Eusebius of Caesarea

And thus when the divine word had made its home among them, the power of Simon was quenched and immediately destroyed, together with the man himself. And so greatly did the splendor of piety illumine the minds of Peter's hearers that they were not satisfied with hearing once only, and were not content with the unwritten teaching of the divine Gospel, but with all sorts of entreaties they besought Mark, a follower of Peter, and the one whose Gospel is extant, that he would leave them a written monument of the doctrine which had been orally communicated to them. Nor did they cease until they had prevailed with the man, and had thus become the occasion of the written Gospel which bears the name of Mark.

And they say that Peter — when he had learned, through a revelation of the Spirit, of that which had been done — was pleased with the zeal of the men, and that the work obtained the sanction of his authority for the purpose of being used in the churches. Clement in the eighth book of his Hypotyposes gives this account, and with him agrees the bishop of Hierapolis named Papias. And Peter makes mention of Mark in his first epistle which they say that he wrote in Rome itself, as is indicated by him, when he calls the city, by a figure, Babylon, as he does in the following words: "The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, salutes you; and so does Marcus my son." [1 Peter 5:13]

Reflect on the nature and grandeur of the one Almighty God who could associate himself with the poor of the lowly fisherman’s class. To use them to carry out God’s mission baffles all rationality. For having conceived the intention, which no one ever before had done, of spreading his own commands and teachings to all nations, and of revealing himself as the teacher of the religion of the one Almighty God to all humanity, he thought good to use the most unsophisticated and common people as ministers of his own design. Maybe God just wanted to work in the most unlikely way. For how could inarticulate folk be made able to teach, even if they were appointed teachers to only one person, much less to a multitude? How should those who were themselves without education instruct the nations? … When he had thus called them as his followers, he breathed into them his divine power, and filled them with strength and courage. As God himself he spoke God’s true word to them in his own way, enabling them to do great wonders, and made them pursuers of rational and thinking souls, by empowering them to come after him, saying: “Come, follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” With this empowerment God sent them forth to be workers and teachers of holiness to all the nations, declaring them heralds of his own teaching.

Mark writes these things, and through him Peter bears witness, for the whole of Mark is said to be a record of Peter’s teaching. Note how scrupulously the disciples refused to record those things that might have given the impression of their fame. Note how they handed down in writing numerous charges against themselves to unforgetting ages, and accusations of sins, which no one in later years would ever have known about unless hearing it from their own voice. By thus honestly reporting their own faults, it is reasonable to view them as relatively void of false speaking and egoism. This habit gives plain and clear proof of their truth-loving disposition. As for such critics who imagine they invented and lied, and try to slander them as deceivers, should they not to be regarded as absurd? Aren’t they thereby being convicted as friends of envy and malice, and foes of truth itself? For have they not taken those who have exhibited in their own words good proof of their integrity, and their straightforward and sincere character, and suggested that they are rascals and clever sophists who invent what never took place, and ascribe gratuitously to their own master what he never did? This is why I think it has been rightly said that “One must put complete confidence in the disciples of Jesus, or none at all.” And if we are to distrust them, we must also distrust all writers on the same principle, any who at any time have compiled, either in Greece or anywhere, lives and histories and records of persons of their own times, celebrating their noble achievements. Otherwise we would be considering it reasonable to believe others, and to disbelieve the evangelists only. And this would be clearly invidious. How could it be that these supposed liars would falsify the account of his death? What would be their motive in writing down deeds he never did? They candidly report his betrayal by one of his disciples, explicit accusations by dubious witnesses, insults and blows to his face, the scourging of his back, the crown of acanthus set on his head in a demeaning way, and finally his carrying of his own cross, and his being nailed to it! They report his hands and feet being pierced, his being given vinegar to drink, struck on the cheek with a reed, and reviled by those who looked upon him. Were these things and all else like them in the Gospels simply invented out of whole cloth by the disciples? Highly unlikely. Or must we doubt only the more glorious and lofty parts of the narrative? How could they do so and doubt these candid reports of ignominious actions? How could they reasonably support such an unreasonable conclusion—that the same witnesses spoke the truth and at the same time lied. That would be to predict contraries about the same people at the same time. How then are we to disprove their assertions? If it was their aim to deceive, and to adorn their master with false words, they would never have written these demeaning accounts of his pain and agony and that he was disturbed in spirit, that they themselves forsook him and fled, or that Peter the apostle and disciple who was chief of the apostles denied him three times, unless they had an extraordinarily high standard of truth-telling.