 AD, Pascha fell on the same day as the feast of the pagan god Serapis. Furious that the Christians would detract from the celebration of their god, a pagan mob gathered at Serapis’ temple in Alexandria and then marched upon the Christians who were gathered in the home of a pious Christian Jew to celebrate the Resurrection.

The Martyrdom of St. Mark

The mob seized St. Mark, dragged him with ropes through the streets, spitting on him and throwing rocks at him. The angry crowd shouted "The ox must be led to Baucalis," a hill that was used in making sacrifices to pagan gods. After a whole day of this horrible torment, St. Mark was taken by the Roman soldiers and thrown into prison. That night, he received a vision from the Lord, and an angel came to him and said, "Now your hour has come O Mark, the good minister, to receive your recompense. Be encouraged, for your name has been written in the book of life." St. Mark praised God and thanked Him for sending an angel to encourage him. Suddenly, the Savior Himself appeared and said to him, "Peace be to you Mark, my disciple and evangelist!" St. Mark started to shout out, "O My Lord Jesus" but immediately the vision faded. In the morning, the crowd came and took him from the prison, bound him, and dragged him in the triumphal process of Sarapis, scratching, pulling, stoning, and hacking at him in the streets, until his flesh no longer held together and he gave up the ghost. 

Upon reaching the temple of Sarapis, the mob attempted to burn St. Mark’s body as a human sacrifice, but rain fell unexpectedly from the sky and put out the fire and the people ran for cover as the sudden storm produced thunder and lightening. The Christians saw that this was there chance to rescue St. Mark’s body, so the quickly ran and collected his torn and bleeding body, and hid his body in a secret grave. A church was eventually built on this spot and the holy altar was placed above St. Mark’s holy bones, which await the Resurrection from the Dead, and the return of Our Lord Jesus Christ to rule and reign forever. While the pagan’s wanted to make St. Mark into a “sacrificial bull”, God exulted him to become the lion-face of a Cherub, and set him to guard the Throne of Christ with one of the four most important books ever written - the Gospels!

Leone Marciano Andante, by Vittore Carpaccio, Google Art Project

The Collect 

O ALMIGHTY God, who hast instructed thy holy Church with the heavenly doctrine of thy Evangelist Saint Mark; Give us grace that, being not like children carried away with every blast of vain doctrine, we may be established in the truth of thy holy Gospel; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.

May the Name of Christ be blessed forever! St. Mark the Evangelist, pray for us!