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Although Kitto is sure Mark the author of the gospel and John Mark are different men, other scholars see them as the same. This is Donatello's sculpture of Mark the Evangelist as he imagined him.
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ohn Mark, cousin to St. Barnabas, and a
disciple of his, was the son of a Christian woman named Mary, who had
a house in Jerusalem, where the apostle and the faithful generally used
to meet. Here they were at prayers in the night, when St. Peter, who was
delivered out of prison by the angel, came and knocked at the door; and
in this house the celebrated church of Sion was said to have been afterward
established.
John Mark, whom some very improperly confuse with the Evangelist St.
Mark, adhered to St. Paul and St. Barnabas, and followed them in their
return to Antioch. He continued in their company and service till they
came to Perga, in Pamphylia; but then, seeing that they were undertaking
a longer journey, he left them and returned to Jerusalem. This happened
in the year 45 of the common era.
Some years after, that is to say in the year 51, Paul and Barnabas preparing
to return into Asia, in order to visit the churches which they had formed
there, the latter was of opinion that John should accompany them in this
journey: but Paul would not consent to it; upon which occasion these two
apostle separated. Paul went to Asia, and Barnabas with John Mark to the
Isle of Cyprus. What John Mark did after this journey we do not know,
till we find him at Rome in the year 63, performing signal services for
St. Paul during his imprisonment.
The apostle speaks advantageously of him in his epistle to the Colossians:
“Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas, saluteth you. If he cometh unto you,
receive him.” He makes mention of him again in his Epistle to Philemon,
written in the year 65 he was with Timothy in Asia. And St. Paul, writing
to Timothy, desires him to bring Marcus to Rome, adding that he was useful
to him for the ministry of the gospel.
In the Greek and Latin churches, the festival of John Mark is kept on
the 27th of September. Some say that he was bishop of Biblis, in Phoenicia.
The Greeks give him the title apostle, and say that the sick were cured
by his shadow only. It is very probable that he died at Ephesus, where
his tomb was very much celebrated and resorted to. He is sometimes called
simply John, or Mark. The year of his death we are strangers to, and shall
collect all that is said of him in apocryphal and uncertain authors.
Resources: This story is adapted from John Kitto's 1870 History
of the Bible and represents the commonly accepted views about this
apostle among rank and file believers in the late 19th century.
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