The Rev Edward Marks

The Rev. Edward Marks was Minor Canon and Dean’s Vicar in this cathedral in the mid-nineteenth century. Part of the inscription reads, “That I may win Christ and be found in him”. This line is taken from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Chapter 3, but why has this line been used, in this epitaph?

Paul in his final greetings speaks of how he considers everything that he once had as being rubbish compared to knowing Jesus.

Let’s look at a section of the full text. Paul states:

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead”.

Paul knew what knowing Jesus meant to him, and Edward Marks obviously did too. In fact he spent 32 years of his life sharing that good news with others.