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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 636. Tradition
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Tradition
(1) The remembrance of a personal deformity survives in an epithet well known at Rome early in the third century. According to Hippolytus he was known as “the stump-fingered.” Three explanations of this epithet have been suggested: (a) It is said to signify a natural deformity. (b) The preface to the Vulgate states that Mark himself, after his conversion, amputated one of his fingers, in order to disqualify himself for the Jewish priesthood. This is probably due to an inference that Mark, like Barnabas, was a Levite. (c) An attempt was made by Dr. Tregelles to show that the word is used by Hippolytus as an equivalent for “deserter,” in reference to Mark's departure from Perga. But this account of the matter can hardly be regarded as satisfactory; it is far-fetched at the best, and so offensive a nickname is not likely to have attached itself to the Evangelist in Roman circles, where he was known as St. Paul's faithful colleague. The word itself determines nothing as to the cause of the defect, or its extent; it may have been congenital, or due to accident; it may have affected both hands or all the fingers of one hand or one finger only. Dr. Chase suggests that the word may refer to some mutilation or malformation of the toes, resulting in lameness-an infirmity which would be more likely to attract attention than a deformity of the hand.
Such a defect, to whatever cause it was due, may have helped to mould the course of John Mark's life; by closing against him a more ambitious career, it may have turned his thoughts to those secondary ministries by which he has rendered enduring service to the Church.
To incapacitate ourselves for wrong is the only way some of us can attain to virtue.1 [Note: G. Temple Thurston, The Antagonists.]
We saw a deep trench dug around some olive trees, and it was suggested that this was preparatory to their being felled and their roots torn up. Yet it was not so, for the trench was made to hold the manure which would make the olives live more vigorously and fruitfully. Many an affliction has seemed to threaten a good man's destruction; but it has turned out to be a special means of grace, by which he has been greatly blessed.2 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]
(2) Some people have supposed that St. Mark is to be identified with the young man mentioned in Mar_14:51, who followed Jesus when He was arrested, clad only in a linen cloth which he had hastily caught up, and who, when the mob suspected his sympathies and seized his garment, left it in their hands and fled from them naked. The very triviality of the incident seems to point to St. Mark as the young man concerned. This incident has little or no bearing upon the story. It does not affect Christ's fortunes in the least. But if Mark was the young man concerned, it was far from being trivial to him. The act that brought him into contact with Jesus Christ would be, to him at any rate, of supreme interest and importance. Further, the minuteness of the story inevitably suggests that the Evangelist is here giving us a bit of his own history. Read the two verses, and you will find they are full of minute and vivid touches that make the picture live before us. We can see it all: the young man's hurried rush, lightly clad, into the street; his indignant interference, his sudden flight. But the minuteness comes out specially clearly in the Greek word translated “linen cloth.” The Evangelist specifies a particular kind of linen cloth-a sindon, a fine and very costly web, so called because woven in Scinde, in India. It was a kind of linen cloth greatly valued, possessed only by the rich, and made use of by them especially as “winding sheets.” That the writer should specify in this way, should be so minute and exact, and should crowd so much detail into the account-all this suggests that he is writing of what happened to himself.
Superficial observers have often considered personal trivialities beneath the dignity of Scripture. The trifling is subjective; it is not objective. It is their criticism that lacks dignity. “Eyes have they, but they see not.” The microscopic is often as eloquent and as revealing as the majestic. Divinity often trembles in a dewdrop. A trifling incident may reflect a tremendous principle.1 [Note: F. W. Boreham, The Luggage of Life, 46.]
2. As to the time and manner of St. Mark's death we have no trustworthy information. Jerome fixes his death in the eighth year of Nero, at Alexandria; but the statement seems to be merely an unsound inference from the Eusebian date for the succession of Annianus. The Paschal Chronicle assigns to Mark the crown of martyrdom, but the story cannot be traced back further than the fourth or fifth century, when it is found in the Acts of Mark, an apocryphon of Alexandrian origin. No reference is made to the fact in the prefaces to the Vulgate, or by Jerome, though he relates that Mark was buried at Alexandria.
3. St. Mark has a special connexion with Venice. It is said that while he was bishop of Alexandria he evangelized the coast of Dalmatia and founded the church in Aquileia. Driven by a storm amongst the lagoons of Venice, it was revealed to him in a vision that a city would one day be built on that spot, where he would be held in great honour. In 829 the body of St. Mark was brought from Alexandria to Venice, and it was then that the famous historic connexion between the saint and the city began-the Church of St. Mark was built to receive his body; the city was dedicated to his honour, thus supplanting St. Theodore as its patron saint; his symbol of the Winged Lion became the arms of the city, and the national standard; and his name became for ever linked with the fortunes of the great Republic.
The body of St. Mark was first deposited in a tower of the original Ducal Palace, where it remained three years, from 829 to 832, when it was removed to the first St. Mark's Church, completed that latter year to receive it. The tower is still standing, having been utilized to form part of the treasury of the present church, doubtless because of its connexion with St. Mark. When this earliest church was burned in 976, the body was lost, and recovered only in 1094. It was then deposited in the crypt of the present church. This crypt, or rather the mausoleum in it, which contained St. Mark's body, was called la confessione (the confession), not because it was a place where confessions were made, but because it contained the remains of a martyr, of one who had “witnessed a good confession.” In this place it remained till 1811-that is, for the long period of 717 years-when it was taken up into the church, as, at high tide, the crypt was frequently full of water. Before placing it under the high altar of the church, where it now is, the sarcophagus was opened by order of the Italian Government, and in the presence of its representatives. It enclosed a coffin of wood, which was found to contain the chief parts of a human skeleton, a box of balsam, some coins, and a plate stating, “In the year of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, 1094, in the 8th day of the current month, October, in the reign of the Doge Vital Falier, this mausoleum was made.” On the inner side of the stone corner of the sarcophagus were the letters, rudely cut, S. MA.
I have sometimes thought that St. Mark, in this lesson of his life, out of weakness becoming strong, very appropriately prefigured the Venetians, with whom he has been so intimately united. He was their prototype. They too, “out of weakness, became strong.” When they came to settle in these lagoons they were poor fugitives flying before their enemies, who had driven them from their mainland homes, to which, burned and in ashes, they could never return. They were weak, but they became strong. The very hardships and struggles they had to endure ennobled them. They conquered nature. They found the soil of Venice shifting mud and sand, but a little way raised above the flowing tide, and fitted but to bear the weight of wooden huts. They changed it into stable ground, on which, as on a basis of rock, they raised their marble palaces, the beauty and the endurance of which are the admiration of the world. Conquering nature under their feet, they conquered it in their own hearts. They took the Bible as their charter, writing it in the words of a universal language, that of colour and design, on the walls of St. Mark's Church, and writing it also on the fleshy tablets of their hearts. From being weak fugitives, they became conquerors, and heroes, and princes in the earth.1 [Note: A. Robertson, Venetian Sermons. 81.]
O God our God, who having no pleasure in the death of him that dieth bestowest that grace by which sinners turn and live;-who having once called St. Mark, didst afterwards recall him; and having first blessed him with a believing mother, didst bestow upon him in later life a holy spiritual father, unto the confirmation of his faith and the perfecting of his works; and allottedst unto him for vocation service with Apostles, and for renown the name of an Evangelist: grant us such grace, I implore Thee, that having put our hands to the plough we may not look back: yet, good Lord, if we look back, let mercy excel mercy, and reclaim, renew, restore us. Make our penitence holier than our former sanctity, and our last works more than our first, and our latter end better than our beginning. For His all-prevailing sake who alone fell not nor stumbled, who alone wandered not nor wavered, our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son. Amen.1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Called to be Saints, 200.]
To Mark the second place; that Mark who erst
Was kin to Barnabas and friend of Paul,
And reckoned it an easy thing and small
To be their yoke-fellow through lands accurst,
Preaching deliverance to the tribes dispersed;
Yea, and was helpful ere his faith had fall;
Then taking fearfulness for Heaven's recall,
Went back and walked not with them as at first;
And so was lost to Paul, but not to God;
Who bore him gently as a tender child,
Strengthened and blest him; till with feet new-shod
Again he ventured on the pagan wild,
Carried the Light of lights from shade to shade,
Travailed, and suffered, and was not afraid.2 [Note: E. C. Lefroy, Sonnets.]