Who was the man who ran away naked?

[Elf01]

As an aside, do you sleep “naked” and just grab a sheet?

No. But some people do.

 

[Sirach2]

As I said, one is free to interpret this passage as you wish - no problem. Not going to quibble about pajamas or any other thoughts.

 

[midori]

Don’t forget your Exodus–

If you ever take your neighbor’s cloak as collateral, return it to him before sunset.
For it is his only covering; it is the clothing for his body. What will he sleep in? And if he cries out to Me, I will listen because I am compassionate."

So, if you have a cloak— that’s a whole lot like a blanket shape. And it does double-duty as pajamas, it seems.

I’d posit that the people in the time of Exodus were a whole lot closer, culturally/socio-economically, to the Herodian Jews, than they are to our modern-day Americans or Europeans or Australians or whatevers, who have jammies for the summer, and jammies for the winter, and jammies they wear if other people see them, and jammies they don’t even wear but never got rid of…

 

[BartholomewB]

A slight difficulty. In Ex 22:26, the verse you quote here, the Greek word for “cloak” in the Septuagint is himation. That’s not the word Mark uses in this episode.

https://biblehub.com/str/greek/2440.htm

 

[ChorusAngelorum]

No, I don’t sleep naked, but there’s a reason for that. I don’t live in Judea in the Herodian period. Have you found the word “pajamas” anywhere in the Bible?

Hey, that’s no valid reason - I live in America in the Trumpian period, and I sleep naked every night.

Having done this since my teenage years (i.e. for a couple decades), I’ve had a few close calls over the years, but never a situation so urgent that it wouldn’t have allowed a couple seconds to pull on at least a pair of underwear before leaving the house.

Then again, maybe I wouldn’t worry about running outside nude in the middle of the night if the arrest of Our Lord were happening right outside my bedroom window.

 

[ChorusAngelorum]

The more I think about the theory that this was St. Mark himself who had just been roused from slumber, the more plausible it seems to me, even though the question will never be figured out for certain.

One further thought on “no pajamas in the Bible”. Consider western art through the ages - sleeping in the nude was obviously the norm for the vast majority of human history. Usually when someone is depicted in bed before two or three centuries ago, they’re not wearing any clothes.

 

[Sirach2]

The more I think about the theory that this was St. Mark himself who had just been roused from slumber, the more plausible it seems to me, even though the question will never be figured out for certain.

The problem with this, even though your thought has merit, is that St. Mark used the Greek word “sidona” which means linen cloth.
That is the same Greek word used in St. John’s gospel to refer to the shroud in which Jesus was laid and is typical reference to burial cloths.

If the garment worn by Mark was one that he quickly donned after awaking, the word may have been instead, himation or xiton.

Phonetic Spelling: (him-at’-ee-on)
Definition: an outer garment, a cloak, robe
Usage: a long flowing outer garment, tunic.
[2440 /himátion (“a robe”) was often made of wool with openings for the head and arms, and worn loosely over the 5509/xitōn (“the under-tunic”).]
https://biblehub.com/greek/2440.htm

I still cannot discount that there had been a resurrection of someone after the power of Jesus’ words knocked the entire cohort to the ground. I agree that He raised Lazarus, but this was not the first incident of Him raising the dead. Other gospels report this, too, such as the widow of Naim’s son, and, Jairus’ daughter.

I agree that we will never know for sure why this was recorded, but you could also be right.

 

[BartholomewB]

The problem with this, even though your thought has merit, is that St. Mark used the Greek word “sidona” which means linen cloth.
That is the same Greek word used in St. John’s gospel to refer to the shroud in which Jesus was laid and is typical reference to burial cloths.

Yes, it can sometimes mean a shroud or winding-sheet. It can also mean a simple bedsheet. The usual spelling, by the way (in the nominative singular), is sindon in Latin and also in Greek (σινδών).

 

[ChorusAngelorum]

All of these are good hypotheses. One of the truly mysterious passages in Scripture.

 

[NotThatHarvey]

The young man could have been a secret Disciple who was a member of the family of High Priests. He could have been the same wealthy individual who arranged for the second-level apartment for the followers of Jesus for his last Passover (and let them stay there for months afterwards) and the same individual who let Peter into the Courtyard of Ananus after Jesus was arrested.

John mentions that Jesus had secret followers within the Sanhedrin- and, yes, John could easily have been that young man. With the detailed telling of what John the Baptist preached, John could have traveled as a young man to hear him as well.

 

[Genesis315]

Here are some different ideas as collected in the Catena Aurea:

Bede: In this is fulfilled the word, which the Lord had spoken, that all His disciples should be offended in Him that same night. There follows: “And there followed Him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body,” that is, he had no other clothing but this linen cloth. It goes on: “And they laid hold on him, and he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.” That is, he fled from them, whose presence and whose deeds he abhorred, not from the Lord, for Whom his love remained fixed in his mind, when absent from Him in body.

Pseudo-Jerome: Just as Joseph left his mantle behind him, and fled naked from the wanton woman; so also let him, who would escape the hands of the evil ones, quit in mind all that is of the world, and fly after Jesus.

Theophylact: It appears probable that this young man was of that house, where they had eaten the Passover. But some say that this young man was James, the brother of our Lord, who was called Just; who after the ascension of Christ received from the Apostles the throne of the bishopric of Jerusalem.

Greg., Mor. 14, 49: Or, he says this of John, who, although he afterwards returned to the cross to hear the words of the Redeemer, at first was frightened and fled.

Bede: For that he was a young man at that time, is evident from his long sojourn in the flesh. Perhaps he escaped from the hands of those who held him for the time, and afterwards got back his garment and returned, mingling under cover of the darkness with those who were leading Jesus, as though he was one of them, until he arrived at the door of the High Priest, to whom he was known, as he himself testifies in the Gospel. But as Peter, who washed away the sin of his denial with the tears of penitence, shews the recovery of those who fall away in time of martyrdom, so the other disciples who prevented their actual seizure, teach the prudence of flight to those who feel themselves unequal to undergo tortures.

https://dhspriory.org/thomas/CAMark.htm#14