Mark
Rome · 68
M
Mark the Evangelist
Mark the Evangelist
?–68 CE · Cyrene
John Mark, companion of Peter and Paul and cousin of Barnabas (Col 4:10), is traditionally identified as the author of the second Gospel and a central figure in the earliest generation of Christian mission. He appears in Acts as a co-worker of Barnabas and Paul, accompanied them on the first missionary journey, and later traveled separately with Barnabas to Cyprus after a dispute with Paul (Acts 15:39). Papias, preserved by Eusebius, identifies Mark as Peter's interpreter in Rome and the one who committed Peter's preaching to writing as the Gospel of Mark. Eusebius further records that Mark founded the church in Alexandria and served as its first bishop, making him the founding figure of African Christianity. Paul's later request in 2 Timothy 4:11 for Mark to be brought to him attests to a subsequent reconciliation. Mark's martyrdom in Alexandria is reported by late patristic sources and is the bedrock of the Coptic Church's identity; the traditional date is c. 68 CE, though Eusebius's notice of his successor Annianus taking office in Nero's eighth year (~61–62 CE) introduces some ambiguity.
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Stop 1 of 610–25Born
Cyrene
What they did here
Coptic tradition and African patristic memory consistently hold that Mark was born in Cyrene (Pentapolis, Libya) to a Jewish family that later migrated to Jerusalem; this is traditional and inferential rather than documentary, as the NT does not name his birthplace.
About Cyrene
Cyrene was a Greek colony near modern Shahhat in northeastern Libya, founded about 631 BCE under Battus I by settlers from Thera. In the 4th century BCE Aristippus, a follower of Socrates, founded the Cyrenaic school of philosophy there. The city later passed to the Ptolemies and in 96 BCE to Rome, and it was largely destroyed in 115 CE during the Diaspora Revolt. According to the Gospels, Simon of Cyrene carried Jesus' cross, and Coptic tradition holds that Mark the Evangelist came from Cyrene and was its first bishop. Earthquakes in 262 and 365 ruined the city, which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982.
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Mark the Evangelist’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
- Yonatan ben Uziel· Jerusalem
- Shammai HaZaken· Jerusalem
- Akavya ben Mahalalel· Jerusalem
- Rabban Shimon ben Hillel· Jerusalem
- Philo of Alexandria· Alexandria
- Rabban Gamliel HaZaken· Jerusalem
- Seneca, Lucius Annaeus· Rome
- Dosa ben Harkinas· Jerusalem
- Columella, Lucius Junius Moderatus· Rome
- Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel I· Jerusalem
- Curtius Rufus, Quintus· Rome
- Aelius Theon· Alexandria
- Pliny, the Elder· Rome
- Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius· Rome
- Petronius Arbiter· Rome
- Berenice· Jerusalem
- Musonius Rufus· Rome
- Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai· Jerusalem
In the same tradition
Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, Mary, mother of Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Barnabas, Peter the Apostle, Philip the Apostle, Matthias the Apostle, Bartholomew the Apostle, Thomas the Apostle, Mary Magdalene, James, son of Zebedee, Andrew the Apostle, Paul the Apostle, John the Apostle, Aquila, Priscilla, Apollos
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Mark the Evangelist’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.