ON SAINT MARY,
THE JERUSALEM MATRON,
MOTHER OF JOHN WHO IS ALSO MARK.
CENT. I.
Synopsis on her house at Jerusalem, and cult in the present Roman.
Mary, mother of John, surnamed Mark (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
With the Apostle Peter thrown into prison, of which above has been treated, Prayer was made without intermission by the Church to God for him, For Peter the captive as is said in Acts XII, nor was made in vain: for on which night he was last sleeping there, on the morrow to be brought out to the people, he was loosed by an Angel. By this also led out from there, and considering himself truly freed, he came to the house of Mary mother of John, who was surnamed Mark, where were many gathered and praying. The same in many places of the city at the same time was customary, prayer was made in Mary's house, now a church: where the faithful were wont to gather, no doubt can be: yet to this house remained the honor of a peculiar memory and religion, so that it is shown even today, converted into a sufficiently splendid church; under this title also, that there is thought to have been the cenacle, in which Christ celebrated the last supper, and the Apostles received the Holy Spirit. there also is believed to have been made the supper and given the Holy Spirit: To this tradition agrees Alexander the Monk, he who about the year of Christ 500, or at least in the VI century, wrote the Praise of S. Barnabas, edited by us at day XI of this month and illustrated with Notes; where from the consensus of experts we have corrected him saying, that house, afterwards a church, is situated in holy Sion, when in the lower city it is shown by all.
[2] The same Alexander about Mary says num. 15, that taught by her nephew through a sister Barnabas of Christ's presence in the temple, there Christ is said to have customarily been a guest, the magnificent miracles he was performing there, and proving himself the Messiah, immediately that admirable woman, with everything left in her hands, went to the temple of God. Where when she had seen Jesus the Lord of the temple, at his feet she cast herself, and so prayed him: If I have found grace, O Lord, in your sight, come to the house of your handmaid, that by your entrance you may bless your servants. To her petition the Lord assented: whom that woman exceedingly joyful received into her cenacle. From that day therefore, as often as the Lord had come to Jerusalem, there together with his disciples he stayed; with whom also he made the Passover there, where also the sacraments of the mysteries the same his disciples he taught. So he, but this less credible. confirming the aforesaid tradition, which yet I confess seems to me little solid, when I consider, how indefinitely the Apostles asked of Christ, Where do you wish we prepare for you the Pascha? as if supposing no certain lodging at Jerusalem to be his: whence also, after he had preached in the temple, sometimes
he withdrew himself to Bethany, there to spend the night. But also Christ, as if to a house and man otherwise unknown, seems to have directed them when he says: Go into the city; and a man will meet you carrying a jug of water: follow him, and wherever he shall have entered, say to the Master of the house, that the Teacher says, Where is my refection etc.
[3] However it is, nothing more about Mary either Scripture sacred, or any other ecclesiastical history hands down; so neither even the Greeks indeed, generally wont to pursue with some commemoration whoever, unknown to the Greek Fasti is named in the divine pages of the new Testament, have assigned any day to her; so far is it from that after the silence of so many centuries someone can with foundation define, when and where Mary died. is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, Yet it pleased some more recent Martyrologists, to commemorate her together with the holy Princes of the Apostles, as their hostess, on this day with these words: In Cyprus of S. Mary, mother of John, who was surnamed Mark, whose house at Jerusalem was the first church of the Christians. This last, is most uncertain: and the determined Birthday place, In Cyprus, could be omitted, as if Barnabas and Mark, and attributed to Cyprus. preaching in Cyprus, there Mary followed them, perhaps much earlier dead; or, if she was living, why she did not also follow her son to Alexandria, whom verisimilarly to be Mark the Evangelist, and there to have fixed his seat, we have judged in the Notes on the aforesaid Alexander, in the Praise of S. Barnabas.