Note 58 — Chapter III · RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.

According to the two first Evangelists, all the disciples now fled. Here Mark has the special particular, that a young man with a linen cloth cast about his naked body, when he was in danger of being seized, left the linen cloth and fled naked. Apart from the industrious conjectures of ancient and even modern expositors, as to who this young man was; this information of Mark’s has been regarded as a proof of the very early origin of this gospel, on the ground that so unimportant an anecdote, and one moreover to which no name is attached, could have no interest except for those who stood in close proximity to the persons and events.58 But this inference is erroneous; for the above trait gives even to us, at this remote distance of time, a vivid idea of the panic and rapid flight of the adherents of Jesus, and must therefore have been welcome to Mark, from whatever source he may have received it, or how late soever he may have written.