is the
winged lion, the
Lion of Saint Mark. Inscription: ('peace be upon you, Mark, my evangelist'). The same lion is also the symbol of
Venice (on illustration). According to
William Lane (1974), an unbroken tradition identifies Mark the Evangelist with
John Mark, and John Mark as the cousin of
Barnabas. However,
Hippolytus of Rome, in
On the Seventy Apostles, distinguishes Mark the Evangelist (
2 Timothy 4:11), John Mark (
Acts 12:12, 25; 13:5, 13; 15:37), and
Mark the cousin of Barnabas (
Colossians 4:10;
Philemon 24). According to Hippolytus, they all belonged to the "
Seventy Disciples" who were sent out by
Jesus to disseminate the
gospel (
Luke 10:1ff.) in
Judea. According to
Eusebius of Caesarea,
Herod Agrippa I, in his first year of reign over the whole of Judea (AD 41), killed
James, son of Zebedee and arrested
Peter, planning to kill him after the
Passover. Peter was saved miraculously by
angels, and escaped the realm of Herod (Acts 12:1–19). Peter went to
Antioch, then through
Asia Minor (visiting the churches in
Pontus,
Galatia,
Cappadocia,
Asia, and
Bithynia, as mentioned in
1 Peter 1:1), and arrived in
Rome in the second year of
Emperor Claudius (AD 42). Somewhere on the way, Peter encountered Mark and took him as travel companion and interpreter. Mark the Evangelist wrote down the
sermons of Peter, thus composing the Gospel according to Mark, before he left for
Alexandria in the third year of Claudius (AD 43). According to the Acts 15:39, Mark went to Cyprus with
Barnabas after the Council of Jerusalem. According to tradition, in AD 49, about 16 years after the
Ascension of Jesus, Mark travelled to
Alexandria and founded the
Church of Alexandria, having already been in Egypt for 4-5 years. The
Coptic Orthodox Church, the
Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, and the
Coptic Catholic Church all trace their origins to this original community. Aspects of the Coptic liturgy can be traced back to Mark himself. He became the first
bishop of Alexandria and he is honoured as the founder of
Christianity in Africa. Mark was succeeded by
Anianus as the bishop of Alexandria in the eighth year of
Nero (62/63), probably, but not definitely, due to his coming death. Later Coptic tradition says that he was martyred in 68. Michael Kok argues that claims that the author of Mark was ignorant of Palestinian geography or customs are unwarranted. The author “was very far from being a peasant or a fisherman", Mitchell Reddish concedes that the name of the author might have been Mark (making the gospel possibly homonymous), but asserts that the identity of this Mark is unknown. Similarly, "Francis Moloney suggests the author was someone named Mark, though maybe not any of the Marks mentioned in the New Testament".
The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus takes the same approach: the author was named Mark, but scholars are undecided who this Mark was. The four canonical gospels are anonymous and most researchers agree that none of them were written by eyewitnesses, though that would not preclude the theory that Mark's gospel was based on Peter's eyewitness testimony. ==Biblical and traditional information==