the evangelist; "John whose surname was Mark" (Acts 12:12, 25).
Mark (Marcus, Col. 4:10, etc.) was his Roman name, which
gradually came to supersede his Jewish name John. He is called
John in Acts 13:5, 13, and Mark in 15:39, 2 Tim. 4:11, etc.
He was the son of Mary, a woman apparently of some means and
influence, and was probably born in Jerusalem, where his mother
resided (Acts 12:12). Of his father we know nothing. He was
cousin of Barnabas (Col. 4:10). It was in his mother's house
that Peter found "many gathered together praying" when he was
released from prison; and it is probable that it was here that
he was converted by Peter, who calls him his "son" (1 Pet.
5:13). It is probable that the "young man" spoken of in Mark
14:51, 52 was Mark himself. He is first mentioned in Acts 12:25.
He went with Paul and Barnabas on their first journey (about
A.D. 47) as their "minister," but from some cause turned back
when they reached Perga in Pamphylia (Acts 12:25; 13:13). Three
years afterwards a "sharp contention" arose between Paul and
Barnabas (15:36-40), because Paul would not take Mark with him.
He, however, was evidently at length reconciled to the apostle,
for he was with him in his first imprisonment at Rome (Col.
4:10; Philemon 1:24). At a later period he was with Peter in
Babylon (1 Pet. 5:13), then, and for some centuries afterwards,
one of the chief seats of Jewish learning; and he was with
Timothy in Ephesus when Paul wrote him during his second
imprisonment (2 Tim. 4:11). He then disappears from view.
Mark
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