Mark the Evangelist

Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, wrote a short gospel at the request of the brothers at Rome, setting down what he had heard Peter tell. When Peter heard of it, he approved it and published it to the churches to be read on his authority, as Clement records in the sixth book of his Outlines, and Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, as well. Peter also mentions this Mark in his first letter, speaking of Rome figuratively under the name of Babylon: “She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, greets you, and so does Mark my son.” [a]

Then, taking the gospel which he himself had composed, he went to Egypt. He was the first to preach Christ at Alexandria, and he formed a church there so admirable in its teaching and in the self-restraint of its life that he compelled all followers of Christ to follow his example. Philo, the most learned of the Jews, seeing that the first church at Alexandria was still in some degree Jewish, wrote a book on their way of life as something that did credit to his nation. Just as Luke tells how the believers at Jerusalem had all things in common, so Philo recorded what he saw being done at Alexandria under the learned Mark. Mark died in the eighth year of Nero and was buried at Alexandria, and Annianus succeeded him.