THE MYSTERY OF THE FACE OF THE MOTHER OF JESUS

1

We have entered into the nature of the problem. The summary that you have read is an example of the problematic that has existed during the Ages of Christianity and has reached us enriched by the thought of a mountain of theologians and specialists in the subject. From the reading a final question emerges, a reduction of the whole problem and at the same time its origin: Who was Mark?

It seems evident that since I am not a specialist, that is, my brain has not been touched by the magic wand of the formation of its structure of thought to the natural method in use in the school of theologians, and because it has not been touched, it will be understood that my way of seeing the problem is distanced from that of the specialists in what refers to the approach and in what sticks to the source. We have seen that the specialists affirm and refute each other when it comes to solving the mystery of the Identity of the Evangelist Mark. A mystery that exists and takes shape from them, and only because they understand it that way the Identity of John Mark becomes an object of mystery. The fact is that John, who lived until the end of the First Century, and therefore was the Divine Authority in Christianity, John never brought up the existence of such a Mystery and only came to the stand when John left the scene of Earth and ascended to Heaven. Why John, whose theological thought rose to the heights of the Word, such that in all the History of Christianity there has been no theologian worthy to untie the straps of his sandals, including St. Augustine and St. Thomas in the lot, with all the love that the memory of these saints deserves; why John, living until the end of the century, when the Gospel of Mark had already been written for at least three decades, did not enter into the problem of the Mystery of the Identity of the Evangelist? Or did John himself, who like an eagle surveying the valley from his cliff and seeing with his eyes the awakening of the Antichrist, miss the issue of the identification of this mysterious Evangelist? After Peter and James died, was not John the supreme authority among the Christians?

We have to agree, following the Silence of John, that the Identity of Mark was neither a Mystery nor a Problem for the generation of the Apostles and the First Christians. Matthew, Luke, Philip, Peter, Paul, Jude, and the rest of the Brethren, all knew the true Identity of the author of the Gospel of Mark. It was only when John and his disciples disappeared from the scene that the Mystery was born, and eventually became a Problem.

I am not going to get into discussions with the experts or follow their method, whose structure I do not know, since I have not been trained in it. But I am going to take the Gospels and, of course, the Spirit of God as my source.

"Woman, behold your son; (to John), behold your Mother".

The reasons are by default lost in the discourse of the circus vanities in whose arena at the end the experts decide who among all has more genius. Wisdom being reduced to a crown of laurels with which to parade the art of the mind, to the humiliation of the losers in the contest of the intellect, the nature of Truth is subjected to the interest of the victory of the ego over the necessity of knowledge as the Way to eternal Life. Hence they crucified Christ. Truth, however, runs its course.

We have the Origin of the Mystery in its true context. Namely, Jesus was the only son of his mother. If we turn the tables this means that Mary, Jesus being her only begotten and firstborn, was left alone in the midst of a world which had just crucified her only son and which, sooner or later, would turn against her. Having started the Jews to murder the Messiah once his Disciples open their Message to the World the murderers would not hesitate to launch themselves against the Mother of the son of David in order to erase that Title of his Genealogy, an effect they could only achieve by eliminating Mary as the legitimate heir of Solomon, through which passed the Crown of the Jews to her son Jesus.

Jesus goes ahead of his enemies and arranges from his Cross, as we all read, that John, a boy in his adolescence, takes the place that He leaves in the Heart of his Mother. John becomes, by His command, son to Mary and Mary mother to John, and, consequently, John was not to abandon the Mother of Jesus night or day.

John, the son of Zebedee.

John, the brother of James, both sons of Zebedee, and because it is clear from the Gospels any objection is obsolete, was a teenager when Jesus enters the scene of World History. While his brother James, as well as Peter, Andrew's brother, were busy in adult things, John, along with Andrew, Peter's brother, is hanging around the Baptist. That is to say, John and Andrew were two teenagers at the time of the Baptism of Jesus.

They had no family responsibilities of their own and hence they spent their time hanging around the Last Prophet. How old could Andrew and John have been? 17, 18 years old? Jesus was a man in his 33rd year when John rests on his chest and asks Jesus who the traitor was. A 30-year-old man does not lie on the chest of a 33-year-old, nor does a 33-year-old accept a 30-year-old resting his head on his chest. Therefore, John is still a teenager when he attends the Last Supper.

More. Nor could John's age be less than that of a teenager in full possession of his physical and mental faculties when Jesus and John meet at the Jordan. No father would have allowed his children, without considering them already little men capable of defending themselves, no father of those times would have allowed his son to go alone into the desert, no matter how holy the Baptist "that one" was! John, like Andrew, therefore, must have already been 17-19 years old. (We must never forget that in those days and in Israel, the age of majority was considered to have been reached at about 14 years of age. The case of Jesus, already intellectually an adult at the age of twelve, is sui generis, unique in History and unrepeatable in the context of Creation. John is a man born of man and his person was subject to the law in all aspects of being. Then at about 18, which John must have been, in the eyes of someone other than his father John was already a man).

More. That Zebedee, John's father, was not exactly a salaried fisherman is clear from the freedom of his youngest son. At that age all the boys were already into fishing. Times were not easy and if one belonged to the survival class, slave of the day to day, a boy like Juan was already on the job and enslaved to work. Juan is not; neither is Andrés. The deduction I draw is logical: his parents were not rich but they lived comfortably enough to allow their young children to wade through the desert.

These two props we set on rock in order to mount on them the weight of Mark's Identity. One is John's age, an adolescent in the prime of his physical and mental strength, on the borders of adult life, and the other is the social class to which John belonged; for let us not forget that John has friends in the Temple of Jerusalem, and not just any friend; "this disciple (John) was known to the High Priest".

With the Pontiff of Jerusalem it was the same as with the bishop of Rome, everyone knows who the Pope is but the Pope knows very few. One of these acquaintances of the Pontiff of Jerusalem was John. That is to say, Zebedee was not exactly a salaried fisherman, but someone of weight in the Jerusalem Fish Market, so much so that even the Pontiff himself knew his son John. Let us not forget these two factors when we come to the height of the veil we are about to draw.

John's spiritual vocation

It seems entirely sensible and more wise than foolish to say that if John was around the Baptist at the age at which as a rule the Jewish boys were already generally involved in work and bringing into the world kids, this tendency to wander more than curiosity was in John spiritual vocation, ontological force of divine origin that kept John away from the things that young people are dedicated to at that age: wine, women and money. If John had been for money at his age, and in those times, John, starting from the position of Zebedee, his father, John would have already been handling silver.

If John had been more in love with the flesh than with the spirit, at his age he would have been married with a child, especially in a society in which love was a crazy thing and weddings were a matter of business. Since wine and women were the flesh and blood of the natural man, the fact that John was not in the arms of any woman confirms that the reason why John went to the desert was his spiritual vocation. John was impregnated with the Messianic Reason and the clouds in which his Head unfolded had in the Son of David the Sun under which his thoughts, his dreams, his illusions moved.

John, the son of Zebedee, when Jesus enters the Jordan, was a virgin in every aspect.

The experience that John lived in the Light of his Master, the Son of David in person, would have been just that, an experience in the soul of any man, but in John it was an ontological revolution, definitive, total, sublime, supreme; such is its magnitude that while the others hide, John is the only one who attends all the acts of the Passion and it is he, the youngest of all, who gives the Mother his Arm to lean on him up the Slope of Calvary. While the others flee and hide, terrified by the confusion that the darkness of the moment has cast upon them, John follows his Master to the Cross and carries with him, as if it were his staff, that Woman whom he loved as a mother even before the wedding feast of Canaan.

Let us enter into the mystery of the blood connection between Zebedee and the Mother of Jesus. And to base strength on intelligence, and not the other way around, I copy here a historical document, written in the tenth century, approximately, by Severus Al-Ushmunain, bishop of Hermopolis of Egypt, dealing with the matter of the origins of the Church of Alexandria in the preaching of John Mark, the Evangelist.

It will be noted that this document in circulation in the Egyptian Coptic church consists of two basic elements, one: the facts in the distance, and the other: the transformation of the same into apocryphal shadows due to that same distance. But let us look at the translation in the next section before going into details.

 

HISTORY OF THE COPTIC PATRIARCHS OF THE CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA

Life of the Apostle and Evangelist Mark by Severus, Bishop of Al-Ushmunain (955-987 A.D.)

Translated from English by C.R.

 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the One God. This is the first biography in the history of the Holy Church. The story of St. Mark, the Disciple and Evangelist, Archbishop of the great city of Alexandria, and first of its Bishops.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the One God. This is the first biography in the history of the Holy Church. The story of St. Mark, the Disciple and Evangelist, Archbishop of the great city of Alexandria, and first of its Bishops.

In the time of the Ministry of the merciful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in the days when He chose His disciples, there were two brothers in a city of Pentapolis, in the West, called Cyrene. The name of the elder was Aristobulus, and the name of the younger was Barnabas; they were farmers, and had great possessions. Both of them knew the Law of Moses perfectly, and knew by heart many of the books of the Old Testament. It happened therefore that in the days of Augustus Caesar, prince of the Romans, the Berbers and Ethiopians fell upon them and robbed them of their possessions and drove them from their lands. In order to save their lives they fled from that province, and journeyed to the land of the Jews.

Aristobulus had a son named John. So Aristobulus and Barnabas settled in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and John grew up full of the grace of the Holy Spirit. His father and uncle had a cousin, the wife of Simon Peter, the one who was the chief of the disciples of Christ, the Lord; and John, whom they began to call Mark, used to visit Peter, to learn from him everything concerning the Holy Scriptures.

One day Aristobulus took his son Mark with him to the Jordan, and on the way a lion and a lioness met them. When Aristobulus saw them approaching, and perceived the violence of their rage, he said to his son Mark: "My son, do you see with what fury this lion is coming to destroy us? Flee and save yourself, my son, while they amuse themselves devouring me, for such is the will of Almighty God". But Christ's disciple, St. Mark, answered and said to his father, "Do not be afraid, my father, Christ in whom I believe will deliver us from all danger."

And when the lions approached them, Mark, the disciple of the Lord Christ, cried out against them with a loud voice, saying, "The Lord Jesus Christ, the son of the Living God, commands you to disappear from these mountains, and have no more descendants from here henceforth forever."

Thereupon the lion and the lioness fell down dead on the spot; and their whelps likewise. When Aristobulus, the father of Mark, saw this great miracle manifested in his son by the power of the invincible Lord Jesus Christ, he said to his son, "I am your father who brought you into the world, Mark, my son; but today you are my father and my savior. And now, dear son, pray for me and my brother that we may be converted to the Lord Jesus Christ, whom you preach." Then St. Mark's father and his brother began to know the doctrine of Christ from that day on.

Mary, the mother of Mark, was the sister of Barnabas, the disciple of the apostles.

After this, the following event occurred. There was in those regions, in a city called Azotus, a very large olive tree, greatly admired for its size. Since the people of that city were moon worshippers, they prayed to that olive tree.

When St. Mark saw them praying, he said to them, "What will become of this olive tree which you worship as God, after you eat its fruit and burn its branches? Behold, by the word of God whom I worship, I command this tree to fall to the ground untouched by any iron."

Then they answered him, "We know that you practice the magic of your master the Galilean, and as you wish it to be so it is done. But we will pray to our Goddess, and she will bring forth the olive tree for us to adore.

St. Mark answered them, "Very well, I will tear it down, and if your Goddess can set it up again I will convert to your religion."

They agreed and saw that no one was hiding around the tree to deceive them.

Then St. Mark raised his face to heaven, turned to the East, opened his mouth and prayed saying: "My Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, hear thy servant, and command the moon, thy second assistant in this world, which gives light to the night, that his voice may be heard by thy decree and authority, that these men who have no God, may know the Creator of all things and be converted; though I know, my Lord and God, that the Moon has no voice nor power to speak, let it be so by thy Power, that these men may know that the Moon is not God, but thy handmaid, and that thou art their God. And may you command this tree, to which they pray, to fall to the ground, so that they may recognize your Power, and that there is no God but you, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, giver of eternal life. Amen."

And at that hour, as soon as he had finished his prayer, a great darkness came over, at noon, and the Moon appeared bright in the sky to them, and they heard his voice, saying, "O men of little faith, I am not God that you should worship me, but his servant and one of his creatures, I am a minister of Christ the Lord, whom Mark, his disciple, preaches; and Him only do we serve and worship." At once the olive tree fell to the ground. And great fear seized all present.

But the people who worshiped the tree rose up against St. Mark, seized him, beat him, and handed him over to the Jews, who put him in prison. That night St. Mark saw in his dream the Lord Christ, who said to Peter, "Tonight I will release all those who are in prison." When he awoke from his dream, Mark saw the doors of his prison open; and he and all those with him in prison went out; for the jailers had fallen asleep as dead men. But the multitudes who witnessed it said, "Our persecution of Galileans will never come to an end, for Beelzebub, the chief of the devils, is with them."

Mark was one of the Seventy Disciples. And he was one of the servants who poured the water into the jars that Our Lord turned into wine, at the wedding feast of Canaan in Galilee. And it was he who carried the jar of water to the house of Simon the Cyrenian, for the celebration of the Last Supper. And it was he also who welcomed the disciples into his house during the Lord's Passion, and after his resurrection from the dead, where he entered, though the doors were locked

And after his Ascension into heaven, St. Mark went with Peter to Jerusalem, and they preached the word of God to the multitudes. But the Holy Spirit appeared to Peter and commanded him to go through the cities and villages of the country. So Peter, and Mark with him, went on to Bethany, to preach the word of God; and they remained there some days. And being in Bethany he saw in a dream the angel of God, who said to him, "In two places there is a great famine." Peter said to the angel, "In which?" He answered, "In the city of Alexandria, in the land of Egypt, and in Rome. It is not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but the famine that comes from ignorance of the Word of God, which you preach." When Peter awoke, he told Mark what he had seen in his dream. And after this, Peter and Mark went on to the region of Rome, and there they preached the word of God.

And in the fifteenth year after the Ascension of Christ, holy Peter sent St. Mark the evangelist to the city of Alexandria, to announce the Good News, to preach the word of God and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose is the glory, honor and worship, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the eternal God. Amen.

Martyrdom of St. Mark, and his preaching in the city of Alexandria.

During the time of the Ministry of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, after his Ascension to Heaven, the Holy Spirit sent the Apostles to all nations in order to proclaim to them the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the distribution of territories it fell to St. Mark the great city of Alexandria, that they might hear and be converted, for its people were sunk in idol worship, serving the creature instead of the Creator. There were many temples there dedicated to contemptible gods, which they served in iniquity and magic arts. It was he, St. Mark, who was the first to preach in the province of Egypt, in Africa, Pentapolis, and all those regions.

So when St. Mark returned from Rome, he went first to Pentapolis, where he preached in all its districts the word of God, and worked many miracles, cured the sick, cleansed the lepers, and cast out devils by the grace of God which was in him. And many believed in the Lord Christ through him, forsook the idols they used to worship, and were delivered from the power of devils. And he baptized them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God.

Then the Holy Spirit appeared to him, and said to him, "Arise and go to the city of Alexandria, and sow there the seed of the word of God." The disciple of Christ arose and set out, clothed with the power of the Holy Spirit as a warrior dressed for war; he took leave of his brethren and said to them, "The Lord Jesus Christ will make a way for me, that I may preach his gospel there." Then he prayed, saying, "Lord strengthen the brethren who have known your holy name that I may rejoice in them on my return." And they took their leave.

St. Mark arrived in the city of Alexandria; and as he was entering the gate the strap of his shoe broke. Seeing this, he thought to himself: "Now I know that the Lord is guiding me". So he went to a shoemaker who was there to have his shoe repaired. And when the shoemaker took the awl, he pierced his hand. Then he said, "Heis ho Theos", which means, "God is One". When St. Mark heard that he mentioned the name of God, he rejoiced greatly, and turning his face to the East he said, "My Lord Jesus, it is you who smooth my way wherever I go." Then he spat on the ground, and put the mud on the place where the awl had pierced the cobbler's hand, saying, "In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, eternal God, may this man's hand be healed at this moment, to the glory of your name." And his hand was healed.

St. Mark said to him, "If you know that God is One, why do you serve many gods?" The cobbler answered him, "We mention God with our mouths, but that is all; for we do not know who he is."

Marveling at the power of God in St. Mark, the cobbler said to him, "I pray thee, O man of God, come to thy servant's house, that thou mayest rest and eat." Then St. Mark answered him joyfully, "May the Lord give you the bread of life from heaven!" And he went with him to his house. And when he entered his dwelling, he said, "May the blessing of God be with this house!" and he prayed.

After they had eaten, the cobbler said to him, "My Father, I pray thee, make known to me Him in whose name thou hast wrought this miracle." Then the saint replied, "I serve Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God". The cobbler exclaimed: "I wish I could see him". St. Mark said to him: "I will make it so".

Then he began to teach him the Gospel, and the doctrine of the glory and power and dominion which belong to God from the beginning, and exhorted him with many instructions, to which his history testifies, and ended by saying to him, "The Lord Christ was incarnate in the Virgin Mary, came into the world, and saved us from our sins." And then he explained to him the Prophets, step by step.

The cobbler said to him, "I have never heard of these books that you speak of; the books of the Greek philosophers are the books that are taught here, and those of the Egyptians also."

Then St. Mark said to him, "The wisdom of the philosophers of this world is vanity before God." When the cobbler had heard the wisdom and the words of the Scriptures from the mouth of St. Mark, together with the miracle of the healing of his hand, his heart believed in the Lord, and he was baptized, he and all the people of his house, and all his neighbors. His name was Anianus.

But when those who believed in the Lord began to multiply, and the people of the city heard that a Jew and Galilean had entered the city, intending to overthrow the idols, their gods, and had already persuaded many to abstain from serving them, they sought him everywhere; and they set men after him. When St. Mark saw that they were plotting against him, he ordained Anianus bishop of Alexandria, ordained three priests and seven deacons, and confirmed these eleven to serve and comfort the faithful brethren. But he left and returned to the Pentapolis, where he remained for two years, preaching and confirming bishops, priests and deacons throughout his districts.

Then he returned to Alexandria, and found that the brethren had been strengthened in the faith, and had multiplied by the grace of God, and had found the means of building a church in a place they called the Cattle Pasture, near the sea, by the side of a rock. Then St. Mark rejoiced exceedingly; and falling on his knees he blessed God for having confirmed in the faith those whom he had instructed in the doctrines of the Lord, and for having turned away from the service of idols.

But when those unbelievers heard that St. Mark was back in Alexandria, filled with fury against the believers in Christ, because of his miracles, healing the sick, casting out devils, loosing the tongues of the dumb, opening the ears of the deaf, and cleansing the lepers; they sought St. Mark with great fury, but found him not; and gnashing their teeth in their temples, filled with wrath they said to their idols, "Do you not see the wickedness of this sorcerer?"

So on the first day of the week, the day of the festival of the Lord's Passover, which fell that year on the 29th of Barmudah, just the time when the idolaters celebrated their heathen festivals, they sought him with zeal, and found him in the sanctuary. They seized him and tied a rope around his neck, with which they dragged him along the ground, saying, "Drag that serpent!" But the saint, as they dragged him, glorified God, saying, "Blessed are you, Lord, for you have found me worthy to suffer for your name's sake." And they lacerated his flesh against the stones of the street, and his blood flowed on the ground.

When evening came, they put him in prison while they decided what they were going to do with him, what kind of death they were going to give him. At midnight, when the prison doors were shut, and the sentries were asleep, there was a great earthquake. And the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came to the saint, and said to him, "Mark, servant of God, your name is written in the book of life, and is numbered in the assembly of the saints, and your soul shall sing praises with the angels in heaven; your body shall not perish, nor cease to exist on earth."

And when he awoke from his sleep he raised his eyes to heaven, and said, "O my Lord Jesus Christ, I beseech thee to receive me that I may be happy in thy presence." When he had finished these words, he fell asleep again; and the Lord appeared to him in the form in which the disciples knew him, and said to him, "Hail Mark, the evangelist and chosen one!" Then the saint said to him, "I thank thee, O my Savior Jesus Christ, that thou hast found me worthy to suffer for thy holy name." And the Lord and Savior saluted him, and disappeared.

When he awoke the morning had come, and the multitude assembled, they brought the saint out of the prison, put again around his neck the rope, and said, "Drag that serpent into the Cattle Field!" And they dragged him along the ground while he gave thanks to the Lord Christ, and glorified Him, saying, "Into Thy hands I commit my spirit, O my God!" Then the saint expired.

After these things the ministers of the idols gathered wood in a place called Angelion, in order to burn the body of the saint. But by God's command a thick fog and a strong wind arose, so that the earth trembled; and much rain fell, so much that many of the people died of fear and terror; and they said to themselves, "Surely, Serapis, he has come to collect the dead man."

Then the faithful brethren assembled, went to pick up the body of St. Mark from among the ashes, and found that nothing had suffered from his appearance. They took him to the church in which they used to celebrate the Liturgy; they perfumed and wrapped him, and prayed over him according to the established rites. They dug a place for him and buried his body there; in order to preserve his memory always with joy and blessing for the grace which the Lord Christ bestowed on the city of Alexandria by his servant. They placed him in the eastern part of the church, during the day on which his martyrdom took place (he being the first of the Galileans martyred for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in Alexandria), namely, the day before Barmudah according to the calculation of the Egyptians, which is equivalent to the eighth day before the kalends of May among the months of the Romans, and 24th of Nisan among the months of the Hebrews.

And we too, the children of Orthodoxy, offer glory and sanctification and praise to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom is all praise and honor and adoration, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, Life-Giver and Consubstantial, now and forever.

2

The Mother of Jesus Christ

A

One observes in the Coptic account of the life of St. Mark the two elements I noted earlier: the distance, natural to one who wrote the account ten centuries later, and its kinship with the style of the Gnostic apocrypha of the early centuries, in which a populist element of background serves as the nucleus of a biography without formal historical value.

The populist background element is the relationship between the Apostle John and the Evangelist Mark, a mystery around which the whole problem of the Identity of the Evangelist revolves. The identity of John the Apostle beyond doubt, that of Mark the Evangelist, i.e., John as Evangelist under the name of Mark, is the Mystery. Why did John not make himself known as he was and use the code name under which he concealed the true identity of the youngest son of Thunder?

To approach this Mystery let us start from the Mind of Jesus.

I have said before that once crucified "the dog" the Jews, when they saw that they had not finished with the rabies, would launch, with the same pity and mercy with which they had treated the son, against the Mother. Mary was the only person in the world, not being Joseph on the scene, who could prove with documents the Identity of the Crucified, and with them in hand to prove the legitimacy of Jesus to the Throne of David, a fact which, if proven, would show that indeed the title on the Cross, King of the Jews, was as real as the crown of thorns with which the Romans enthroned the Son of David.

It was only natural that Jesus, being what He was, and knowing all the things that were to be the effect of the cause which He Himself had moved, should see His judges and executioners turn against the Mother of the Lamb and, by their elimination, destroy all genealogical evidence that could connect the "Galilean dog" with the Crown of the Jews.

The cause that had set this effect in motion was impossible to be stopped or to divert its consequences. This act was outside the Power of the Son of God. God the Father had determined the cause and this cause must proceed to its effects. Now, at no time had God the Father determined "the Necessity of the Death of the Mother of Christ" in the way he had determined "the Necessity of the Death of his Son".

God the Father takes the life of this Woman into his hands and having consummated the Perfect Necessity of the Death of Christ, from the Cross Jesus provides the Mother of his Son with a cherub, a guardian, a personal bodyguard, whom God himself has formed from the womb of his mother, the woman of Zebedee, to be "the youngest son of Thunder". This is where the Mystery of John Mark begins.

When the historian-theologians of the future approached the problem, none of them started from this source, as we have seen. And the fact is that, forgive me the devil, one of the most notable defects of Theology is to be a science, and like all sciences, Theology has the virtue of making of its lover a true fool who prefers the knowledge of men as a source to God as the Source of all knowledge. For as everyone will understand and even the Bishop of Rome, the one who calls himself Holy Father, equal to God except in the flesh, and only by the flesh - curse - equal to us, why seek in the Living God what is in books? Or does God have Memory?

But isn't the Memory that hard disk where the lived events are stored? With the difference that the hard disk can be erased and the things that are recorded in the Living Memory remain as long as there is life, and of course, being God eternal, the Memory of the Universe has in Him its fireproof Book. So why prefer books as a source of knowledge about the Divine Mysteries when God is there to discover us His Mind?

In defense of all, let us say that the Law of Silence under which the centuries were enclosed, because of which St. Paul said that "Ignorance keeps the world in corruption" etc., has had its effect and the criticism of the Past is a lesson for the Future, so as not to fall into the same stone again.

B

There are two methods to get to know someone: to approach him and enter into a dialogue, or to approach third parties and from them form an idea.

The Bible is not there to be a third party but to be the Way to the One you want to know. The first method is that of Theology; the second is that of the one that opens this Introduction to the Mystery of the Identity of John-Marcos. Since God is there, why ask anyone about God? Let us continue then.

We have taken the position of the Son of God. He is the Lamb of God and nothing and no one could prevent God from offering his Atoning Sacrifice for the sins of the whole World. This is already written and is not the subject. Our interest begins when the Mother of that Lamb will inevitably become the target of the criminal instinct of the Jews. Even before the Crucifixion the Jews had managed to make their inquiries about the identity of that Galilean prophet. And rummaging in the memory of Nazareth they unearthed the memory of the Annunciation Episode in the non-Christian version, from which the Jews deduced that Jesus was "a bastard dog" and his mother "a whore", a deduction that they threw in his face at the Feast when they said:

"We know who our father is, who is yours?"

To which Jesus, knowing what they were talking about, answered them:

"Your father is the devil," for surely only a son of Satan could call the Bride of the God who declared Himself the Father of His Son a "harlot" and the Son of God a "bastard dog." And those same sons of the Devil would not hesitate for a nanosecond to use the "secret" they found, make it public and take the Mother of Christ to the street to be stoned, a posteriori, for adultery, a crime condemned in the Law of Moses with death. The same Jesus who said to them: "You are children of the Devil", is the Jesus who said to John: "Behold your mother".

And it would be in that Mind and in that Divine Heart that John became Mark. And it would be from this Need to Protect the Mother of Jesus Christ that the first Gospel of John, the one that bears the name of Mark, arose from the Law, which says: "By the testimony of two shall the judgment be valid". Having written Matthew's, John, who has in his custody the Mother, and for all, except for the Apostles, is Mark, thus hiding the Identity of the Woman who was always with him, whom he called Mother, and she called him Son, John-Marcos writes his Gospel so that the Law would be fulfilled, and hence the Gospel of St. Mark is a simple Testimony in support of Matthew. John-Marcos does not pretend in his first Gospel to say neither more nor less than Matthew, and he limits himself to put his Gospel next to it so that by the Law, which required two Witnesses for the validity of the Testimony, the Law would be fulfilled.

This being the reason for the Gospel of Mark, the terse but firm nature of the one who has lived all and one by one the events narrated by Matthew, is the most visible character of the Narration of Mark and the reason why the "theologians" wanted to see its origin in Peter, with respect to whom Mark was his "secret" and was putting in writing what the "Chief" was spouting.

Peter's memory must have been bad and Mark's secretary worse to reduce the Memory of Jesus Christ in the Apostle to a simple Testimony in support of the Gospel of St. Matthew. But the infinite memory of Mark, who, being John, signs at once everything testified by his colleague Matthew without giving more importance than is due to the literary style of his own Testimony.

It is this lack of concern, so wealthy and exquisite in the learned theologians, that, hallucinating them the fact that a yokel in the sciences of letters was capable of giving birth to a little book of such grace and glory, they could not understand the original value of the Gospel of Mark according to the Law. But as I have already said that Ignorance has been Universal by reason of the Prescience and Omniscience of the Father of all things, looking to the Hope of Salvation of all the nations of the Earth, I will not insist on the written failure of theology to penetrate behind the Veil of the Divine Mind. And I continue.

C

A key factor makes possible the natural assumption of John's filiation with respect to the Mother in the eyes of all outsiders, and it will be the veil thanks to which neither the Jews nor anyone else could guess the true nature behind the mother-son relationship under which John and the Mother of Jesus present themselves before the whole world, including the Christians themselves, among whom only a very select circle, of which St. Paul would later say, "we speak among the perfect a secret wisdom..." etcetera, were aware of the true Identity of the "mother" of "Mark". This factor would be, and was, the perfect Youth that the Mother of Jesus preserved until the Death of her Son, and according to which it was impossible to suspect that that "woman", who by appearance was in her 40's, was not the mother of that young man in his 21 years, approximately.

In square numbers, Mary's age for the date of her Son's Resurrection must have been around 60, year up and year down. In those times, 60 was a lot of years. Had the law of the Fall been deprived on the Immaculate Mother of Jesus Christ, the Veil under which God the Father defended the Mother of his Son would not have worked. And in any case it would have worked against. For who would have believed that that 60-something old woman could have been the mother of that young boy, John, unless she had given birth in the manner of Sarah to Isaac, another point against this son, and a bridge to the nature of the theater on whose stage the Galilean wanted to put his Mother to safety.

God the Father breaks the curse of the Fall and puts the Mother of his Son out of the Law of the Flesh, hence no one among those present at the scene of the Crucifixion would have thought to relate that Woman, mature but young, who at the foot of the Cross wept with tears, with the Mother of the Crucified and, in any case, with one of "those women" who followed him everywhere and on whom the Master lived.

It was Jesus himself who kept the Identity of his Mother more than once. Being in public, by means of those truths of his that he said: "Who is my mother and who are my brothers but the one who does the will of my Father?", by this subtle way Jesus always diverted everyone's gaze from the face of his Mother, a face that, because of her Youth, no one related in principle to him.

It was only natural for Mark to present the Mother as "his mother." And given the mythology of the living Legend: "the Apostles of the Lord Jesus", it was only natural that Peter and Paul took with them "Mark and his mother" as part of their baggage, to put it colloquially.

That Woman was Sacred to Peter and the Apostles, and nothing and no one in this world had access to Her and Her Heart. John, the son of Thunder, remains at all times around the Mother as a Cherubim armed with a flaming sword and the fire always alive, like the Bush: always burning without being consumed. This is the Mission of John. His mission is neither to preach nor to die, his Mission is to close the way for every man to the Mother of the Lord Jesus and to remain with her until God the Father disposes of his life in this World.

Mark is constantly on the move and both Peter and Paul cover their comings and goings with stories of jealousy and contingent needs. It would be in one of those trips that Mark arrived in Alexandria, where he left in the Original Community the indelible memory of his Presence among the First Christians of that City, which, passing the time the patriarchal interests, etcetera, transformed into the Comic Strip about the Life of Mark that you have read above.