XV.
APRIL 25. ST. MARK, EVANGELIST.
Mark the Evangelist by God's direction journeyed
to the Egyptians' land, and there taught the people,
and inclined them to baptism from foul heathenism.
Then went he through all the Egyptian land,
sowing God's seed, and healed the sick.
He cleansed the lepers from the unclean disease;
he healed the possessed, and brought them to their wits,
and drave out the devils who harmed men.
Then the heathen believed on the true Saviour,
and were baptised, and cast away their idols.
Then he had next a visitation from God,
and the Holy Ghost bade him go
to the city of Alexandria, and preach the faith.
This city is the most famous in the Egyptian nation.
Then the Evangelist greeted his brethren,
and said that the Saviour had bidden him go
to the city of Alexandria, and preach the faith.
They forthwith went to the ship with him,
and prayed God fervently that He would direct his way.
He went then in the ship until he arrived safely
at the city of Alexandria, and there preached the faith,
and wrought many miracles, and abode there long.
A certain shoemaker was sewing the holy man's shoes,
and pierced through his hand very severely,
but the holy man healed him immediately,
and inclined him to baptism, and many others with him.
This same shoemaker was called Anianus,
and he throve so in godliness that the Evangelist set him
over the people as bishop of the city.
Then he consecrated also three mass-priests,
and seven deacons, and eleven clerks.
Then the heathen laid snares, desiring to entrap him,
because he had changed their wonted customs,
and utterly extinguished the offerings of their gods.
Then the Evangelist departed from the city
to the faithful whom he had before taught,
and there continued about two years with them,
and strengthened the brethren whom he had before converted to God,
and there consecrated bishops and holy priests,
and journeyed back again to the city of Alexandria,
and found there many multiplied in the faith,
and thriving in God's grace, and he thanked God for this.
They had also erected a church in haste,
and the faith waxed, and God's glory shone.
Then Mark, wrought many miracles;
in the Saviour's name he healed impotent men,
blind and deaf, and preached the faith,
and the heathen sought how they might slay him.
Then came the holy Eastertide, and the heathen sought
where the Evangelist was saying mass, and magnifying his Lord,
who on that same day arose from death,
and ran together and seized him.
Then straightway they knotted a rope about his neck,
and dragged him through the streets, so that the stones were
sprinkled with his blood, and befouled with his flesh,
and the holy Mark greatly thanked
the Saviour Christ, that he was suffering for Him.
Then afterward, at eventide, they put him in prison,
until they had considered how they might kill him.
Lo! then, at midnight there was a great earthquake,
and God's angel flew suddenly to the prison,
and aroused the Evangelist, and said these words to him,
' Thou, God's servant, thy name is written
in the book of life, and thy memorial faileth not.
And thou art a companion of the celestial power
where thou shalt ever live, and thy spirit shalt be in heaven,
and thy resting-place shall never be lost in the world.'
Then the Saint stretched out his hands and said,
' I thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast not forsaken me,
but rememberest me with Thy saints.
I pray Thee now, Jesus Christ, receive my soul in peace,
and suffer not that I be separated from Thee.'
While he was saying this, there came Christ Himself to him,
in the same likeness in which He had lived in the world,
and gave him the greeting of peace, and said to him these words,
Pax tibi, Marce, noster euangelista,
'Peace be with thee, Mark, our Evangelist.'
And Mark said to Him, 'My Lord Jesus';
and the Saviour straightway departed to heaven.
Then in the early morning came the wicked heathen,
and knitted his neck a second time with a rope,
and dragged him again, even as they did before,
shamefully speaking about the holy man;
and the blessed Mark greatly thanked
the Saviour Christ for this, and said this prayer :
In manus tuas, domine, commendo sinritum, meum;
Into Thine hands, Lord, I commend my spirit.'
And with these words he departed from the world to God,
with Whom he ever rejoiceth without weariness.
Then the heathen desired to burn his body,
and made a great pyre, but it was extinguished;
for God sent a very great rain
during the whole day, with awful thunder,
so that many houses fell with violence,
and also many men died by the thunder,
and the rest fled, seized with terror.
Then soon after came the Christians,
pious men, and they bare away
the Evangelist's body, and laid it in a coffin,
and buried it honourably, with prayers giving thanks,
(that they might have with them such a saint
to be their protector), to the Almighty God,
to Whom be glory and praise for ever and ever. Amen.
OTHER THINGS (THE FOUR EVANGELISTS).
We have now related briefly in this writing
how the holy Mark was martyred.
Now will we tell you how the holy Jerome wrote
concerning the four Evangelists who are chosen of God,
in the Preface, when he translated Christ's book
from the Hebrew tongue, and some from the Greek,
into the Latin speech, in which we learn.
He quoth that Luke said, even as it is very true,
that many men began to write the Gospel
without the direction of the Holy Ghost, and of the Saviour,
and according to their own will said even as it seemed to them,
and on them fell the curse which the prophet spake,
'Woe to them that prophesy out of their own heart,
and go after their own spirit, and say that God spake
that which they say, and God hath not sent them.'
Of such spake the Saviour also in a certain place,
'Carefully be ye ware of false prophets,
who came to you in sheeps' semblance,
and within they are ravening wolves.
But the orthodox church, which is established in Christ,
and fastened in Him, even as in a sure stone,
receiveth not the writings which such heretics
wrote of themselves without truth.
The first Evangelist, who was chosen by God,
[was] named Matthew, whom the Saviour chose
from being a worldly taxgatherer to be a spiritual Evangelist,
and he was one of the twelve servants of God;
he wrote the Gospel first in Hebrew,
which is set in order in the first book.
He wrote it in Hebrew for the Hebrew people
who in the land of Judea believed in Christ;
and desired, by that scripture whereon they were fed,
to confirm their faith, because he loved them;
and he had to depart then into far distant lands
to heathen nations, to teach them.
Then he desired first of all to write the Gospel
for his own people, before he departed from them.
The second Evangelist is Mark, who was by the Apostle Peter
educated in doctrine, and converted to the faith.
Peter was his godfather, and begat him to God,
and he so long followed his baptismal father Peter,
until he had written, with true faith,
the second book of Christ, in the land of Italy.
He never saw Christ in life, but he learned, nevertheless,
from Peter's preaching, how he should write the book,
and Peter examined it, and delivered it to be read.
The third Evangelist is Luke, who was a physician in the world,
and dwelt with the apostles, and with Paul afterward,
serving the Almighty without any sin
in a pure life, ever without a wife, filled with God's Spirit,
and he wrote and wisely arranged the Gospel,
and he also wrote the Acts of the Apostles.
He wrote his Gospel in the land of Achaia,
and departed to God, filled with the Holy Ghost,
when he was four and eighty years of age.
The fourth Evangelist is John, Christ's aunt's son;
he was so dear to Christ that he leaned upon His breast
in which was hidden the heavenly wisdom,
as if he thence might drink the deep learning
which he afterward wrote in wonderfuller writings,
so that he surpassed all creatures,
and declared the words which angels durst not.
He was the first chosen of all the Evangelists,
but he is for all that the fourth, because he wrote the fourth book,
after that the others were set in order
and were widely written throughout the world.
He was in Asia when he wrote the book,
and he lived long in life after Christ,
until the other apostles had ended their lives,
and had gone, victorious, to the true life.
These four Evangelists are chosen of God,
and they enlightened all the world by their lore,
even as the four rivers which run from Paradise
together water all this orb;
and these four Evangelists God revealed of old,
in the Old Law, to the prophet Ezekiel.
He saw in his vision four beasts such as these;
one of the four beasts was seen as it were the appearance of a Man,
the second was like a Lion's form,
and the third stood like a Stirk (Calf),
and the fourth was like a variously coloured Eagle.
The Man's likeness belongeth to Matthew,
because he began his Gospel about Christ's humanity.
The Lion belongeth, as the orthodox say,
to Mark's likeness, because he cried with a loud sound,
even as the lion roareth greedily in the desert,
Vox clamantis in deserto, parate viam domini, rectas facile semitas eius;
A voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye God's ways, make His paths straight.'
The Calf's likeness belongeth to Luke,
because he began his Gospel, even as God directed him,
from the priest who was called Zacharias;
because people offered, in the old fashion,
a calf for the priest, and slew it at the altar.
The Eagle's likeness belongeth to John,
because the eagle flieth the highest of all birds,
and can most steadily stare at the sun's light.
So did John, the divine writer;
he flew far up, as if with eagle's wings,
and beheld sagaciously how he might write most nobly of God.
The aforesaid prophet said in his vision,
that the four beasts' feet were straight;
and they went ever after the spirit,
and had eyes upon each side of them.
Thu§ is it written about the Evangelists in the Old Law,
and again in the New Testament after Christ's incarnation.
The Book of the Apocalypse saith about this same,
that John saw the aforesaid beasts
in the same appearance, which we before said,
and they sung this song with continual harmony,
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, dominus deus omni]potens, qui erat, et qui est, et qui venturus est :
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and which
now is, and which is to come.'
This holy song signifieth the Holy Trinity
in One Godhead, ever abiding,
who ever was, and also now continueth,
and ever is to come, without ceasing.
Now we have said, in this epitome,
how God revealed the true Evangelists
in the Old Law, and also in the New;
and these four only are to be received
in the orthodox church, and the others to be rejected,
who wrote false writings, by themselves (only),
not by the Holy Ghost, nor by the Saviour's choosing.
Thus we end this treatise here.