The naked fugitive (or naked runaway or naked youth) is an unidentified figure mentioned briefly in the Gospel of Mark, 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.[1]
The parallel accounts in the other canonical Gospels make no mention of this incident.
The wearing of a single cloth (Greek: σινδόνα, 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.[2]
- ^ New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition [1]
- ^ Bauckham, Richard (2017). Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Wm. B. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-1-4674-4680-8.