Mark the Evangelist

Mark wrote the first Gospel, and Matthew and Luke both used it as their main source. The whole genre of 'Gospel' — narrative biography of Jesus structured around the cross — is his invention. The early church said he wrote down Peter's preaching in Rome, and the Gospel reads that way: terse, fast, full of small concrete details (the cushion in the boat, the green grass) that someone remembered. Tradition says he founded the church in Alexandria and was martyred there. Pick him up and read it in one sitting; it takes ninety minutes and it's the foundation of three of the four Gospels.