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Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich

“Keep ye watching!” Jesus urges his disciples as they doze off in Gethsemane. The disciples became increasingly prominent as the story of the agony developed because their presence as eyewitnesses (albeit sleepy ones) became critical to second-generation Christians who wished to verify the source of the gospel stories. Although in Mark’s Source A, they are identified only as “his disciples,” Mark B names three—James, John and Peter—who are depicted from left to right in this illumination from a 13th-century English Psalter.