Besides the biblical references, very ancient traditions about Saint Mark have also come down to us, though not always easy to interpret.
John Mark was the son of that Mary in whose house Saint Peter found refuge after his miraculous release from prison in Jerusalem. Peter calls him “my son” (1 Pet 5:13), which may mean that Mark was baptized by the apostle. It is also plausible that Mark was the young man who fled naked from the Garden of Olives, though ancient tradition is not unanimous on this point.
A cousin of Barnabas, he accompanied both Barnabas and Paul on their first missionary journey to Cyprus. When Paul refused to take him again on the second journey, Barnabas and Mark returned alone to Cyprus. Ancient sources call him kolobodaktylos (“man with mutilated or shortened fingers”). Combined with the note that he belonged to the Levitical order, some have supposed that Mark cut off his thumb to avoid exercising the priesthood; others think it was simply a physical defect—or perhaps, though less likely, a reference to the brevity of his Gospel.
Mark later became Paul’s collaborator again while the apostle was imprisoned in Rome. From the First Letter of Peter, we know that Mark was still in Rome around the year 64 or shortly before.
The earliest witnesses describe Mark as Peter’s interpreter, both in the East and in Rome. In the latter city, he is said to have written his Gospel, based on Peter’s preaching and the testimony of the first apostles. Modern scholars, however, are not all in agreement—contrary to ancient tradition—on whether the Mark who was Peter’s disciple is the same as Paul’s companion, or whether the Gospel can indeed be directly attributed to John Mark.
Mark later returned East. When Paul was imprisoned for the second time, he asked Timothy (2 Tim 4:11), then in Ephesus, to bring Mark with him to Rome, “for he is useful to me in ministry.” This note, dated around the year 66, is the last historically certain information we have about Mark.
His connection with the Church of Alexandria is very uncertain. It may well concern a different Mark, since the earliest Alexandrian writers—Clement, Origen, and Dionysius—make no mention of him. It is also impossible to accept the date given by Saint Jerome (the eighth year of Nero, 62 A.D.), repeated in the Martyrology, as the year of Mark’s death, since it does not fit the chronology already noted. All other accounts—his supposed martyrdom, the stories of his relics—belong to legend.
