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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 634. St. Mark and St. Peter
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St. Mark and St. Peter
2. It is certain, moreover, that St. Peter was, from a very early period, on terms of the greatest intimacy with St. Mark and his mother-see Act_12:11-17. Not unlikely it might be by his preaching on the Day of Pentecost, or subsequently, that both the lady and her son became acquainted with the true career and character of the Saviour. And this probably accounts for the peculiarly endearing manner in which St. Peter refers to the Evangelist, at the conclusion of his First Epistle, “The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Mark my son.”
Dr. Pusey did what he alone could do, for he looked round on the crowd of undergraduates and spoke to them as his “sons” with a fulness of feeling that was authority. For it made every rough lad there present understand that one of the most historical persons he had ever seen claimed him, cared for him, and bade him repent and be clean, and hold fast by the Faith.1 [Note: R. St. J. Tyrwhitt, Hugh Heron, 187.]
3. The ten or twelve years which elapsed between the last mention of St. Mark in the Acts and St. Paul's reference to his co-operation in Rome were probably the period in which St. Mark accompanied St. Peter. It may well be that the help which he rendered to the Apostle when the latter first worked among Greek-speaking people gained for him the title of “the interpreter of Peter.” There is no reason why we should infer that, at least at the end of his life, St. Peter could not speak Greek, still less that he could not write a Greek letter. Moreover, it must be remembered that the word “interpreter” may have been used in reference to Latin rather than to Greek.
The word is ambiguous; the ἑρμηνεύς or ἑρμηνευτὴς (interpres) may be either the expositor who brings to light the veiled meaning of his master's words, or the translator who renders them into another tongue. But the literal sense prevails in later and Biblical Greek, and it suits the manner of Papias and agrees with his context. The phrase ἑρμηνευτὴς points to an office which Mark had fulfilled at a time previous to the writing of the Memoirs. He had once been St. Peter's interpreter or dragoman, and Papias mentions the circumstance in order to show that he was qualified to report accurately the teaching which he not only had heard but had at the time translated from Aramaic into Greek. That St. Peter had employed an interpreter in his intercourse with Western Churches seems to have been a recognized fact.