The Naked Young Man: a Historian"s Hypothesis on Mark 14,51-52

Mark"s account of the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane concludes with a mysterious passage.

51 Kai\ neani/skoj tij sunhkolou/qei au0tw=| peribeblhme/noj sindo/na e0pi\ gumnou=, kai\ kratou=sin au0to/n: ⁵² o9 de\ katalipw\n th\n sindo/na gumno\j e1fugen.

If the inconsequential or, at best, decidedly enigmatic character of the episode itself eloquently pleads in support of the young man"s existence as a historical personage ⁷, his identity is beyond the reach of consensus. The theory that he was the evangelist has given ground in view of the difficulties in supposing that the author of Mark"s Gospel was an eye-witness ⁸. But while that solution is felt to be unduly constraining, alternative solutions that would make the young man simply a bystander, even if one who later became attached to the movement ⁹, face their own difficulty. The difficulty here is that Mark 14,51, if read literally, strongly implies a close association between the young man and Jesus. As Vanhoye pointed out, the verb used is not the akolouqein by which Mark usually describes even the disciples" following of Jesus but the intensified sunakolouqein, of which there is only one other occurrence in Mark and, outside of Mark, one more in the New Testament (Luke 23,49) ¹⁰. In Marcan terms, the young man associates with Jesus in the way that Peter, James and James" brother John are particularly distinguished in being allowed to attend at the awakening of Jairus" daughter (Mark 5,37). By analogy with Luke, he associates as did the women who came with Jesus from Galilee and remained at the crucifixion. On this model, one would read "A certain young man accompanied him". This statement of the case however raises questions that, in the absence of an answer to them, a translator cannot be altogether faulted for wishing to avoid. Who was the "certain young man" and how does he qualify for the peculiar contact with which Mark"s usage seems to invest sunhkolouqein?

Implicit both in the suggestion that the young man was Mark himself and that he was some sort of bystander is the assumption that the attempt to seize him – the verb used, kratousin, is the same as that used of the arrest of Jesus – was haphazard. Even if he were of the company, this remains a possibility. Despite being young and, as the outcome proves, agile, the figure in question leaves or is obliged to leave his escape until the last moment and is selected accordingly. The supposition remains open as well if he were in the centre of the group and found his exit less readily as if he were a bystander who might not expect to be arrested. R. E. Brown, in an important improvement on the notion that he was a bystander, makes him a late recruit, "the last person to be attracted to the following of Jesus when all the others have fled" ¹¹. The interval between the flight of the other disciples and the arrest of Jesus seems a narrow and scarcely ideal opportunity for the attachment envisaged, even granted the point that "In Mark disciples who are called by Jesus usually follow him or wish to follow after very short contact with him" ¹². Strictly read, the young man"s near seizure does not have to come after the flight of the others: he may simply be a particular instance of a fleeing disciple, whose escape was especially close-cut and dramatic. However, Brown"s hypothesis can no more be excluded than can the possibility that the young man was a simple bystander, though one might think that an unknown figure, especially if he is to be understood as bizarrely dressed, pressing himself forward at a moment of crisis, would perhaps rather warrant being driven off with blows than arrested. Brown"s suggestion certainly has the merit both of catering for the particular form of the verb used and of reducing the utterly haphazard nature of the attempted arrest. But it is not perhaps necessary. There is, in fact, without the invocation of an unknown figure, reason within the sources to allow for the attempted arrest"s not being haphazard at all.

In the aftermath of his account of the raising of Lazarus, John at separate junctures describes the effect of the incident upon Jewish opinion. It resulted in the attachment to Jesus of many who had come out to condole with Martha and Mary, while others reported adversely (John 11,46). It was from this point that the Jewish authorities plotted the death of Jesus (John 11,53). So seriously was the threat taken that Jesus no longer went about publicly in Judaea but left the region temporarily, returning just before Passover (John 11,54; 12,1). At this point, many Jews came to Bethany to see not only Jesus but also Lazarus (John 12,9). The chief priests then resolved to do away with (literally, to kill) Lazarus as well (John 12,10-11). The impression made by the raising of Lazarus is also specifically associated by John with the success – more accurately if less plausibly, in his narration it is presented as the instigation – of the messianic entry to Jerusalem (John 12,12-19).

The historian who encountered such evidence in the accounts of medieval chroniclers would be obliged to pose an obvious question. Might not the figure who is identified as the target, by implication, of a projected arrest and who is recorded – uniquely among the secondary figures present – as the object of an attempted arrest be one and the same? Of course, the Gospels are not chronicles. John"s Gospel is furthest removed from being one. Yet in its highly theological perspective it does contain a considerable underlay of historically concrete information. The statement (John 12,10-11) that the chief priests resolved to do away with Lazarus (presumably by way of legal process, preceded therefore by arrest, rather than wholly extra-judicially) has the merit both of being historically concrete and of definitively rescuing Lazarus as a historical figure. On the one hand, all the theological charge of the raising of Lazarus could stand without John 12,10-11. On the other, the Lazarus who was the object of such a resolution is not the Lazarus of the parable, whatever, if any, may be the literary relation between them. He was a figure who was judged both threatening to public order and palpable. John"s account gives no indication of his age, though it is probably implicit that he was not expected to die in the natural course (John 11,21; 11,32).

That the sources, in narrating the prelude to the crucifixion and its aftermath, mention only one figure other than Jesus who was targeted for action and only one figure on whom, in fact, an arrest was attempted is as suggestive as it is surprising. If the sources are compounded one might even deduce that after the common flight of Jesus" followers from the Garden there was some recovery of spirit. One disciple is represented as boldly entering the courtyard of the high priest, where admittedly he may have expected to enjoy some measure of protection in virtue of whatever degree of acquaintance he possessed ¹³, and as securing the admission of Simon Peter (John 18,15-16) who had followed at a distance (Matt 26,58; Mark 14,54; Luke 22,54). Had it in the aftermath become clearer that the authorities in the Garden had not been interested in arresting everybody? Neither Simon Peter"s initial discretion in maintaining a distance nor his subsequent denials can be confidently pleaded against the supposition, since he may have had particular cause for anxiety ¹⁴. Nor can the only explicit statement on the point in the canonical Gospels (John 20,19) be safely read with retrospective import. By then the disciples might well have seen in the empty tomb new cause to fear action against them (cf. Matt 28,13-14). Brown, after thorough consideration, concludes: "Historically there is no recorded early Christian memory of an attempt to have Jesus" followers put to death with him" ¹⁵. That is, except for the implication of John 12,10 and the possible implication of Mark 14,51-52.

It is time to ask whether there is anything to forbid the collation of John 12,10 and Mark 14,51-52. From a topographical viewpoint, certainly, there is nothing implausible about Lazarus" presence in Gethsemane, on the route between Bethany and Jerusalem. Evidently, there would be some risk to him: though no more than to Jesus himself and perhaps in the circumstance of a resolution by the authorities Bethany itself might not be altogether safe for continuous residence ¹⁶. Even if there were no particular purpose in his being in the Garden that night, Lazarus might well have been disposed to share the Master"s danger (cf. John 11,16). Though not one of the twelve, he was a friend (John 11,3; 11,11) and one, surely, with a special debt. That his nerve should have failed in the end (if his escape is to be so interpreted) would simply place him on a footing in that respect with all the rest. It may be observed too that Lazarus would serve well the function of "missing witness" to Jesus" prayer in the Garden that prompted B. Saunderson"s inquiry ¹⁷. However, if the suggested identification need occasion no surprise on general considerations, there are some obvious problems about it and these must be addressed even if they can be answered only speculatively.

The most serious problem is why if the figure was Lazarus he is not named. This can be no more confidently answered than the larger question why the synoptics have no mention either of his raising or of the supposed impact on Jerusalem opinion of the reports of his raising. In default of a confident answer a hypothesis may be advanced which would cater for both defects. During the period in which the synoptic tradition was in formation there may have been need for reticence on the subject of Lazarus, either because, as suggested by John, he had been the object of some proceeding or a fortiori because, on the above identification, he was a fugitive ¹⁸. John says of Jesus, in the aftermath of his raising of Lazarus but before the report of the resolution concerning Lazarus himself, that the Jewish authorities issued orders that anyone who knew of his whereabouts should give information (John 11,57). A similar order may have been made about Lazarus and, if made, it is perhaps unlikely that it was revoked. This would not be the only point at which reticence of the kind might be suspected in the sources. While all the Gospels have a reference to an attack by one of Jesus" party upon the servant of the high priest (Matt 26,51; Mark 14,47; Luke 22,50; John 18,10-11), only John names the assailant. It would be difficult to suppose – if John"s information were accurate – that there would not have been a general awareness within the community, at least in the early period, that he was Simon Peter ¹⁹. Whether in respect of 14,51-52, it would have been necessary to preserve discretion in the immediate context of the writing of his Gospel may be doubted, but the consideration is not decisive. Discretion might still have been advisable if the Gospel was written before the fall of Jerusalem and there was a supposition that it might circulate there. To adapt an observation of Best "that those who are "on the run" do not write Gospels" ²⁰, one may surmise that those "on the run" do not get written about in Gospels. It is just possible too that, if the tradition by which the detail was transmitted to Mark had suppressed the name of the young man, the identification might have been lost by the time that the evangelist received the story.

A second and quite different problem concerns the young man"s garb. Saunderson, in a detailed examination of the possible interpretations, allows for the possibility that the garb may not have been quite so startling as the text implies. The young man, it is speculated, might have been wearing a xitwn (though why the evangelist should not have used that term is unclear). "The lowest temperature that night, assuming temperatures not to have changed unduly since then, would have been above 52^oF/11^oC, and he would have been well insulated by the folds of his double garment" ²¹. In point of fact, we do know that somewhat later the night was cool enough for Peter, fully dressed, to need to warm himself at a fire (Mark 14,66; John 18,18) – in what might be imagined somewhat perilous circumstances, especially if there were thought to be a direct threat to others of the movement. Certainly, that a well-off man (such as Lazarus clearly was), who cannot be thought to have arrived on the scene impromptu, should within any conventional interpretation have been so sparely dressed as to attract the notice preserved in Mark"s account must be excluded. In Lazarus" case the form of dress described would have to be frankly acknowledged as extremely remarkable. It would also have a very particular resonance.

The word neutrally rendered as "linen cloth", which alone, if the text is literally understood, the young man wore over his body, is the same, sindwn, as that by which at a proximate juncture Mark will describe the body of Jesus as wrapped for burial. (Mark 15,46). It is therefore open to interpretation, perhaps even strongly suggested by the proximate recurrence of the word, that the young man was naked except for being wrapped in what might, in Mark"s terminology ²², be used to wrap a corpse. That the sindwn should be grave-clothing which had actually been used must be excluded on grounds of the associated ritual impurity. The wrap might be thought emblematic, rather, of the fact that its wearer had been in the tomb – and had been so powerfully brought from it. It must be allowed, of course, that if sindwn is understood in the sense suggested, it is likely that the evangelist knew the significance of the episode.

In referring to the young man"s dress as emblematic, I do not mean to imply that its reference is only on the level of symbolism (potent as that would be). On the historical level the young man comes wrapped up, as it were, in his peculiar dress. It is his naked escape that has been held above to guarantee his historicity and his naked escape is the result of his spare garb. If the figure is to be identified as Lazarus, one would have to accept that Lazarus in the Garden was actually dressed for conscious effect ²³.

Lazarus dressed in that manner could in context only advertise his remarkable personal history, which was causing such excitement in the city. In the account of Jesus" reaction to the message about Lazarus" illness, he promised that its purpose was "the glory of God, to bring glory to the Son of God" (John 11,4). While this may well be a Johannine theological intrusion into a more primitive account ²⁴ it hardly does violence to the likely interpretation in context. The question must arise whether the manifestation of this glory was to be confined to Bethany and to those who came out to Bethany or whether it was contemplated presenting Lazarus, dramatically and dressed so that he would instantly proclaim the miracle, in Jerusalem itself. Alternatively or concurrently, if, as the Gospels insist, Jesus was reconciled to or intent upon his own sacrifice, the prospect that Lazarus would be presented in Jerusalem as a sign of God"s power might have been a central part of the mechanism by which the Jewish authorities were utterly drawn to act.

SUMMARY

The article starts from the premiss that the young man in question – whatever his subsequent symbolical value – was a historical person. It notes the proximity of his association with Jesus implied by the evangelist"s usage. It comments on the fact that in the sources for the Passion there is only one figure besides Jesus who was the object of a projected arrest by the authorities and one figure besides Jesus on whom an arrest is known to have been actually attempted. Suggesting that the historian dealing with secular sources would be prompted to consider an identification accordingly, the article examines the implications.

Notes:

¹ B. SAUNDERSON, "Gethsemane: the missing witness", Bib 70 (1989) 224-233 in an erudite consideration of the young man"s clothing as described and of the state in which he may be supposed to have fled would diminish the dramatic impression of both as conveyed by a strictly, or superficially, literal reading.

² A. VANHOYE, "La fuite du jeune homme nu (Mc 14,51-52)", Bib 52 (1971) 403, and H. FLEDDERMANN, "The flight of a naked young man (Mark 14:51-52)", CBQ 41 (1979) 413, 414, judiciously review this approach.

³ VANHOYE, "La fuite", 404.

⁴ FLEDDERMANN, "The flight", 417-418.

⁵ R. SCROGGS – K. L. GROFF, "Baptism in Mark: dying and rising with Christ", JBL 92 (1973) 531-548.

⁶ VANHOYE, "La fuite", 406.

⁷ Cf. V. TAYLOR, The Gospel according to St. Mark (London ²1966) 561.

⁸ See E. BEST, Mark: the Gospel as Story (Edinburgh 1983) 26.

⁹ Ibid. 26.

¹⁰ VANHOYE, "La fuite", 404. Cf. F. NEIRYNCK, "La fuite du jeune homme en Mc 14.51-52", ETL 55 (1979) 43-66, esp. 53.

¹¹ R. E. BROWN, The Death of the Messiah. From Gethsemane to the Grave. A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels (London 1994) I, 298.

¹² Ibid,.

¹³ If, as is probable, this "other disciple" is to be identified as the beloved disciple, the same source of confidence may explain his unique presence as a male follower at the place of crucifixion (John 19,25-27).

¹⁴ Cf. the remarks below, note 19.

¹⁵ BROWN, Death of the Messiah, I, 593.

¹⁶ The supposition does not contradict John 12,2, since there might be safety in company or less hazard in an occasional appearance.

¹⁷ SAUNDERSON, "Gethsemane", 224-225.

¹⁸ A recent suggestion has been made to this effect from a different perspective regarding the whole family of Lazarus: B. P. ROBINSON, "The anointing by Mary of Bethany (John 12)", Downside Review, 399 (April, 1997) 103.

¹⁹ BROWN, Death of the Messiah, I, 266-267, 308, observing that Mark has the assailant a bystander, would see in the accounts an unwarranted development by way of his being made into a disciple to his final identification by name. The contrary consideration is that since the action though brave by ordinary standards was not considered praiseworthy, its attribution to Peter, if there were no grounds for it other than his impetuosity as otherwise represented (cf. ibid., 268), seems gratuitously derogatory. The fact that Mark records no rebuke would be consistent equally with a hypothesis of circumspection as with the assailant"s having actually been a simple bystander, as it would have been difficult to record a rebuke without indicating that the perpetrator was one of Jesus" party. John"s identification must be evaluated with the other concrete detail that he supplies relating to the episode and its aftermath, detail that lends psychological plausibility to Peter"s subsequent denial of association as generated by a lingering anxiety about whether he had been recognized in the Garden. Since the matter is incapable of definitive resolution, I would not urge the point beyond a suspicion of reticence on the part of the synoptic tradition as witnessed to in particular by Mark.

²⁰ BEST, Mark, 31.

²¹ SAUNDERSON, "Gethsemane", 230.

²² In view of the terminological discrepancy between the Synoptic Gospels and John when describing grave-wrapping in the same burial, that of Jesus, it is unprofitable to attempt to compare sindwn here with how John depicts Lazarus as wrapped in the tomb. On the one hand, John"s description of Lazarus" grave-clothes does not specify how his trunk was wrapped. On the other, the young man in the garden – if indeed wearing a garb evocative of burial – could hardly, as a practical matter, have had his limbs tightly bound and presumably, on the same count, would not have had a face-wrapping (though Mark"s description of dress and events would not formally exclude the latter).

²³ The so-called Secret Gospel of Mark would portray Lazarus as so dressed in the aftermath of his raising (M. SMITH, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark [Cambridge, Mass. 1973] Plate III) but its evidence does not seem worth adducing in view of the doubt that must be entertained as well about its independence on this point of Mark 14,51 and about the authenticity of the letter of Clement in which it is communicated. The issues are judiciously reviewed in R. E. BROWN, "The relation of "The Secret Gospel of Mark" to the Fourth Gospel", CBQ 36 (1974) 466-485.

²⁴ As in the suggested reconstruction by R. T. FORTNA, The Gospel of Signs (Cambridge 1970) 85-86.