308 The New and COMPLETE LIFE of our BLESSED LORD ivorfhip, yet by his preaching and miracles he prevailed on them to embrace the tenets ofthe gofpel; nor did he leave them till he had confirmed them in the faith of his di- vine Mailer. He returned, after this long tour, to Alexandria, where he preached with the greateft freedom, ordered and difpofed of the affairs of the church, and wifely pro- vided for a fucceffiàn, by conflituting go- vernors and pallors of it. But the refilefs enemy of the fouls of men would not fuller our apofile to continue in peace and quiet- nefs: for while he was aflìduouflylabour- ing in the vineyard of his Mailer, the idolatrous inhabitants about the time of Eafier, when they were celebrating the folemnities ofSerapis, tumultuoufiy entered the church, forced St. Mark, then perform ingdivine fervice, from thence, and binding his feet with cords, dragged him through the fireets, and over the moil craggyplaces to the Bucelus, a precipice near the fea, leaving him there in a lonefome prifon for that night; but his great andbeloved Ma- iler appeared to him in a vifion,comforting and encouraging his foul, under the ruins of his fhattered body. The next morning early the tragedy began a-frefh, dragging him about in the fame cruel and barbarous manner, till he expired : but their malice did not end with his death, they burnt his mangled body, after they had fo inhumanly deprived it of life ; but the Chrifians, after the hellifh tragedy was over, gathered up his bones and afhes, and decently interred them near the place where he ufed to preach. His remains were afterwards, with great pomp, removed fromAlexandria to Venice, where they are religioufly honour- ed, and he adopted as the titular faint and patron ofthat fate and people. He fuffered martyrdom on the 25th of April, but the 1 year is not abfolutely known; the moli probable opinion however is, that it hap- pened about the end of Nero's reign. As to his perfon, St. Mark was of a middle fize and fiature, his note long, his eye -brows turning back, his eyes graceful and amiable, his head bald, his beard thick and grey, his gait quick, and the conili- tution of his body ftrong and healthful. The only writing he left behind, him, was his gofpel, written,, as we have before obferved, at the entreaty and earneft defire of the converts at Rome, who not content to have heard St. Peter preach, preffed St. Mark his difciple, to commit to writing . an hiftorical account of what he had deli- vered to them, which he performed with equal faithfulnefs and brevity, and being perufed and approved by St. Peter, was commanded to be publicly read in their affemblies. It was frequently filed St. Peter's gofpel, not becaufe he diEtated it to St. Mark, but becaufe the latter compofed it from the accounts St. Peter ufually deli- vered in his difcourfes to the people: and this is probably the reafon of what St. Chryfofiom obferves, that in his fyle and manner of expreffion, he delights to imi- tate St. Peter, reprefenting a great deal in a few words. The remarkable impar- tiality he obferved in all his relations is plain from hence, that he is fo far from concealing the fhameful lapfe and denial of Peter, his dear tutor and mailer, that he defcribes it with more aggravating circum- fiances than any of the other evangelilts. The Venetians pretend to have the origi- nal Greek copy of St. Mark's gofpel, writ- ten with his ownhand : but this manufcript, if written by St. Mark, is now ufelefs, the very letters being rendered illegible by length of time. St. LUKE,
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