John Mark

ON ST. JOHN MARK, DISCIPLE OF CHRIST OR OF THE APOSTLES,

Cent. I.

HISTORICO-CRITICAL SYLLOGE.

John Mark, disciple of Christ or of the Apostles. (S.)

BY J. S.

§ I. The memory of the Saint in the sacred Fasti: his deeds examined.

Baronius in the Roman Martyrology announces on this day, together with the Greeks, St. John Mark, John Mark commemorated in the Fasti as bishop of Byblos, disciple of the Apostles and herald of the Gospel, of whom he speaks thus: At Byblos in Phœnicia, of St. Mark the bishop, who is also named John by the blessed Luke. In his Annotations he observes that he is commemorated in the Acts of the Apostles and in various Epistles of St. Paul, and that he is distinct from St. Mark the evangelist — which some have denied, and which will be examined below. Baronius likewise cites the Menology of the Greeks, namely the Sirletian, in which St. John Mark is commemorated along with Aristarchus and Zeno, disciples likewise of St. Paul, as is done also in the printed Menæa. Of Mark the Menology has this: Saint Mark, who was also called John, of whom the apostle Luke makes mention, being ordained bishop, showed himself in the preaching of the Gospel so approved and so pleasing to God that by his very shadow diseases were put to flight. The same is read more explicitly in the Menæa: for he is said to have been ordained bishop of Byblos by the Apostles, and he himself, after the manner of the Greeks, is called an Apostle from the Gospel he announced. In the very full enumeration of the Apostles and of the first disciples which is given at the XXX of June in the manuscript Synaxary of Sirmond, Mark is reckoned in Greek words, which I render into Latin: Mark, who was also called John, of whom Luke makes mention in the Acts. He was made bishop of Byblos. In the same catalogue the same Mark — as is certainly more probable, and as I shall prove hereafter — is reckoned in these other words: Mark the brother (or cousin) of Barnabas, who was made bishop of Apollonias.

[2] Among the Greeks St. Mark is commemorated together with Aristarchus and Zeno also on the XXVII of April, and the same on various days also as bishop of Apollonias, as one of the seventy-two Disciples and as bishop of Byblos. Byblos, here called Bibliopolis, was a city of Phœnicia, and Lequien in his Oriens Christianus, tom. 2, col. 821, reckons up some of its bishops, where he places today's St. Mark first. But we shall say below that the place of his episcopate was taken from Pseudo-Dorotheus, and is therefore altogether uncertain. Meanwhile our predecessors in the Prætermissi at the XXVII of April observed that Mark is commemorated on that day also in the Lusitanian Hagiology and in the Spanish Martyrology; and that we do not approve what is there brought forward about St. Mark out of spurious Chronicles. At the XI of January also a certain Mark is commemorated in the Menæa as an Apostle, who may be today's, or St. Mark the evangelist, as was observed in the Prætermissi of that same day. But today's Mark is rather to be judged the one — if today's be not the evangelist — who among the Greeks is commemorated in the Menæa and in the Sirletian Menology at the XXI of June, as the cousin of St. Barnabas the apostle and bishop of Apollonias; concerning whom our Papebroch observed in the same place that this episcopate seems to have been attributed to Mark the cousin of St. Barnabas gratuitously, and that he seems to be no other than St. Mark the evangelist — which we shall examine at greater length. Meanwhile Mark, the cousin of St. Barnabas, whom we certainly believe to be John Mark, is repeated among the Greeks also at the XXII of June: and the same is inserted in the manuscript Synaxary of Sirmond at the XX of October, and again in the Menæa and the Sirletian Menology at the XXX of October.

[3] he had Mary for his mother, and was perhaps a disciple of Christ. These things being observed, I proceed to examine the deeds of St. John Mark, or of Mark the cousin of Barnabas, whom we believe to be the same man. The first mention of St. John Mark in the sacred Writings is found in Acts 12 ℣ 12, where St. Peter, in the year 43 or 44 — which I do not here examine — being delivered by divine power from the prison of Herod, came to the house of Mary the mother of John, who was surnamed Mark, where many were gathered together and praying. Of that house and of Mary, the mother of St. John Mark, our Papebroch treated at the XXIX of June. From the house of his mother alone, which was at Jerusalem, I observe that St. John was in all likelihood born and brought up at Jerusalem, so that he could there see Christ the Lord and be joined to his disciples, as in various catalogues he is reckoned among the seventy-two disciples. The thing is probable, unless he was not enrolled because he was perhaps of too tender an age when the Lord chose his disciples. But as it cannot be proved by any certain argument that St. John Mark was of the disciples of Christ, so there are very few of whom this can be conjectured with greater likelihood, since he had at Jerusalem a mother who was hostess to the Apostles. Wherefore those who certainly deny it act no less lightly than those who affirm it. For they who affirm on the authority of Jerome that he was a disciple of Barnabas have not rightly understood Jerome's words, as will be proved in its place.

[4] In Acts 12 ℣ 25 the following words are read to our purpose: The Saint sets out with Paul and Barnabas for Antioch, And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem (whither they had gone from Antioch to carry relief to the poor) having fulfilled their ministry, taking with them John, who was surnamed Mark. This is the first journey of John Mark that is known; but others with Peter or with other Apostles may have preceded it. That journey, however, in which he set out with Paul and Barnabas for Antioch, fell about the year 44. And when these had there been ordained Apostles by divine command, as is related in Acts 13, John accompanied them on their apostolic expedition to Seleucia, and thence to the island of Cyprus.

[5] Of which matters, ℣ 4: And they (Paul and Barnabas) indeed, being sent by the Holy Spirit, went to Seleucia (on the sea, and thence into Cyprus: but afterwards withdraws from them,) and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. And when they had come to Salamis, they preached… And they had John also in their ministry. So they are said to have gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, John always accompanying them. And at ℣ 13 there follows: And when Paul and they that were with him had sailed from Paphos, they came to Perge in Pamphylia. And John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem. This was St. John Mark's first expedition with the Apostles, in which he had traversed much country, and was already in Pamphylia far distant from Jerusalem. Chrysostom, on the passage cited, believes that John departed because they were thereafter undertaking a longer journey. Alexander the Cyprian monk, in the Acts of St. Barnabas published at the XI of June, num. 22, speaks thus of St. Mark's return: But when Mark himself had seen the Apostles undergoing dangers for the preaching of the Gospel, and not studying honour, but forsaking this brief and perishable glory, and hastening to take up war against unbelieving men; he himself began to halt at the undergoing of dangers; being indeed a Youth timorous, and too weak to be able to despise death. Having therefore forsaken the Apostles, he returned to Jerusalem to his mother.

[6] In the other Acts of St. Barnabas, which were composed under the name of John Mark, and returns to Jerusalem, but the cause of his withdrawal is unknown. and which were likewise published by us, not as St. John Mark's, but as an ancient writer's, at page 431, somewhat more is said of the beginnings of St. John Mark, but perhaps falsely, and at least uncertainly. Passing over therefore these things, which may be read there, I allege only the reason for his departure there expressed. But I wished, says the author in the person of Mark, to set out for the regions of the setting sun; but the Holy Spirit did not permit me. But this does not seem probable enough; and it may be briefly said that the cause of his withdrawal is unknown, and that the reasons brought forward are bare conjectures. Whence did the monk Alexander know that John Mark was then a youth? We certainly know that he was the cousin of St. Barnabas, and thence we may more rightly conjecture that he was of nearly the same age with him. Therefore we say nothing certain about the cause of his withdrawal, nor do we certainly know whether he remained long at Jerusalem. For he may again have preached the Gospel in other places, even though we have nothing on this matter in the Scriptures.

[7] About the year 51 John Mark was in all likelihood at Jerusalem, when the council of the Apostles was held, of which Acts 15 treats. Not long after this council he returned to Antioch, whither Paul and Barnabas returned from the council, Again, Paul refusing him as a companion, he sets out with Barnabas so that he might attach himself to them once more. Of these matters, Acts 15 ℣ 36: And after some days (at Antioch) Paul said to Barnabas: Let us return and visit our brethren in all the cities wherein we have preached the word of the Lord, to see how they do. And Barnabas would have taken with him John also, that was surnamed Mark. But Paul desired that he, as having departed from them out of Pamphylia and not gone with them to the work, might not be received. And there arose a dissension, so that they departed one from another, and Barnabas indeed, taking Mark, sailed to Cyprus. Chrysostom reasons much upon this passage, to show that no enmities or contentions arose between Paul and Barnabas, but only a dissension or difference of opinion, since St. Paul was the more severe and St. Barnabas the milder; and that the separation was made by mutual counsel, because it would be profitable to the Church. And he observes in these words that it profited Mark also: This contest was of very great profit to Mark. For Paul's severity converted him: while the kindness of Barnabas brought it about that he was not abandoned… For seeing Paul willing to depart, he was much terrified, and condemned himself: and again seeing Barnabas so championing him, he greatly

loved him, and the disciple was amended by the contest of his teachers, etc.

[8] he sails to Cyprus and traverses the whole of it, Alexander the monk has like things in the Acts of St. Barnabas, whereto he subjoins: Wherefore, having Mark with him, he sailed to Cyprus. The whole journey into Cyprus is set out more fully in the Acts once attributed to John Mark, as may there be read in our pages 432 and 433, where the deeds of Barnabas in Cyprus also follow down to his martyrdom. Alexander, who at least deserves greater credit than that Work falsely ascribed to Mark, says at num. 23 — but solely, as it seems, from conjecture — that Mark, repenting of his former weakness, came with tears to Barnabas at Jerusalem, and obtained of him that he might again be allowed to accompany him: that he then followed him to Antioch, and thence set out with Barnabas for Cyprus; that he traversed the whole island with him, and that at last they came to Salamis.

[9] buries Barnabas when he has been crowned with martyrdom, When a persecution had there been stirred up by the Jews against St. Barnabas, he, at num. 28, gave Mark such charges as these, as the author asserts: Which being done, (Barnabas) taking Mark with him, withdrew, and said to him apart: This day I must be consummated at the hands of the unbelieving Jews. But do thou go out of the city towards the West, and thou shalt find my body. And when thou hast buried it, depart from Cyprus and set out to Paul; and be with him until the Lord shall have disposed thy affairs: for it shall come to pass that thy name shall be published throughout the whole world. Then is related the slaying of St. Barnabas, accomplished outside the city, and his body cast into the fire, but unharmed by divine power. And the author adds: Mark therefore, as Barnabas had charged him, going out of the city towards the West with certain brethren, secretly carried away the relics of St. Barnabas, and buried them in a certain cave about five stadia distant from the city. Presently returning into the city, they followed him with mourning and tears.

[10] then, having left Cyprus, he is said to have written the Gospel, Finally Alexander narrates these things of St. Mark's remaining deeds: Thereupon Mark, having sailed from Cyprus, came to Paul, who was at Ephesus, and informed him of the martyrdom of Barnabas. When he had heard it, he wept, and kept Mark with him. But afterwards, when Peter the apostle had been bidden by divine revelation to set out for Rome, he took Mark also with him, whom he had in a manner begotten to himself as a son. When they were in the city of Rome, Mark wrote the Gospel: which Peter the apostle read, and knew to have been written by the divine Spirit, and approved. And so he ordained Mark himself by the imposition of hands, and sent him, as most fit, into Alexandria the city of Egypt, and into Libya and the Pentapolis. And when Mark had come thither, he preached the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to those regions, so that many were converted to the faith of Christ. And when Mark had taught the faith of God nine years in that region, he suffered martyrdom in the city of Alexandria. Thus Alexander the monk, to whose opinion that Mark the evangelist is not to be distinguished from John Mark our Papebroch adhered in his Annotations, and afterwards briefly in other places. The controversy waged on this matter I shall examine below.

[11] Concerning the deeds of St. John Mark some things are read also in the Acts of St. Auxibius bishop of Soli, and he is said to have preached in Egypt. published at the XVII of February, and in these likewise he is not distinguished from St. Mark the evangelist. He is said at num. 4 to have traversed the whole island with Barnabas, and, when the latter was slain and he too was sought for death, to have fled and lain hid three days, and at last to have fallen in with St. Auxibius, on whom he is said to have conferred both baptism and the episcopal Order. But these things can by no means be held for certain, since the authority of that anonymous writer is slight; and since it is certainly not established whether Mark himself was consecrated bishop before the death of St. Barnabas. If we believe Alexander the monk, he was afterwards ordained at Rome by St. Peter: but neither is Alexander's authority so great that one must swear by his words. Concerning Mark's departure from Cyprus the Anonymous just praised also does not agree with Alexander, but leads him straight into Egypt in these words: And Mark indeed, having found an Egyptian ship and gone aboard her, reached Alexandria by sailing, where, discharging the office of an Evangelist, he taught the things that pertain to the kingdom of God. But Alexander led Mark straight to St. Paul. This is certain, that Mark did not remain in Cyprus: but it is uncertain whither he first betook himself from that island. Alexander conjectured that he set out to St. Paul, with whom it is established that Mark afterwards from time to time was; the other divined that he departed into Egypt, because St. Mark the evangelist preached there. Yet with this latter agrees the other Anonymous, who assumed the name of John Mark, so that the Auxibian Anonymous may perhaps have adopted his own from him.

[12] But now, whithersoever St. John Mark first betook himself from Cyprus, He was certainly afterwards Paul's helper in preaching at Rome it is established from various Epistles of St. Paul that he was afterwards a faithful helper of St. Paul, and that he set out for Rome also, and stayed there while the Apostle was in that same place in chains for the first time. For the Apostle, in the Epistle to the Colossians, which he wrote at Rome in chains, chapter 4, from ℣ 10, has this: Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, saluteth you, and Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, touching whom you have received commandments: if he come unto you, receive him. And Jesus, that is called Justus: who are of the circumcision: these only are my helpers in the kingdom of God, who have been a comfort to me. Again in the Epistle to Philemon the Apostle makes mention of Mark and of others from ℣ 23 in these words: There salute thee Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my helpers. These things likewise Paul wrote in chains at Rome, so that no doubt is left but that St. Mark was then at Rome. And since in both places he is reckoned among Paul's helpers, it becomes certain that the Apostle used his labour in the preaching of the Gospel; for he is called a helper in the kingdom of God, and the Colossians had received commandments concerning him and were bidden to receive him.

[13] This appears again from the second Epistle to Timothy, chapter 4, where, after the Apostle had asked Timothy and in Asia, and in all likelihood a bishop. to come to him at Rome, he adds at ℣ XI: Take Mark and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry. Now this Epistle of Paul's was written later at Rome; and hence it is gathered that after the preceding Epistles Mark departed into Asia Minor, in all likelihood to the Colossians, whither the Apostle above intimates that he would come, and to several other cities of Asia Minor; but that he was now recalled to Rome by the Apostle through Timothy, who could know where he was living, which the Apostle himself perhaps did not know. It seems therefore that Mark was sent by Paul to visit the churches of various cities, that he might perform in Paul's stead what the Apostle himself could not accomplish on account of his chains. From what has been related thus far we can scarcely doubt that St. John Mark was consecrated bishop, whether this was done by St. Barnabas, or by St. Paul, or finally by St. Peter, who certainly could and must have known John Mark well, since, when he had been divinely freed from his chains, he presently betook himself to the house of the mother of St. John Mark, who had not yet at that time departed from Jerusalem, so far as we know.

§ II. St. John Mark was the cousin of St. Barnabas. Is he the same as St. Mark the evangelist?

[ ] John Mark was the cousin of St. Barnabas. Since men or Saints ought not to be multiplied without necessity, it is needful that we here inquire whether St. John Mark, commemorated in the Acts of the Apostles and the companion of SS. Paul and Barnabas, be not designated in other ways also in sacred Scripture, or among the ancient writers of the Church. And so it is first asked whether he be the same Mark whom we have seen commemorated three times in the Epistles of St. Paul, the name of John being omitted, and who in one of them, to the Colossians, is called Mark the cousin of Barnabas. Nearly all the learned agree that one and the same Mark is meant, and rightly: for no reason occurs by which we could believe them different. He was first with Paul and Barnabas on the apostolic expedition: then he set out with Barnabas for Cyprus. When St. Barnabas had died there by martyrdom, he joined himself again to other Apostles, and helped Paul when he was in chains at Rome. In this whole chronological arrangement no difficulty occurs, since all things are so divided by their times that a good many others might even be interposed, if other deeds were established. If we only consider how great was St. Barnabas's care for St. John Mark, no just ground of doubt will be left but that this is the very man who in another place is called his cousin, especially since by both names he is intimated to be a Hebrew and an Apostle of the second rank.

[15] It is a doubtful question whether John Mark be the evangelist. The other question is more doubtful, whether St. Mark the evangelist be different from John Mark, or from Mark the cousin of Barnabas. This is easily decided by certain modern writers, who are wont to follow either Baronius or Tillemont in such wise that they think nothing further need be inquired into once those men have brought forward their opinion. Now Baronius, and Tillemont following him, held that Mark the evangelist is altogether another than John Mark — whom with us they believe to be the cousin of Barnabas — and certainly distinct; and the greater part of modern writers have embraced that opinion. Some, however, among whom is our Papebroch, believed that there is no necessity of distinguishing between Mark the evangelist and John Mark, or the cousin of Barnabas; and their opinion pleased St. Jerome and other ancient writers. But among the ancients I find none of any weight who distinguished Mark the evangelist from John Mark. Certainly Baronius brought forward none, Tillemont none, nor any of the other moderns who followed them. Our predecessors went to different opinions. For Henschen at the XXV of April, in St. Mark the evangelist, believed John Mark to be distinct from him, and intimated the same opinion in other places also. On the contrary Papebroch at the XI of June, in St. Barnabas, and elsewhere, found no necessity of distinguishing between them. But Sollerius in the Chronological History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, prefixed to tom. V of June, briefly examined the controversy in chapter 1, and from the chronological arrangement inferred that the opinion of two Marks — one the evangelist, the other the companion of Paul and Barnabas — seemed to him the more probable. To me the controversy appears exceedingly doubtful.

[16] For St. Jerome, in the Epistle to Philemon near the end, does not find those chronological difficulties St. Jerome and other ancients on account of which the moderns bring in two Marks, but declares his mind in these words: For the rest, when he was writing the Epistle to Philemon, he sets down among the fellow workers of the Gospel and of his bonds Mark, whom I think to be the composer of the Gospel, etc. St. Jerome does not indeed certainly assert that he is the same

Evangelist and the helper of Paul when he was detained in chains at Rome. But he conjectured that he was the same, although he was not ignorant that the Evangelist had preached at Alexandria, and that Paul's Helper was at Rome with Paul in chains. Adamantius, in the Dialogue on the right faith in God, sect. 1, expounds of St. Mark the evangelist the passage of the Apostle to the Colossians, clearly making the Evangelist the same as the cousin of Barnabas, as the editor Charles de la Rue saw, since in his Annotations he observes that they are to be distinguished — but without proof. In the Apostolic Constitutions, in Cotelier, book 2 chapter 56, Luke and Mark the evangelists are called Paul's helpers, so that again that ancient writer did not distinguish Mark the evangelist from Paul's Helper, or the cousin of Barnabas, whom with nearly all writers we believe to be John Mark, even though Cotelier in his Annotations inclines to think that not two only, but three Marks, are designated in Scripture. But for that opinion he neither cites any ancient writer nor alleges suitable reasons. On the contrary, for the opinion of one Mark, evangelist and helper of Paul and Barnabas, he cites besides Victor of Antioch, Œcumenius, Theophylact, Euthymius and Haymo.

[17] I shall transfer hither the words of some of the said writers. or of the middle age do not distinguish the Evangelist Victor of Antioch, in his preface to Mark, in the Lyons Bibliotheca Patrum tom. 4 page 370, speaks thus: For the rest, this Mark, who was called by another name John, wove together the history of the Gospel after Matthew, and had for his mother, as is established from the Acts of the Apostles, that Mary with whom the disciples of Christ at Jerusalem were wont to lodge. And indeed at the beginning, as is set forth in those same Acts of the Apostles, he clave to Barnabas his kinsman and to Paul. But when he had come to Rome, he followed Peter. Wherefore Peter in his first Canonical Epistle writes of him in this manner: "The church that is in Babylon, gathered together, saluteth you, and Mark my son." Nay, the apostle Paul also makes mention of him, not only in that which he wrote to the Colossians, but in the latter also to Timothy. "Love Mark (he writes here) [\], and bring him with thee." But there: "Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, saluteth you, etc." This opinion is indeed exceedingly probable, and has this advantage, that we are not forced to say that St. Mark the evangelist was made known in one passage only of holy Scripture, as those assert who distinguish John Mark from the evangelist.

[18] from John Mark or the cousin of Barnabas. Euthymius, in tom. 19 of the said Bibliotheca, page 594, thus prefaces his commentary on Mark: Mark was the son of Mary, who kindly received the Apostles in her house. And he was called also John, as we find in the Acts of the Apostles. Peter, it says, having learned the matter, came to the house of the mother of John, who was surnamed Mark; where many were gathered together and praying. And about the beginnings indeed he was joined to Barnabas his uncle [\], and to Paul, as the book of the Acts testifies, and Paul, making mention of him in his Epistles; as in the Epistle to the Colossians and in the second to Timothy. Then he dwelt with Peter at Rome, as Peter's first Epistle shows, in which also he called him his Son according to the spirit: from whom moreover Mark learned the whole discourse of the Gospel, and afterwards wrote the Gospel — according to Clement the Stromatist, that is, he who wove various things into one — in Rome itself; but according to Chrysostom in Egypt, being asked by the brethren who were dwelling there, after the tenth year from the Saviour's assumption. A like proem on Mark is found in tom. 17 of the Bibliotheca* mentioned, page 422, as taken from the exposition of St. Cyril of Alexandria, and there to the aforesaid it is added that Mark was at last sent by Peter to Alexandria. To this opinion Alexander also subscribed in the Acts of St. Barnabas, and many others whom it is not necessary to recount. For the writers alleged suffice to make it clear that venerable antiquity stands for that opinion, since no ancient writer of good repute has been rightly alleged for the contrary.

[19] but Baronius, Tillemont and others oppose themselves. Nevertheless the Most Eminent Baronius, at the year 45 num. 45, believes that St. Mark the evangelist is altogether to be distinguished from today's John Mark the cousin of St. Barnabas, because, as he judges, the right division of times and places seems to require the distinction. Tillemont, tom. 2 of the Monuments, Note 2 on St. John Mark, asserts the distinction no less strongly, and says that the history must be greatly entangled unless two different men be admitted. I shall not deny that probable and likely reasons are brought forward by those learned men, nor have I resolved wholly to disapprove or to impugn that opinion. Yet, lest we admit uncertain things for certain, it will be of use briefly to show that the distinction of two Marks does not seem so certain that the opinion of the ancients cannot stand or becomes improbable. Nay rather, I cannot dissemble that this latter seems to me more probable than the one opposed to it; but neither of them altogether certain. Both opinions being set forth, anyone may follow whichever he will. But if any believe St. Mark the evangelist to be the same with John Mark, they will have here an Appendix to the Acts of St. Mark, published at the XXV of April. Those, however, who follow the contrary opinion will find all that has been disputed of St. John Mark which offered itself for discussion.

[20] The chronological arguments which are objected, If we believe Baronius and Tillemont, Mark the evangelist was at Alexandria or in Egypt when John Mark was cleaving to Paul and Barnabas, or was afterwards at Rome, or in Asia. It is therefore plainly established, says Baronius, from the diversity of times, places and things, that they are distinct from one another. But how certain are the arguments by which it is proved that Mark the evangelist was in Egypt at the very time when John Mark was with Paul and Barnabas? The Chronicle of Eusebius is cited at the year III of Claudius, which for Baronius is the year of Christ 45, but for Tillemont, Pagi and others more rightly 43, where it has this: Mark the evangelist, the interpreter of Peter, announces Christ to Egypt and to Alexandria. But from Eusebius's Chronicle it cannot be made certain that St. Mark came so early into Egypt, as Tillemont himself acknowledges, who fixes Mark's journey into Egypt in the year 49, because the Epistle of St. Peter, in which mention is made of St. Mark the evangelist, seems certainly to have been written after the year 43. But again that opinion of Tillemont's about the year of Mark's mission into Egypt can in no way be made certain, since it has for its author one of slight authority, namely Eutychius patriarch of Alexandria. Indeed Tillemont himself, in Note 7 on St. Mark, enumerates various opinions about the epoch of St. Mark's mission to Egypt, which in the Alexandrian or Paschal Chronicle is fixed in the year 40, by Jerome in the year 42, but in the Oriental Chronicle is deferred as late as the year 60. Hence our Sollerius in the Chronological History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria §2 speaks thus: How various, how conflicting are the opinions concerning the first Apostolic expedition undertaken by St. Mark into Egypt, we have noted above. As many heads, so many opinions; and the more diligently you examine them, the more you waver and fluctuate, uncertain what to put after and what to prefer.

[21] Wherefore from principles of chronology so uncertain no certain and indubitable consequences of chronological arrangement can be deduced. since they are avoided by uncertain authorities, Nothing is read in the sacred Writings about the time of St. Mark's mission into Egypt, nothing in any writers before Eusebius. About the time of St. Mark's death or martyrdom we have testimonies no more certain. Saint Jerome in his Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 8, says of St. Mark: And he died in the eighth year of Nero (that is, in the year of the Christian era 62) and was buried at Alexandria, Anianus succeeding him. Eusebius had gone before Jerome, book 2 of the History, chapter 24, where he says: Meanwhile, when Nero was passing the eighth year of his rule, Annianus, a man acceptable to God and in every part admirable, was the first after Mark the evangelist to undertake the administration of the church of Alexandria. Baronius and our Sollerius follow this opinion, but Henschen and Tillemont prefer to believe that St. Mark was crowned with martyrdom in the year 68: but Henschen, on account of the authority of Eusebius and Jerome, was unwilling to deliver his opinion as certain. To pass over other opinions about the epoch of saint Mark's death, I should dare to hold neither of those alleged as certain, and to reject neither as false. By what reasoning, then, will it be certainly established from the time of saint Mark's mission into Egypt, or from the epoch of his death, that John Mark was not the Evangelist, since all the deeds of St. John Mark can stand together with the various epochs of the mission into Egypt, and with the latest date of the death of St. Mark the evangelist?

[22] For if St. Mark lived until the year 68 or even 66, prove nothing for a diversity, nothing will stand in the way of his having been able to accomplish at Alexandria in Egypt and in the neighbouring regions all that is there narrated to have been done by the Evangelist, and again all that John Mark performed in the evangelical work, first with Paul and Barnabas, then with Barnabas alone, and at last at Rome and in Asia as Paul's Helper. If one consider that absolutely all the Apostles, except James the brother of the Lord, and likewise all Apostolic men, with very few exceptions perhaps, set out to different cities and provinces, he will not wonder that St. Mark was sometimes in Egypt, sometimes at Rome, sometimes in Cyprus, at another time in Asia; so that Baronius has plainly nothing from the chronological arrangement, and Tillemont nothing, whereby it can be made certain that St. John Mark is not the Evangelist. I show it in few words. If St. Mark first set out into Egypt to preach the Gospel in the year 40, as some will have it, or even earlier, or in the year 42 or 43, as others have said, he could return thence to Jerusalem and there join himself to Barnabas and Paul in the year 44, in which Tillemont fixes John Mark's excursion with the Apostles mentioned.

[23] and all the deeds of Mark the evangelist and of John Mark, If St. Mark came into Egypt for the first time in the year 49, as Tillemont will have it, no inconvenience will arise either to prevent his being the same as John Mark. For the latter deserted Paul and Barnabas in the year 45, as Tillemont will have it. For he could in the same or the following year set out to Rome to St. Peter, with whom St. Mark was while he was writing his first Epistle: and in the said year 49 be sent by St. Peter into Egypt. But now, whether St. Mark was in Egypt first in the year 49, or long before, the Egyptian preaching, even if it be believed to have been repeated, ought not to have stood in the way of a new expedition to be undertaken with Paul and Barnabas, which Tillemont fixes in the year 51, and which John Mark in fact undertook with Barnabas alone in the island of Cyprus. After that preaching in Cyprus, Mark could revisit Egypt and the adjacent provinces, and found the Alexandrian church, whose foundation Tillemont refers to the year 60. The Alexandrian church being founded,

or, if it had been founded long before — which we can neither know for certain nor is it necessary to examine — that church being visited, and some years being spent in Egypt, St. Mark could set out for Rome, where John Mark was in the year 61 and 62, if we believe Tillemont, or at any rate when Paul in chains wrote to Philemon and to the Colossians. St. Mark could set out from Italy into Asia, where John Mark was when St. Paul was writing the second Epistle to Timothy, whether he had first returned to Alexandria to ordain St. Anianus there in the year 63, as Tillemont will have it, or that ordination was made at another time, of which nothing is established.

[24] the things which are certain could have been performed by the same Mark. What I have thus far deduced, even from Tillemont's own chronology, clearly shows that all the deeds which have become known upon good testimonies, as well under the name of St. Mark the evangelist as under that of St. John Mark or the Cousin of Barnabas, need not be too much entangled, nor would they suffer great difficulty, even if they were attributed to one Man. No more will the Gospel written by St. Mark stand in the way. For neither the time nor the place of the Gospel written by St. Mark is established. For some, and those the greater number, will have it written at Rome, others in Egypt, others at Aquileia. But as to the time, there are almost as many opinions as heads. Tillemont, in Note 3 on St. Mark, confesses that the time of the Gospel written by St. Mark was not assigned by the ancients, save that most say it was written while St. Peter was alive, and some add, before St. Mark's journey into Egypt. From these things, therefore, no difficulty arises: for John Mark, while Peter was alive, was at Rome, and could there at that time compose the Gospel. Nothing occurs either why we should say that the same man was not in Egypt or even at Aquileia, if perchance the Gospel was written there. But if the church of Aquileia also was founded by St. Mark, as many will have it — which I do not here examine — there is no lack of times at which John Mark could set out thither and preach there, since we know that he was once at Rome for a notable space of time while Paul was in chains, so that there is no reason for saying that he was not in Italy at other times also, or that he did not make an excursion to Aquileia during the time of Paul's chains.

[25] The epoch of St. Mark's death is exceedingly uncertain. The one thing, therefore, that can rightly be had from the chronological arrangement for saying that Mark the evangelist is one man and John Mark another, is the death of St. Mark, fixed by Eusebius in the sixty-second year of Christ: for John Mark certainly lived longer. But this chronology of Eusebius, though adopted by St. Jerome, Tillemont did not believe was to be followed, but adopted Henschen's, deduced from the Acts of St. Mark; and therefore he himself destroyed all his own chronological arguments. Yet he seems rightly not to have acquiesced in Eusebius's opinion about the time of St. Mark's death, since St. Irenæus, much more ancient and therefore also more worthy of credit in these matters, says that St. Mark lived after Peter and Paul, nay, that he even wrote the Gospel after their death. For in book 3 Against Heresies, chapter 1, he has this: But after their departure (namely Peter's and Paul's) Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself also handed down to us in writing the things which had been announced by Peter. They have laboured in vain who wished either to substitute another word for departure, or to explain departure otherwise than of death. Yet I would not contend that St. Irenæus's opinion about the time of the Gospel written by Mark is to be followed, which by that reckoning would have to be fixed after the year 65. I wished to observe this one thing, that Eusebius's opinion about the time of the writing of the Gospel and of St. Mark's death is exceedingly uncertain, nay, even little probable, since it is not likely that St. Irenæus strayed from the true epoch by so great an interval as lies between the two opinions.

[26] Wherefore all Tillemont's arguments, which he brought forward in Notes 2 and 3 on St. John Mark, Tillemont's arguments, are deduced from uncertain opinions. Let us examine them one by one. First he says that if St. Mark had already in the year 43 written the Gospel, and had been sent into Egypt to found the Alexandrian church, in no way can it be said that the same man in the year 44 clave to St. Paul to serve him, and afterwards forsook him. These reasonings are empty, and contrary to many of Tillemont's own assertions. He adds: But if St. Mark was not in Egypt before the year XLIX, as appears to us more probable, his Acts at least teach us that before that time he was with St. Peter and had written the Gospel. After the year XLIX he was always occupied in founding the churches of Libya and of Egypt, and for that reason he could not in the year LI seek to follow Paul and Barnabas as a simple minister. These words again are nothing better than the preceding. Whence did Tillemont know that the Gospel had already been written by St. Mark before the year 49? He says forsooth that he learned it from the Acts. But I do not find it in the Acts. And since he himself says, in Note 3 on St. Mark: The ancients do not declare at what time St. Mark wrote the Gospel, and since St. Irenæus believed it written much later, he ought not to have assumed a matter so uncertain, if he wished to teach us anything certain. Nor do I know where he learned that St. Mark was so occupied from the year 49 in founding the churches of Libya and Egypt that he never looked to other parts of the world, or preached elsewhere. If the Acts had this, Tillemont himself does not attribute so great an authority to them that the several assertions of the Acts are to be admitted as true. But neither do any Acts assert it, nor any ancient author. The words, therefore, are empty.

[27] We willingly acknowledge that the Alexandrian church was founded by Mark, resting on uncertain principles, and that the same man preached much in Egypt and the neighbouring regions, just as St. Peter founded the Roman Church and preached much at Rome and in Italy. But we likewise believe that Mark did not always stick fast in Egypt, as it is established that Peter did not remain perpetually in Italy. Besides, Mark does not seem to have founded the Alexandrian church as soon as he came into Egypt, and Tillemont himself fixes that foundation in the year 60. But who would believe that St. Mark preached there steadily for eleven years before he founded the chief church? Yet let us for the moment gratuitously believe both that the Gospel was written in the year 47 or 48, and that the Alexandrian church was founded in the year 49: even so St. Mark will have done nothing unusual if in the year 51 he wished to join himself as a companion to SS. Paul and Barnabas, and set out with Barnabas into Cyprus, as St. John Mark in fact did. For St. Luke followed St. Paul on various journeys, even after the writing of his Gospel, if Tillemont's own chronology be worth anything. The writing of the Gospel, therefore, or the dignity of an Evangelist, was no obstacle to Mark's joining himself to another Apostle or to several.

[28] prove absolutely nothing. No more was the care of a founded church an obstacle, as is made known not only by the example of St. Peter, but is also clearly gathered from the deeds of SS. Timothy and Titus. For St. Timothy had been created bishop of Ephesus before St. Paul wrote the first Epistle to him, in which he instructs Timothy how he ought to conduct himself in the administration of that church. Tillemont fixes this epistle in the year 64, and believes that earlier in the same year the episcopate of Ephesus was handed over to him. Yet in the second Epistle to Timothy, which the said writer fixes in the year 65, chapter 4 num. 8, he says to Timothy: Make haste to come to me quickly: and at ℣ 21: Make haste to come before winter. In the same place, ℣ 12, he says: But Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. Wherefore one year, and perhaps not a whole one, after receiving the care of the church of Ephesus, Timothy was called away by Paul to Rome to perform other things, and Tychicus was in the meanwhile substituted for him. Titus St. Paul appointed bishop of Crete in the year 63, as Tillemont will have it. Not long after, perhaps in the same year or at any rate in the following, he wrote the Epistle to Titus, in which he instructs him what sort of ministers of the church he should ordain, and in what manner he ought to teach and govern the flock committed to him. Yet in the same Epistle, chapter 3 ℣ 12, he addresses Titus thus: When I shall send to thee Artemas or Tychicus, make haste to come unto me to Nicopolis: for there I have determined to winter. Now the Apostle was not calling Titus away from Crete that he might presently return thither, but that he might preach in other places. For in the second to Timothy, chapter 4 ℣ 10, he says of the same man: Titus (is gone) into Dalmatia. Wherefore, if neither Peter at Rome, nor Timothy at Ephesus, nor Titus in Crete, nor any of the Apostles, except the Brother of the Lord, nor any of the most Apostolic men, remained long in the same city or province, Baronius, Tillemont and many others contend in vain that St. Mark ought to have done so or did so.

[29] In what sense he is said to have been a minister I scarcely grasp what Tillemont meant to intimate by adding the words as a simple minister: for he does not clearly indicate what he understands by the word minister. Yet, considering the exposition of certain more recent writers, who make St. John Mark rather the minister and as it were the servant of Paul and Barnabas than a minister of Christ or of the Gospel, it will be worth while if we examine what seems to be understood by the words minister and ministry: for it looks closely to John Mark, of whom it is said in Acts 13 ℣ 5: And they (Paul and Barnabas) had John also in the ministry. In Greek, καὶ Ιωάννην ὑπηρέτην, and John as minister. John does not seem to be called the minister of Paul and Barnabas, but a minister as Paul and Barnabas were ministers, namely of the Word of God, or of the Gospel, or of Christ. For in that sense those words are taken everywhere in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles of Paul, when they are uttered of Apostolic men, and never is ministry there taken for servile attendance, as I have carefully investigated. It is pleasant to bring forward examples. Acts 1 ℣ 17, ministry is taken for the Apostolate, when it is said of Judas, And he obtained the lot of this ministry. The same word is at ℣ 25, To take the place of this ministry and apostleship, etc. Acts 6 ℣ 4 the Apostles say: But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Acts 20 ℣ 24 Paul says: So that I may consummate my course and the ministry of the word, etc. Acts 21 ℣ 19 it is said of Paul: He related particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry. Acts 26 ℣ 16 Christ says to Paul: That I may appoint thee a minister and a witness of those things which thou hast seen, etc. To these I could add far more from the Epistles of St. Paul;

but I omit them, lest I become too long.

[30] But various things persuade me that John Mark was not a minister in any other sense than for preaching the Gospel or for instructing men, John Mark, while he accompanied Paul and Barnabas, although he yielded the first place to Paul and Barnabas, and in all likelihood venerated them as masters. The passage itself indicates it. For these words precede: And when they had come to Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. Then follows: And they had John also in the ministry — namely in that ministry which they were discharging, of preaching the word of God. For if another ministry were indicated, the conjunction also would not be added, but it would only be said: And they had John in the ministry. Secondly, at Acts 15 ℣ 18 Paul refused to take John again as a companion, as one who had departed from them out of Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And to what work John had not gone forward to go with Paul and Barnabas is indicated at Acts 12 ℣ 12, where the mission of Paul and Barnabas is described in these words: The Holy Spirit said to them: Separate me Saul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I have taken them. No one doubts that this work is the preaching of the Gospel. And so, since Paul complained that John had ceased to go with them to the work, he had before gone with them into Cyprus for the work of the Gospel, and afterwards wished again to undertake the same work with them. Thirdly, when Paul and Barnabas separated, Acts 15 ℣ 39, Barnabas took John Mark as a Companion just as Paul took Silas. But Silas, who at ℣ 22 had been sent as a legate of the council of Jerusalem to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, and whom they call, with Judas Barsabas, chief men among the brethren, certainly did not go with Paul as a simple minister in the sense which Tillemont wished, although he too conceded the first place to Paul. John Mark, therefore, did not accompany them as a manager of temporal things — of lodging, namely, of food and other like matters — but as a preacher of the Gospel and a companion of the Apostolic labours.

[31] And this is confirmed from the very practice of St. Paul and Barnabas in preaching. it is asked, and it is proved that he was not a minister of temporal things, For St. Paul not only declares in various places that he laboured with his own hands to procure his food, and did not desire to live by another's labour or at the expense of the faithful; but he also clearly proclaims, I Cor. 9, that he and Barnabas were unwilling to use that power which the other Apostles used, of receiving food and clothing by another's provision. I transfer hither a few of the many words of saint Paul: Have we not power, he says, to eat and to drink? Have we not power to carry about a woman, a sister (for the care of temporal things) as well as the rest of the Apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? Or I only and Barnabas, have not we power to do this? Who serveth as a soldier at his own charges at any time?… But we have not used this power, lest we should give any hindrance to the Gospel of Christ. And again at ℣ 15: But I have used none of these things. But I do not at all understand by what reasoning he would have gloried so greatly that he and Barnabas lacked a woman to provide temporal things, and had abstained from all conveniences of that kind, if they had had John Mark as their manager, whose ministry many moderns have thus expounded.

[32] Wherefore I judge that the word ministry, in which John Mark was with Paul and Barnabas, is to be expounded in no other sense than that in which it is to be understood in the second Epistle to Timothy ℣ XI, where Paul writes to Timothy: but that he was a minister of the Gospel or of the word of God. Take Mark and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry: and in the sense in which he says in the same place at ℣ 5: Fulfil thy ministry. All Tillemont's arguments hitherto related, therefore, would prove nothing, even if it were established that those things were done after the writing of Mark's Gospel and the founding of the Alexandrian church. Again those arguments would be invalid even if John Mark had the first time accompanied Paul and Barnabas rather as a disciple than as a teacher, and rather to relieve their burdens in lesser matters than to preach; since nothing is established about the time of the writing of the Gospel or of the undertaking of the episcopate: for from a disciple he could become a master, like Timothy, Titus and many others, and then at last raise up the Alexandrian church and write the Gospel. But that he seems to have been the disciple neither of Paul nor of Barnabas, but of St. Peter, I shall show below; and therefore he seems to have accompanied them, even the first time, as a companion and helper, just as Silas accompanied Paul on the second journey, and Luke also after the writing of his Gospel.

[33] Tillemont's other arguments From what has been said it is clear that history need not be entangled even if St. John Mark and the evangelist were believed to be one man, as Tillemont attempted to deduce from uncertain reasons. He adds that there is no necessity of believing them the same. I answer that there appears no necessity of distinguishing them, and that persons are not to be multiplied without necessity; but that the truth is to be investigated as far as may be. Let us hear, then, his other arguments. The slight constancy, he says, which John Mark showed in the service of SS. Paul and Barnabas, and the manner in which St. Paul afterwards treated him, do not agree with the virtue and dignity of an Evangelist and an Apostle. Again these reasonings are drawn from uncertainties, since it is plainly uncertain whether Mark's Gospel was written before the year 45, or even before 51. John Mark might well in his youth have fallen into some defect of constancy, and afterwards have come forth stronger and more constant for preaching the Gospel. But if it were established that John Mark had long been engaged in Apostolic offices, and had been an Evangelist and a Bishop when he withdrew from Paul and Barnabas out of Pamphylia, it could rightly be doubted whether he departed out of inconstancy and weariness of labours; which is nowhere said in the Scriptures, but has been asserted by some only from conjecture.

[34] prove nothing certain either. St. Paul does indeed seem to have disapproved that departure, and thence arises a probable suspicion that Mark had no just cause for departing: but he perhaps believed that a lawful reason was not wanting to him. For, if he was St. Mark, and already then a Bishop, he could depart in order to visit the churches founded by himself, or to go to his master St. Peter, or for some other cause unknown to us. If, however, he did not depart without some fault of weakness or inconstancy, or perhaps withdrew for a cause like that by which Barnabas and Paul themselves were afterwards divided, who could prudently infer from a slight fault that he was not an Evangelist or an Apostle? For in many things we all offend, says the Apostle James, chapter 3 ℣ 2. And John, I Ep. chapter 1 ℣ 8: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Who, weighing these and other Words of sacred Scripture indicating the same, would prudently deny to anyone the dignity of an Evangelist or an Apostle for a light fault of negligence or weakness, and that not even sufficiently proved? But that Paul judged St. John Mark was not to be taken as a companion of his preaching, while St. Barnabas judged the contrary, and Paul himself afterwards used his service again, no more proves that John Mark was not the Evangelist than it proves that St. Barnabas, from whom Paul on that occasion separated himself, was not an Apostle. The Apostle could divide himself from them because he believed that he would labour more usefully with others, and that they without his fellowship would be no less useful to the Church.

[35] Tillemont objects besides that John Mark was, according to St. Jerome, the disciple of Barnabas, St. Jerome does not call John Mark the disciple of Barnabas: whereas Mark the Evangelist was the disciple of Peter, as many assert. I answer that it seems certain that St. Mark the evangelist was the disciple of Peter, unless perhaps he was also numbered among the Disciples of Christ; and that of him are commonly understood the words of Peter at the end of his first Epistle: The church that is in Babylon, gathered together, saluteth you, and Mark my son. But whether St. Jerome, in the book On Writers chapter 6, treating of St. Barnabas, believed John Mark to be his disciple, I vehemently doubt: or rather I believe that Jerome's words are ill expounded. He says of Barnabas: He afterwards, on account of John the disciple, who was also called Mark, being separated from Paul, etc. Jerome knew the Latin tongue, and could have said his disciple, if he believed him the disciple of Barnabas, as in chapter 5 he says of Paul: Besides (he wrote) to his disciples, etc. But by studiously omitting his he left it ambiguous whose disciple he believed John Mark to be. And since by the words given at num. 16 he clearly says that he believes him the Evangelist; and since here, in chapter 8, he begins the elogium of the evangelist thus: Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, etc.; it is not probable that Jerome meant by the words alleged to intimate that John Mark was the disciple of Barnabas. If, however, he had called him the disciple of Barnabas, Jerome would have to be judged to have done so for no other cause than that John Mark twice followed St. Barnabas to preach the Gospel, and so he would not have denied that he was also the disciple of Peter, nay, and of Paul too, in the same way in which he was Barnabas's.

[36] The said Tillemont, in Note 3, assails St. Jerome, whom he acknowledges to be against him, the year of St. Mark's death, adopted from Eusebius by Jerome, from the epoch of St. Mark's death fixed by him in the year 62. I readily acknowledge that John Mark lived after the year 62, and that therefore he is not the Evangelist, if the latter died in the year 62. But since Tillemont himself judges that the Evangelist lived until the year 68, he does not by that reasoning increase the probability of his own opinion; but he only proves that the year of St. Mark's death fixed by Jerome — or rather adopted from the ordination of his successor Annianus asserted by Eusebius — does not agree with the opinion to which Jerome had come from the sacred Writings and from ecclesiastical writers, concerning one Mark who was evangelist and at times the companion of Paul and Barnabas. St. Jerome, I suppose, had not adverted to the time of the writing of St. Paul's Epistles, in which mention is made of St. Mark the cousin of Barnabas, or John Mark, and therefore he easily adopted Eusebius's epoch in designating the death of Mark the evangelist, whom he believed to be the same man.

[37] But if St. Jerome erred in this, as Tillemont himself judges, does not profit his adversaries so much as Jerome's opinion harms them: fixing St. Mark's death six years too late, that error of Jerome's helps him not at all. But Jerome's opinion that the evangelist and John Mark are the same presses his adversaries the harder, the more thoroughly Jerome had examined all the things they object. He knew the deeds of St. Mark in Egypt, and those of John Mark in several provinces, and yet he did not perceive that the whole history must be entangled if Mark the evangelist, who preached in Egypt,

and founded the Alexandrian church, were believed to be John Mark, sometime companion of Paul and Barnabas. No more did St. Jerome see that Mark, the disciple of St. Peter, could not sometime become the companion of Paul and Barnabas, and afterwards the helper of Paul at Rome and in Asia as well. Were the moderns, then, more sharp-sighted in discerning the deeds of the Apostles than St. Jerome and the other ancients? I shall not readily believe this, unless reasons be brought forward more pressing than Eusebius's chronology, which in the most ancient matters is often arbitrary, conjectural and wandering.

[38] Tillemont's other slight arguments Tillemont adds two other arguments, nothing stronger than the preceding. First, he cannot believe that the Evangelist withdrew from his Egyptian mission, where occupations were certainly not lacking, in order to be at Rome in the years 62 and 63, and in Asia in the year 65. But Tillemont might have believed it, if he had more diligently considered the manners of the Apostles. For neither could occupations be lacking to Peter at Rome, nor to Paul in very many places of Asia and Greece or of other provinces where he preached, nor to Titus in Crete, nor to Timothy at Ephesus, nor to the other Apostles and Apostolic men in the places in which they had first begun to preach. Yet it is established that all of them often withdrew from the places in which they had preached and whose chief care they had undertaken; that Peter did not always remain at Rome, that Paul was not long fixed to any one place, that Timothy did not fix a stable seat at Ephesus, nor Titus in Crete. The same I could without difficulty observe in the Apostolic men of the middle age, and in those who in later centuries spread the Catholic faith in the regions of the Indies and in America. For St. Francis Xavier went to very many provinces of the Indies, even though in none of them were occupations lacking, and not even in the broad island of Japan, into which he had first brought the faith, did he remain many years; but, leaving there labourers to advance what had been well begun, he returned into India, that he might go also to the most ample kingdom of China. Wherefore it is by no means incredible that St. Mark at some time left to other labourers for a season the care of advancing what had been well begun at Alexandria and in Egypt, and after the manner of the other Apostles set out to various provinces, that he might likewise cast in them the seeds of the faith.

[39] and Baronius's arguments are refuted. Tillemont's last observation, plainly weak, is this: The manner in which St. Paul speaks of Mark, especially to Timothy, seems also to agree little with the dignity of an Evangelist. But I by no means perceive what appears in Paul's words contrary to an Evangelist's dignity. Take Mark, he says, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry. Paul here declares only that he desires Mark to come to Rome with Timothy, and alleges as his reason: Only Luke is with me. And he knew that Mark, who had before been at Rome with Paul, would gladly come when he heard his desire. That observation, therefore, is inept: for otherwise Paul seems to have made much of Mark, and in the salutations of the Epistle to the Colossians and to Philemon he sets him in both places before Luke, who is likewise an evangelist: but this very thing is slight, since perhaps the Apostle did not attend to the order. And so none of Tillemont's arguments compels us to believe John Mark another than the evangelist: none, when all are rightly considered, suffers any notable difficulty. For the rest, Baronius's arguments from the Synopsis commonly called Athanasian, and from Basil book 5 against Eunomius, and from Isidore in his book on the Lives of the Saints, which Tillemont neglected, have already been sufficiently refuted. Basil and Isidore have it that Mark preached at Alexandria: and the Synopsis praised adds, And in Egypt, and in the Pentapolis, and in Libya. This we by no means deny, but we believe that times may be found in which John Mark could preach in those provinces.

[40] From other grounds it is likely that John Mark What has hitherto been disputed seems sufficiently to prove that it has neither been proved, nor is rightly gathered from the Scriptures or from the writings of the ancients, that St. John Mark is one man and St. Mark the evangelist another. Wherefore I do not doubt to assert that many modern writers have asserted that distinction more confidently than it can or ought rightly to be asserted. I gladly acknowledge that I find nothing certain for the contrary opinion either, so that here it seems only to be asked which of the opposed opinions is the more probable or the more likely. First, it is likely that John Mark was the disciple of St. Peter, as the ancients acknowledge Mark the evangelist to have been Peter's disciple; both because Peter, when freed from Herod's prison, first betook himself to the house of the mother of John Mark, Acts 12 ℣ 12, where many were gathered together and praying, so that either Peter's lodging was there, or he certainly had much familiarity in that house, and hence it becomes most likely that the Son of the family was rather Peter's disciple than any other Apostle's, unless perchance he was of the Seventy disciples of Christ. Everyone sees how likely it becomes that the Son of the Apostles' hostess, in whose house the faithful were gathered, was either a disciple of Christ, if his age allowed, or of St. Peter, who was much conversant in the same house, if he grew up later. Both are intimated of St. Mark the evangelist, whom some assert to have been a disciple of Christ, while more make him a disciple of Peter.

[41] Secondly, no one could more fitly and conveniently learn the deeds of Christ from Peter for the writing of a Gospel is himself the evangelist. than John Mark, who beyond doubt had frequently heard Peter in his mother's house and elsewhere, and could follow him as a Son follows a father to the Evangelical expeditions, and return with Peter to Jerusalem about the year 44, when Peter was cast into prison. This very imprisonment could afford the occasion on which at that time John Mark joined himself to Barnabas his cousin and to Paul. From them perhaps he afterwards separated himself, that he might try to return to Peter and seek him. Certainly Peter too was at Jerusalem when John Mark was there, at the time of the council of Jerusalem, after which he wished again to join himself to Paul and Barnabas, and with Barnabas made for Cyprus. Thirdly, nowhere in the Scriptures is John Mark called the disciple or son of Paul or of Barnabas, so that from this silence of Paul, who more often calls him a helper, it becomes likely also that he was another's disciple, and that the expedition which he undertook with Paul and Barnabas was not his first Evangelical one: for otherwise St. Paul could have called him son, as he did Timothy and Titus. Fourthly and finally, unless John Mark and the evangelist are the same, the latter will have been commemorated in only one place of sacred Scripture, which is a thing to wonder at in a man whom both his Gospel and the chair of Alexandria made famous. Meanwhile, in a matter which cannot be proved by certain arguments, it is not pleasing to determine anything as certain. Each one will be able to choose his own opinion. Those who shall believe John Mark the same with the Evangelist will have here a Supplement to his Acts, published on the XXV of April; those who shall prefer to believe them two will find here what had to be discussed concerning John Mark.

\. The Vulgate: take*.

\. cousin*.

§ III. John Mark does not seem to be John the elder or presbyter; nay, by this name the Apostle John himself seems to be designated.

[ ] It is asked whether John Mark be John the elder, There remains to be examined a last question, namely, whether John Mark be that presbyter, or rather elder, John of whom Papias speaks in Eusebius, book 3 chapter 39. Baronius, at the year 97 num. 10, is of that opinion, judging that John the elder or presbyter is not to be distinguished from John Mark; and to this opinion Tillemont also inclines in Note 4 on John Mark. I see indeed that again a doubtful inquiry is offered, and that a man is brought into the midst as a disciple of Christ who is almost nowhere known, and who perhaps arose solely out of the words of Papias not rightly understood. So obscure and unknown is that John the elder — whom some without suitable reason have believed to have been a presbyter by Order, as I shall show below — that not only does he not appear in the ancient Martyrologies, but he has not even found a place in pseudo-Dorotheus's most ample catalogue of the Disciples of Christ. Yet that catalogue is such that in it the greatest care seems to have been taken lest anyone should be omitted, and many are found placed there twice with their names slightly altered, and not a few are inserted who certainly were not among the disciples of Christ. From this silence of the ancients about John the presbyter a doubt has arisen in me whether any John at all is to be admitted among the disciples of Christ besides the Apostle: and I shall prove below that this doubt is not destitute of suitable reasons.

[43] and the reasons produced for that opinion, But first let us ask whether any suitable reason occurs which can persuade us that John Mark is that very John the presbyter whom Eusebius, book 3 chapter 39, believed he had found to be distinct from the Apostle. If Eusebius gathered rightly, and did not err in expounding Papias's words, there was in Asia a certain John of the disciples of Christ, who in Greek is called πρεσβήτερος, that is, elder. Of that John Papias says nothing, nor Eusebius either, except that Papias learned various things from him: Papias does not explain where he saw or heard him, but only that he attended diligently to the things he said, or sought them from others who had heard him. Now Papias was bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, and flourished in the 2nd century, and is called by St. Irenæus, book 5 chapter 33, Papias, a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp, an ancient man. Let us now hear what reason is alleged by Baronius why he believes that John the elder is John Mark. His first reason is that, unless that elder be John Mark, it will now be necessary to affirm that not two, but three Johns flourished in the Church at the same time. This reason certainly does not press: for many other men of the same name flourished in the Church. Yet I shall try to show that that John the elder seems to be the Apostle's very self.

[44] as frivolous and partly false, Next Baronius shows, as though repelling an objection, that St. Dionysius of Alexandria, in Eusebius book 7 chapter 25, does not rightly observe that John Mark was not in Asia. But St. Dionysius of Alexandria does not inquire whether that John the elder — whom he seems by no means to have acknowledged — be St. John Mark; but only whether perchance St. John Mark wrote the Apocalypse, commonly attributed to St. John the apostle. Wherefore Tillemont's words, beginning this inquiry thus in Note 4, lack all foundation: St. Dionysius of Alexandria does not seem altogether averse from believing that John the elder or presbyter, buried at Ephesus, is the same with John Mark. He only objects that it does not appear from the Acts that John Mark ever dwelt in Asia. But I answer that St. Dionysius did not even think of John the elder, and asks only whether John Mark can be believed the author of the Apocalypse, which he suspected was not St. John the Apostle's. Gratuitously, therefore, is he said to have inclined to that opinion which

he neither treated nor turned over in his mind. If St. Dionysius had known of some John, an Elder or presbyter, at Ephesus, he would in all likelihood have wished to attribute the Apocalypse to him, and perhaps the two later Epistles of John: for he brings forward various reasonings, long since sufficiently refuted by others, to persuade us that the Apocalypse is not John the apostle's. If, therefore, he had believed that John the Elder lived in Asia and was a disciple of Christ, he would beyond doubt have believed him the author of the Apocalypse: for he was anxiously seeking such a man. He would easily have attributed the later epistles also to the same man, since he notes that their author, his name being omitted, is called the Elder, and is believed to be John the apostle.

[45] But now that John Mark was in Asia about the year 65, are refuted by contrary reasons. as Baronius and Tillemont observe, I shall not deny, since it is proved from the 2nd Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy, with whom he desired him to come to Rome. But at that time Papias does not seem to have been yet alive, nor does John Mark seem to have remained in Asia. Besides, he seems to have been commonly called Mark, as he is called in the three Epistles of Paul, all of which were directed into Asia Minor, in which Hierapolis, the see of Papias, lies; so that it does not become likely that he was designated by Papias under the name of John. Again it is not likely that St. John Mark lived so long as to survive St. John the apostle, as would follow from the sayings of Papias, if they have been well expounded by Eusebius. Nor is it likely that John Mark lacked the episcopal dignity, since several of his Apostolic expeditions are made known from the Scriptures, and these leave no prudent doubt that he was a bishop, as Baronius himself made him a bishop. But that John the elder is exhibited only as a presbyter. I pass over other things: for if that elder seem to be John the apostle himself, as I shall now show, every doubt is removed.

[46] Eusebius believed that in the words of Papias he had found at Ephesus a John other than the Apostle, John the presbyter drawn out of the words of Papias, and St. Jerome in some measure adhered to Eusebius in the book On Ecclesiastical Writers, in which he most frequently follows Eusebius, as he himself declares in the Prologue, when he says that Eusebius's History was of the greatest help to him. And so, if the passage of Papias alleged by Eusebius can be expounded in another sense, and for various reasons seems to signify something other than what Eusebius understood, then not only will Eusebius's authority bring us no necessity of embracing an opinion which rests on a ruinous foundation; but not even the words of Jerome, who followed Eusebius, need detain us, especially since I shall bring forward various things from Jerome which do not rightly cohere with those words. I shall first transfer hither the whole passage of Papias, as it is recited by Eusebius, book 3 chapter 39, that we may understand what he says, and then let us examine what Eusebius gathers from his words. And I judge it necessary to set down the Greek words themselves, and in the Latin interpretation to express word for word, because interpreters, while they pursue elegance of speech, frequently express the sense of the words less well, as has indeed been done here by Valesius.

[47] οὐκ ὀκνήσω δέ σοι (he says) καὶ ὅσα ποτὲ παρὰ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων καλῶς ἔμαθον, καὶ καλῶς ἑμνημόνευσα, συγκατατάξαι ταῖς ἑρμηνείαις, διαβεβαιούμενος ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν ἀλήθειαν. which are recited: οὐ γὰρ τοῖς τὰ πολλὰ λέγουσιν ἔχαιρον, ὥσπερ οἱ πολλὸι, ἀλλὰ τοῖς τἀληθῆ διδάσκουσιν· οὐδὲ τοῖς τὰς ἀλλοτρίας ἐντολὰς μνημονεύουσιν, ἀλλὰ τοῖς τὰς παρὰ τοῦ Κυρίου τῇ Πίστει δεδομένας, καὶ ἀπ᾽ αὐτῆς παραγινομένας τῆς Ἀληθείας. εἰ δέ που καὶ παρηκολουθηκώς τις τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις ἔλθοι, τοὺς τῶν πρεσβυτέρων ἀνέκρινον λόγους· τί Ανδρέας, ἢ τί Πέτρος εἶπεν· ἢ τί Φίλιππος. ἢ τί Θωμᾶς, ἢ Ἰάκωβος· ἢ τί Ἰωάννης, ἢ Ματθαῖος· ἤ τις ἕτερος τῶν τοῦ Κυρίου μαθητῶν· ἅτε Αριστίων καὶ ὁ πρεσβύτερος Ἰωάννης, οἱ τοῦ Κυρίου μαθηταὶ λέγουσιν. οὐ γὰρ τὰ ἐκ τῶν βιβλίων τοσοῦτόν με ὠφελεῖν ὑπελάμβανον, ὅσον τὰ παρὰ ζώσης φωνῆς καὶ μενούσης. I shall not be loth, he says, to set down for thee, together with my interpretations, whatsoever things I once rightly learned from the elders and rightly kept in memory, being made certain of their truth. For I did not take delight in those who say many things, as most do, but in those who teach true things; nor in those who record the commandments of others, but in those (who teach the commandments) delivered by the Lord to the faith, and proceeding from the Truth itself. But if anyone came who had followed the elders, I used to inquire into the discourses of the elders: what Andrew, or what Peter had said; or what Philip, or what Thomas or James; or what John or Matthew, or any other of the disciples of the Lord: and what things Aristion and John the elder, the Lord's disciples, say. For I did not judge that the things contained in books brought me so much profit as that which was uttered by a living and abiding voice.

[48] and in these the Apostles are always called elders, Now certain things are to be observed on the passage alleged. First I observe that in the whole passage alleged the name Apostle nowhere occurs, as neither in the other words of Papias afterwards recited by Eusebius; but that the Apostles are constantly called by him elders. For where he says that he learned from the elders, he designates the Apostles, whose sayings he had been taught by questioning their companions: then also he names the Apostles only, when he says that he inquired of their companions what each had said, so that he uses the name of elders three times to designate the Apostles in a very short passage. And when he comes to the last two, of whom he speaks as of men living, he calls both indeed disciples of the Lord, but does not honour Aristion with the title of elder, but John alone: by which distinction he seems to intimate that Aristion was not an Apostle, but that John was an Apostle; since he marks him alone with the title of Elder, given a little before to the Apostles in general.

[49] which name John the apostle also used, Whether perchance Papias used that name in imitation of St. John the Apostle, who called himself the Elder in his second and third Epistle, I cannot say for certain. But for whatever cause Papias preferred to indicate the Apostles by the title of Elders rather than of Apostles, from the word thrice repeated it becomes certain that the Apostles were called Elders by him. For this reason I do not judge even probable the opinion of those who believe that John in the last place is named πρεσβήτερον, elder, because he was a presbyter by Order. Certainly the words no more intimate that John was a presbyter than the preceding intimate that those were presbyters from whom Papias had learned, whose followers he had questioned and whose sayings he had searched out — namely Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John and Matthew: for the Greek word is everywhere the same, and everywhere joined in the same way with the article set before it.

[50] For a twofold John the repeated name is objected, I observe secondly that Papias's manner of speech is changed where he speaks of Aristion and John. For of the preceding he says that he inquired of their companions or familiars, when occasion offered, what those men had said, speaking of their past sayings or teachings. But Aristion and John the elder he intimates to be living, when he says that he inquires into the things which they say, in the present tense forsooth. But let us now hear what Eusebius gathers from the passage alleged, to whom we shall answer from the observation given. In which words, he says, this also is to be observed, that the name of John is twice set down by him. And the former indeed he reckons together with Peter, James, Matthew and the rest of the Apostles, sufficiently indicating that he is speaking of John the evangelist. But afterwards, a distinction of speech being employed, he places another John with those who are outside the number of the Apostles, setting before him a certain Aristion: and expressly names the same man a presbyter. Whence it comes about that the narration of those seems true who said that two men called by the same name lived in Asia: and that at Ephesus there are two tombs, and that each is until now called John's. So he, alleging besides nothing for that opinion out of the five books which Papias wrote, nothing out of any ancient writer. St. Jerome in the book On Writers, chapter 18, in some measure assents: for having related Papias's words he subjoins: From which it appears from the very catalogue of names that the John who is placed among the Apostles is one, and John the elder, whom he enumerates after Aristion, another. And this we have said on account of the above opinion, which we reported to be handed down by very many, that the two later epistles of John are not the Apostle's, but the presbyter's. Of these St. Jerome had treated in chapter 9, on John, but doubtfully.

[51] But if we weigh the passage of Papias diligently, there does not seem to be wanting a reason but a suitable reason is given for this repetition: why he named John the apostle twice, and thus every conjecture about a twofold John goes off in smoke. He wishes to show that his doctrine comes from Christ, the truth itself. And since he had not seen Christ, he strives to persuade us that he received it from those who had seen him, the Apostles. But since of these he had seen one, John, he explains in what way the doctrine which he delivers is the Apostles' and has proceeded from Christ. Hence he intimates that he dealt with those who had once seen either Andrew, or Peter, or Philip, or Thomas, or James, John, or Matthew: and that of each he inquired the sayings of the Apostle whom they had seen. These things, therefore, he says of the doctrine once delivered by the Apostles, which he learned through those who had heard the said Apostles speaking and teaching. And no one will be able to deny that Papias could approach the hearers of St. John the apostle, as well as the hearers of the other Apostles, and inquire of them what John had once taught, and that therefore John is rightly numbered among those who had taught before Papias, and whose doctrine he had understood through their hearers. Again, since John the apostle was even then alive, Papias rightly repeats him along with Aristion, likewise alive, in order to prove that he had not only learned the doctrine of the Apostles delivered before his own times through their hearers, but had also heard living disciples of Christ and drawn their doctrine, whether by hearing them himself or by questioning their disciples. And so the repetition of John seems to signify that Papias was careful in learning both what John and the other Apostles had once taught — ten, twenty or even forty years before — and what John and Aristion were teaching in his own time also. And he seems to number Aristion only among those present because he was not an Apostle, and he wished his doctrine to be ascribed chiefly to the Apostles.

[52] If the passage of Papias be understood in this sense, that John the elder is the apostle, and it is proved of one John the apostle and John the presbyter, who is made known from no other place, plainly vanishes. And various things persuade us that the passage is to be understood in no other way. For St. Papias, of whom we have treated at the XXII of February, was a hearer of St. John the apostle, as is there proved at length. Even the authority of St. Irenæus alone can suffice, since St. Jerome calls Irenæus the disciple of St. Papias in the Epistle to Theodora, and in Writers chapter 35

the disciple of St. Polycarp. Now SS. Polycarp and Papias flourished together, and both were disciples of John the apostle, as St. Jerome acknowledges and all the moderns commonly. But now, if Papias was a hearer of St. John the apostle, as seems beyond doubt, how could he pass him over among the living whose doctrine he was hearing? By what reasoning shall we believe that John the Apostle himself was not designated by the title of elder, when he had already three times designated the Apostles in general by the same title, and never by another? It is frivolous, what Eusebius says, that Aristion was set before John: for Papias does not observe the order of dignity in enumerating persons, as is clearly plain from Andrew, placed before Peter, and from others also, in the reckoning of whom no order is kept.

[53] the passage seems to be understood. Eusebius himself saw that Papias is set down by Irenæus as a hearer of John the apostle: for he tries to refute Irenæus's words out of the ill-understood words of Papias, first reciting them in this manner: These things Papias testifies, a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp, an ancient writer, in the fourth book of his Work. Then he says: And these things indeed Irenæus. But Papias himself in the proem of his books does not say that he was a beholder and hearer of the holy Apostles: but he testifies that he received the rule of faith from their familiars. But Eusebius certainly tries imprudently to refute Irenæus from the silence of Papias, since he himself in book 3 chapter 23 relates from Irenæus and other ancients that John the apostle survived until the times of Trajan: and in chapter 36 testifies that Polycarp, the disciple of the Apostles, as he himself says, flourished in the same age with Papias bishop of Hierapolis, so that there is no doubt that Papias flourished before John's death; especially since, on Eusebius's own witness in chapter 39, he also knew the daughters of Philip, who in all likelihood died before St. John. Wherefore Papias is not silent about John the apostle as living, nor could he prudently be silent about him when he was reckoning up his own masters, but by those very words, out of which Eusebius wished to bring in a second John, he indicated his chief master: and so beyond doubt did Irenæus understand the passage of Papias — a man of Apostolic times, and the disciple of Papias, the hearer of John the evangelist, as Jerome says in the Epistle to Theodora: for Irenæus makes Papias the disciple not of John the presbyter, but of John the Apostle, and was wholly ignorant of that other John.

[54] [If there was a twofold tomb of John at Ephesus, it was of the same John the apostle,] Eusebius's error arose from the word πρεσβήτερος, which was variously used in the first ages of the Church, and properly signifies an elder. In Eusebius's time that word signified a priest of the second order, or presbyter, as it does today. But nowhere does Eusebius show that that word was used by Papias for a presbyter; whereas I have proved that the Apostles were three times designated by that word by Papias in the very passage alleged. What Eusebius adds for his own opinion about the twofold tomb of John is invalid. For he cites no ancient witness who said that they were the tombs of two men. And St. Jerome, On Writers book 9, on John the apostle, says: Some think that there are two memorials of the same John the evangelist. Certainly Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus at the end of the 2nd century, whose Epistle to Pope Victor Eusebius cites in book 3 chapter 31, did not know of tombs at Ephesus of different disciples of the Lord whose name was John. Polycrates desires to extol the church of Ephesus, and to this end says: For in Asia also certain great lights have been extinguished.

[55] Then he names Philip the apostle, who died at Hierapolis with two daughters. not of the presbyter, who is known to no one before Eusebius. Then he teaches that another daughter of Philip was buried at Ephesus. Of John he subjoins: But John also, who leaned upon the breast of the Lord, … this John, I say, lies buried in the city of Ephesus. Of the other John, who had been buried at Ephesus, if we believe the ill-reasoning Eusebius, Polycrates keeps deep silence. But the bishop of Ephesus could not have been ignorant that a Disciple of the Lord was buried at Ephesus in the same century, if this were true; nor would he have wished to omit a famous man, since he did not pass over the daughters of Philip. Let no one here object that Polycrates makes no mention of Aristion either. For Aristion was not to be commemorated by him, since he died in Cyprus, as was said at the XXII of February; not in Asia or at Ephesus, where Eusebius was seeking John's tomb. Wherefore let it be permitted to declare frankly that that John the presbyter, of whom no one before Eusebius is read to have thought, seems to have been born solely out of his own disordered brain.