266 Rupert Allen comment that the neanivsko" was a servant at the house of John Mark who had been disturbed in his sleep by the brouhaha of the arrest. The episode of the neanivsko" is also suggested as having some sort of pedagogical role. Bede not only sees the young John, but also a wider lesson namely of betrayal and restoration and of the prudence of flight for those who are unable to undergo torture (7). Jerome uses the episode in a similar mode in his Letter to Lucinius (8), where he compares the neanivsko" to Joseph’s flight from the Egyptian woman in Gen 39,12. Whilst Jerome does not suggest that the neanivsko" of Mark is a scriptural allusion to Joseph he is certainly the first to make the comparison with Joseph which would return later (9). But this is not Jerome’s primary use of the episode, rather he writes to console a woman who has recently lost her husband and thus uses the neanisko" to demonstrate to the woman the need to avoid being fettered v with the things of this world which keep us from following God. Cajetan suggests in his Ientacula (10) that the neanivsko" was a son or ser- vant of the villa which was in the garden of Gethsemane. He comes to such an idea by eliminating any possibility that the disciples, such as John the Evangelist, could have been adolescents at the time of Jesus’ Passion. Unlike Theophylact, Cajetan does not identify the neanivsko" with the house in which the Passover has taken place, rather simply a house in the locality. Ca- jetan further elaborates that this neanivsko" was asleep in house (this offers an explanation for his meagre dress), which was either in the garden itself or at least in the vicinity, and was awoken by the noise of the events that took place and out of curiosity went to see what was happening. Cajetan also in- sists that the use of the verb sunakolouqevw implies that the neanivsko" was a follower or supporter of Jesus. It seems then that he takes the verb to have connotations of discipleship. Montefiore (11) discusses this briefly citing “and a certain neanivsko"” seems to exclude the disciples. The literary critical school produced a plethora of interpretations of the identity of the neanivsko" that continues to this very day. It is in the 1830s that we see the first Western identification of the neanivsko" with Mark the evangelist, who is equated with John Mark. Holtzmann(12)points us to Ol- shausen (13) as the root of this theory. Olshausen draws particular attention to the strangeness of this incident and asks the question why such an obscure incident would merit a place in the gospel. He concludes that there must be some great importance attached to the neanivsko" and concludes that here Mark writes concerning himself. It is surprising that such identification should be found to have its roots in western biblical exegesis as late as 1830, as Zahn also remarks. For Olshausen the verses only find their significance (7) AQUINAS, Catena Aurea, II, 299. (8) A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Series II (ed. P. SCHAFF) (Edinburgh – Grand Rapids, MI 1867-1872) VI, 153. (9) A. LOISY, L’Evangile selon Marc (Paris 1912) 425. (10) T. CAJETAN, Ientacula Novi Testamenti (Coloni 1706) 73-74. (11) C.G. MONTEFIORE, The Synoptic Gospels, edited with an introduction and a com- mentary (London 1927) 350. (12) H. HOLTZMANN, Synoptische Erklärung der drei ersten Evangelien von Friedrich Bleek – Herausgegeben von Lic. Heinrich Holtzmann (Leipzig 1862) II, 435-436. (13) H. OLSHAUSEN, Biblical Commentary on the New Testament (New York 1859) III, 46.