Sacraments, Martyrdom & the Sons of Zebedee
Two Gospel Texts in the Tradition
by Patrick Henry Reardon
The Gospels of Matthew (20:20–23) and Mark (10:35–40) record the occasion on which the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, request of the Lord the privilege of sitting to his immediate right and left when he enters into his kingdom. In both Gospel accounts the Lord responds to the brothers’ request with a further query about their ability to “drink the cup whereof I am to drink,” and Mark’s version contains yet another question about their being “baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized.”1
Having elsewhere surveyed and assessed the modern exegesis of the Marcan version of this story,2 I now propose to give expanded attention to the interpretation of both of these Gospel passages in the Tradition of the Church.3 Convinced, moreover, that the transition from the New Testament to the church fathers is something of a seamless robe, I hope to convey some sense of that continuity, demonstrating a single and sustained, albeit complex, understanding of these dominical logia all through the patristic literature.
Mark’s Historical Context
I begin this study with Mark. My reason for doing so is not necessarily a presumption of Marcan priority, still less a persuasion about the full two-source synoptic theory popular in modern critical exegesis. I begin with Mark, rather, for the simple reason that we possess more and clearer information on the historical circumstances of his composition, information that throws considerable contextual light on the passage chosen for our study.
Early patristic testimony to the circumstances of Mark’s writing is remarkably uniform. Our first witness, Papias of Hierapolis, about A.D. 140, quotes an anonymous elder who called Mark the “interpreter of Peter” (hermeneutes Petrou),4 a description repeated within a generation by the Roman Anti-Marcionite Prologue, dated between 160 and 180, which further testifies that “after the death of Peter himself, [Mark] recorded this present Gospel in the regions of Italy.”5 Likewise around 180, that identical expression, interpres Petri, as well as the ascription of Mark’s Gospel to Rome, are found in Irenaeus of Lyons.6 Both the Prologue and Irenaeus, furthermore, agree in dating Mark’s composition after Peter’s death. Within the next generation, Clement of Alexandria, though contradicting their testimony on that last point, does state that this Gospel contains the preaching of Peter at Rome.7
By the year 200, then, we are dealing with an impressive, fairly uniform and widespread consensus, evidenced in material from Hierapolis, Rome, Lyons (and, thus, doubtless Asia Minor), and Egypt, and against which there is not the slightest shred of dissent or contradiction during the entire period. This consensus asserts that Mark’s Gospel was written at Rome, either just before or just after Peter’s death, and reflects the preaching of that apostle.
Now this information is most instructive, because we happen to know quite a bit about the place, time, and circumstances of Peter’s death. Eusebius cites testimonies from the second and early third centuries to bolster his thesis that the chief of the apostles was crucified in Rome during Nero’s persecution (mid-60s): Tertullian, Caius of Rome, Dionysius of Corinth.8 Tertullian himself speaks even more boldly of that crucifixion at Rome, “where Peter equals the Lord’s passion”; he treats the information as though it were common knowledge.9
Indeed, the early Christians seem to have been so familiar with the circumstances of Peter’s martyrdom that Clement of Rome (writing from that city) and Ignatius of Antioch (writing to that city) had not felt the need to elaborate on the place and circumstances.10 The story of the apostle’s crucifixion was so widely reported among the churches that the Gospel of John, probably written at Ephesus, could simply refer to the stretching out of Peter’s hands as “signifying by what death he was to glorify God” (John 21:18f).11 John did not have to explain the point; everyone knew exactly how Peter had died. That this Johannine passage (“thou shalt stretch forth thy hands. . . . signifying by what death he was to glorify God”) did in fact refer to Peter’s crucifixion in Rome was perfectly obvious to Tertullian. Citing that Johannine verse, he wrote: “Then was Peter ‘bound by another,’ when he was fastened to the cross.”12 Moreover, the symbolic extension of the hands as signifying crucifixion is attested to in early Christian and even pagan writings.13
According to the combined and uncontradicted testimony of antiquity, then, Mark’s Gospel was written in Rome near the time of Peter’s martyrdom under Nero. Inasmuch as the crisis that led to that persecution was the fire at Rome in July of 64,14 Mark’s Gospel was written shortly after, or very close to, that date. Moreover, since the historical setting of Mark’s Gospel was the persecution of Nero, and since that setting provides an interpretive key to the understanding of Mark, it will be useful to comment more in detail about Nero’s persecution.
Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor emeritus of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Out of Step with God: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Numbers (Ancient Faith Publishing, 2019).
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