Mark's Gospel and The Early Fathers

There is not the slightest trace of an idea that the Gospel of Mark was ever originally anonymous. Although the church fathers disagree about exactly when the Gospel was written—some say before Peter’s death, some say after—there is complete unanimity on who wrote the Gospel and how it was written.

Mark wrote down the oral teaching of the apostle Peter. Significantly, Papias claims that this account of Mark’s origins goes back to “John the elder,” whom Papias elsewhere identifies as one of “the Lord’s disciples.”¹

Early Church Father on Who Wrote Mark

Papias of Hierapolis

And the elder [John] used to say this: “Mark, having become Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately everything he remembered, though not in order, of the things either said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, followed Peter, who adapted his teachings as needed but had no intention of giving an ordered account of the Lord’s sayings. Consequently Mark did nothing wrong in writing down some things as he remembered them, for he made it his one concern not to omit anything that he heard or make any false statement in them.”²

Irenaeus of Lyons

After their [Peter and Paul’s] departure, Mark also, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the things which were preached by Peter.³

Clement of Alexandria

But a great light of godliness shone upon the minds of Peter’s listeners that they were not satisfied with a single hearing or with the oral teaching of the divine proclamation. So, with all kinds of exhortations, they begged Mark (whose gospel is extant), since he was Peter’s follower, to leave behind a written record of the teaching given to them verbally, and did not quit until they had persuaded the man, and thus they became the immediate cause of the scripture called “The Gospel according to Mark.” And they say that the apostle, aware of what had occurred because the Spirit had revealed it to him, was pleased with their zeal and sanctioned the writing for study in the churches.⁴

Early Church Father on When Mark Was Written

On the one hand, Irenaeus seems to suggest that the Gospel of Mark was published or “handed down” in writing after the “departure” (Greek exodon) of Peter and Paul—presumably a reference to their death by martyrdom (usually dated around AD 66).⁵ This would place the origin of Mark’s Gospel sometime in the late 60s of the first century AD.

On the other hand, Clement of Alexandria claims that Mark was written while Peter was still alive and that the apostle himself “sanctioned” the reading of Mark’s text in his churches.⁶ This would place the origin of Mark’s Gospel before the death of Peter, and thus sometime before AD 66.

We can say that the church fathers agree that the Gospel was written within the lifetime of Mark, Peter’s disciple and interpreter.

Footnotes

1. Eusebius, Church History, 3.39.4. ↩︎

2. Cited in Eusebius, Church History , 3.39.15, trans. Michael W. Holmes, in The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007). ↩︎

3. Cited in Eusebius, Church History , 5.8.3. ↩︎

4. Cited in Eusebius, Church History , 2.15.1–2, trans. Michael W. Holmes; The Apostolic Fathers , 759. ↩︎

5. Irenaeus, Against Heresies , 3.1. ↩︎

6. See Eusebius, Church History , 2.15.1–2, trans. Michael W. Holmes. ↩︎