This paper explores how the manliness of the Markan Jesus functions in the construction of early Christian social identity under Roman rule. The paper thus attempts to move the conversation from “what kind of man is the Markan Jesus?” to “how are notions of manliness used to articulate social norms and boundaries in the earliest Christian narrative?” To that end, the paper uses postcolonial theory and masculinity studies to draw together separate studies of Roman imperial ideology, manliness, and ancient fiction and Mark’s gospel. To begin, the paper suggests that Mark’s gospel be read as an early Christian analogue to the ancient novel, a genre that, on recent readings, betrays a preoccupation with the symbolic boundaries of group identity under empire. Within these texts, hegemonic manliness thus function as a key trope for defining relationships of superiority and inferiority among rival sub-cultures in colonial contexts. By “thinking with” these characters, audiences imaginatively reconfigure the symbolic boundaries of class and ethnicity in light of their respective groups’ social standing under empire. Without denying the influence of Roman imperial discourse on Mark’s gospel, the paper next suggests that the gospel, like other ancient novels, is more preoccupied with defining the boundaries of a nascent Christian identity, than with directly engaging Roman rule itself, the latter focus being the concern of most postcolonial studies of Mark. To support a change in focus, the paper highlights the theme of persecution as a key element in the construction of group identity. In Mark’s gospel, early Christian social identity is defined in response to the hostility of other groups represented by the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities in the text. Without disagreeing directly with recent work on masculinity in Mark’s gospel, especially the work of Colleen Conway, this paper next offers an alternative interpretation. It argues that the characterization of the Markan Jesus is not an attempt to conform to the hegemonic gender ideals of elite Greco-Roman discourse. It is an effort to valorize a non-elite male whose deeds and social standing would still mark him as a marginalized subject from an elite perspective. Ultimately, his manliness is best described as a hybrid of hegemonic and subordinate gender ideals. To demonstrate this interpretation, the paper compares the Markan Jesus to his Jewish rivals and Roman executioners. Through these conflicts, the hybrid manliness of the Markan Jesus is brought into focus. In fact, he is repeatedly presented as besting local Jewish elites in the male sport of face-to-face verbal debate despite his lack of social standing. This further suggests that he is meant to embody a socially marginalized, but morally superior model of manhood. Like male characters in ancient fiction, then, the Markan Jesus serves as a rhetorical figure through which the audience reflects upon the gendered values and practices that define the group’s social identity, in this case an implied audience anticipating persecution by Jewish elites and Roman imperial authorities.