MARISHES (mar'ish-es), an old form of MARSH (WhiCh see).
MARK (mark), (Gr. 31dpKos, mar'kos, from the common Latin name Marcus).
According to ecclesiastical testimonies the evangelist Mark is the same person who in the Acts is called by the Jewish name John, whose Roman surnatne was Marcus (Acts Xii :12, 25). This person is sometimes called simply John (Acts xiii:5, 13) ; and sometimes Mark (Acts xv :39).
Mary,Mark's mother,had a house at Jerusalem, in which the Apostles were wont to assemble (Acts xii :12). In the Epistle to the Colossians (iv:to, I t) Mark is mentioned among the as sistants of Paul, and as being one of the COH verts from Judaism. From this passage we learn also that Mark was a cousin of Barnabas, which circumstance confirms the opinion that he was of Jewish descent. It was probably Barnabas who first introduced him to Paul. He accompa nied Paul and Barnabas on their travels as an assistant (Acts xii :25; xiii:5). When they had arrived in Pamphylia, Mark left them and re turned to Jerusalem. from which city they had set out (Acts xiii:t3). On this account Paul refused to take Mark with him on his second Apostolical journey, 'and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus' (Acts xv:37-39). It seems, however. that Mark, at a later period, be came reconciled to Paul, since, according to Col. iv:to, and Philem. 24, he was with the Apostle during his first captivity at Rome; and according tO 2 Tim. iv:it, he was also with him during his second captivity. The passage in Colossians proves also that he was about to undertake for Paul a journey to Colosse.
There is a unanimous ecclesiastical tradition that Mark was the companion and interpreter. of Peter and either orally or in writing communi cated and developed what Peter taught. The testimony in favor of the connection between Mark and Peter is so old and respectable, that it cannot be called in question. It first occurs at the commencement of the second century, and proceeds from the presbyter John (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iii:39); it afterwards appears in Irenmus (Adv. firer, t, and x. 6) ; in Tertullian (Contra Mart. iv. 5) ; in Clemens Alexandrinus, Jerome, and others.
The Gospel According to Mark.
(1) Testimony of Eusebius. The same ancient authors who call Mark a disciple and secretary of Peter, state also that he wrote his Gospel ac cording to the discourses of that Apostle. The most ancient statement of this fact is that of the presbyter John and of Papias, which we quote verbatim from Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. iii. 39) as follows: "Mark having become secretary to Peter, whatever he put into style he wrote with accuracy, but did not observe the chronological order of the discourses and actions of Christ, be cause he was neither a hearer nor a follower of the Lord; but at a later period, as I have said, wrote for Peter, to meet the requisites of instruc tion, but by no means with the view to furnish a connected digest of the discourses of our Lord.
Consequently Mark was not in fault when he wrote down circumstances as he recollected them; for he had only the intention to omit nothing of what he had heard, and not to misrepresent anything." Critics usually ascribe all these words to the presbyter. Schmidt especially observes, in his Einleitung ins New, Testament Nachtrage (p. 27o), that he himself had erroneously quoted this testimony as the words of Papias; but it seems to us that the words an tcpp, do not allow us to consider all this passage as belonging to the presbyter. Papias had not before his eyes a book of the presbyter, and he seems to have alluded to that passage of his own work to which Eusebius refers in his second book (ch. xv.), in which work Papias had given some account re specting the life of this evangelist. According to this view it seems that, with the words are 7ap itcoucre, there begins an explanation of the words of the presbyter.
(2) Relation to Peter. It has been observed in the article GOSPEL (which see) that this pas sage has been made use of in order to disprove the existence of an orally fixed evangelium-tra dition, since it is here stated that Peter preached as circumstances required. To this we replied that Papias considers the Gospel of Mark to be the reflex of the discourses of Peter, in which character they are described by the presbyter; and since the Gospel of Mark really contains a sketch of the life of Jesus, the account of the presbyter does not imply that the discourses of Peter could not likewise have contained a sketch of his life. The presbyter only says that Peter did not furnish a complete life of Jesus, em bracing a history of his infancy, youth, etc.; and that, therefore, the account of Peter was in some respects incomplete, since he, as Papias states, omitted various circumstances. Schleiermacher, and after him Strauss, have turned this into an argument against the Gospel of Mark. They assert that this gospel is a summary, which, if not chronological, is at least a concatenation ac cording to the subjects. Now the presbyter states that Mark wrote without order. By this ex pression they consider all such arrangement ex cluded; consequently they infer that the presbyter John, the old disciple of the Lord, spoke of an other Mark. We learn, however, from what Papias adds, how Papias himself understood the words of the presbyter ; and we perceive that. he explains his statement by the term, Turinng tso lated facts. Hence it appears that the words oi) Tga signify only incompleteness, but do not preclude all and every sort of arrangement.