The naked fugitive (or naked runaway or naked youth) is an unidentified figure mentioned briefly in the
Gospel of Mark
The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical Gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels, synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from baptism of Jesus, his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, the Burial of Jesus, ...
, immediately after the
arrest of Jesus in the
Garden of Gethsemane and the fleeing of all his disciples:
A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.
The parallel accounts in the other
canonical Gospels
Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...
make no mention of this incident.
The wearing of a single cloth (, ''sindona'') would not have been indecent or extraordinary, and there are many ancient accounts of how easily such garments would come loose, especially with sudden movements.
Identity
Since ancient times, many have speculated on the identity of this young man, proposing:
*
James the Just
* The
Beloved Disciple
*
John Mark
John Mark () is named in the Acts of the Apostles as an assistant accompanying Paul and Barnabas on their missionary journeys. Traditionally he is regarded as identical with Mark the Evangelist, the traditional writer of the Gospel of Mark.
B ...
*
Lazarus of Bethany
Lazarus of Bethany is a figure of the New Testament whose life is restored by Jesus four days after his death, as told in the Gospel of John. The resurrection is considered one of the miracles of Jesus. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Lazarus i ...
* An
antitype of Joseph
* Simply someone else who happened to be there.
A later verse in Mark, "And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe," is often connected to the passage by
allegorical
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory throughou ...
readers of (in the words of Howard M. Jackson) the "symbolism school".
The naked fugitive has been speculated to originate in a possible Passion narrative that pre-dates the gospel of Mark. In such an early document, anonymity of the fugitive may have protected this individual from official persecution.
See also
*
Mark 14
*
Secret Gospel of Mark
The Secret Gospel of Mark or the Mystic Gospel of Mark (), also the Longer Gospel of Mark, is a wikt:putative, putative longer and secret or mystic version of the Gospel of Mark. The gospel is mentioned exclusively in the Mar Saba letter, a docum ...
References
{{Gospel of Mark
Fugitives
Gospel of Mark
Nudity in religion
Passion of Jesus
People in the canonical gospels
Unnamed people of the Bible
Gethsemane