PROVENANCE
PROVENANCE
Early tradition is not unanimous about the place where Mark wrote his gospel, but it favors Rome. The anti-Marcionite prologue to Mark (late second century?) claims that Mark wrote the gospel "in the regions of Italy.” Both Ireneus (Adv. Haer. 3.1.2) and Clement of Alexandria (according to Eusebius, H.E. 6.14.6-7) suggest the same thing. Several considerations are said to confirm a Roman provenance: (1) the large number of Latinisms in the gospel; 21(2) the incidental mention of Simon of Cyrene’s sons, Alexander and Rufus, at least one of whom may have been known to Mark in Rome (when writing to the Roman church, Paul greets a Rufus [16:13]); (3) the apparently Gentile audience of the gospel; (4) the many allusions to suffering, which would be appropriate if the gospel was written under the shadow of persecutions of the church in Rome; (5) the fact that 1 Peter 5:13 locates Mark in Rome with Peter in the early sixties; and (6) the connection with an important early center of Christianity, which would have explained the gospel’s quick acceptance.
None of these points, however, carries much weight: numbers 1 and 3 could fit a provenance anywhere that boasted Gentiles and Latin influence; number 6 is of questionable validity and, even if accepted, could point to several possible locations (Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus); numbers 4 and 5 are valid only if Mark was written in the middle sixties (we will argue for an earlier date, in the middle or late fifties); and number 3 assumes that there was only one Rufus in the early church. Nevertheless, there is nothing in the gospel that is incompatible with a Roman provenance, and Mark may well have been in Rome with Peter for some years prior to the writing of 1 Peter.
The only other provenance that finds support in early tradition is Egypt (Chrysostom, Hom. in Matt. 1.3 [c. A.D. 400]). If Morton Smith is right, Clement of Alexandria may also have connected Mark with the church in Alexandria. According to Smith, a letter he discovered in the monastery of Mar-Saba in Egypt is an authentic letter of Clement, in which he says that Mark, after writing his gospel in Rome with Peter, came to Alexandria, where he composed a "deeper,” Gnostic-oriented gospel. 22But the authenticity of the letter is disputed, and in any case, it simply corroborates a Roman provenance for the canonical Mark. Chrysostom’s identification of Egypt as the place of Mark’s composition may even be a mistaken inference from Eusebius.23
Two other specific provenances have gained support from modern scholars. J. Vernon Bartlet argues for Antioch, noting, among other things, its proximity to Palestine (which explains why Mark assumes his readers will know Palestinian place-names), its large Roman colony, Peter’s connection with Antioch, and the fact that the presbyter whom Papias quotes comes from the East. 24Other scholars, while less specific, are inclined to think that Mark was written somewhere in the East. 25In his groundbreaking redactional study of Mark, Willi Marxsen argues for a Galilean provenance. Noting the positive significance accorded to Galilee in Mark, Marxsen theorizes that Galilee, for Mark, was the place of revelation and that the references to Jesus "going before” the disciples into Galilee (14:28; 16:7) were a summons to Christians to gather in Galilee and await the return of Christ. 26Marxsen’s theory, however, is fraught with problems, and there is no convincing reason to locate Mark in Galilee. While certainty is impossible, a Roman provenance is the best alternative, granted the strength of the early tradition and the lack of any evidence from within the New Testament to the contrary.