Saint Mark, Evangelist

Mark is the author of the second Gospel, by most scholars the earliest. He is usually identified with John Mark of the Acts of the Apostles, whose mother’s house in Jerusalem was a meeting place of the first Christians. A cousin of Barnabas, he went with him and Paul on their first journey but turned back; later Paul names him as a helper.

Papias, early in the 2nd century, wrote that Mark had been Peter’s interpreter and wrote down what Peter remembered. Tradition holds that he founded the Church of Alexandria and died there as a martyr, perhaps about 68. In 828 Venetian merchants carried his relics to Venice, which took him as its patron and his winged lion as its emblem.