Egyptian Lectionaries, Pt. 2: Spirit Baptism and the Raising of Lazarus

[1/23: edited again]


First, an aside: regarding the relationship between Secret Mark and Lenten baptismal traditions in Egypt, Jeffery first notes that Secret Mark doesn't mention any water. I've argued elsewhere that we don't really know that--I think Clement isn't necessarily quoting Secret Mark in full here, but rather may only be discussing what Theodore presented to him. I don't think Clement has Secret Mark in front of him. However, I'm willing to pass over this for now.


Anyway, we are continuing our discussion of Thomas Talley's proposal that readings from the canonical gospels in early Egyptian lectionaries were used to replace readings from Secret Mark in earlier (now lost) versions of those lectionaries. Peter Jeffery has, however, noted (Jeffery, p. 78) that certain Egyptian lectionaries use Jn 3 for baptismally-related days in Lent. Peter Jeffery thinks that if Talley is right, then Jn 3 must have replaced the use of a Markan reading (whether from GMk or Secret Mark) on those days. However, because Jn 3 is not thematically related to anything in GMk or Secret Mark, the use of Jn 3 in the Byzantine-era lectionaries we have indicates it was not in fact used to replace a Markan reading in any earlier (lost) versions of those lectionaries, defeating Talley's argument (or Jeffery's extended version of that argument, at any rate.)

However, I disagree. Arguments similar to those in my last post can be made to explain the use of Jn 3 (the dialogue with Nicodemus) on the sixth Friday/Saturday/Sunday in early Egyptian lectionaries (The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled, p. 83-5), in place of a Markan reading--like, for example, Secret Mark 1.




First, I noticed, before I read Jeffery, that the dialogue with Nicodemus thematically echoes the Secret Mark passage in To Theodore: both involve a nighttime discussion about rebirth. So, I was pleased to learn about Talley's proposal (that GJn readings were subsituted for Secret Mark readings Egyptian lectionaries). So, there is a relationship between Jn 3 and Secret Mark 1, at the broadly thematic level.

In addition, both passages (Secret Mark 1 and Jn 3) end with the departure of Jesus for another land.


Now notice that in Jn 3, the discussion is not actually about water baptism, but spirit baptism! So perhaps it is no surprise that Secret Mark doesn't mention water; the "greater mysteries" that Clement spoke of may have had to do with this spirit baptism, hence no water-symbolism would have been necessary.

(Notice also that in the 5th c. Egyptian lectionary--mentioned on p. 84 of Jeffery's book--the alternative reading is Jn 6:47, the Bread of Life passage, IMO strongly suggesting that the "greater mysteries" were also about the eucharist, as I have already hinted at in comments below).

So, considering the thematic parallels, and assuming a liturgical need to discuss spirit baptism, Jn 3 might have seemed like the best appropriate passage to substitute for a Secret Mark reading, once Secret Mark was determined to be dangerously apocryphal by the post-Nicean church.


Now, we find the Lazarus story (Jn 11, the most direct Johannine parallel to Secret Mark 1) used on "Zion Sunday" (equivalent to Palm Sunday in the west) in a fragmentary 10th c. Egyptian lectionary (Jeffery, p. 85). However, Jeffery argues this is evidence against the use of Secret Mark for baptisms, because it's the Sunday before Zion/Palm Sunday that gets called the "Sunday of Baptizing", in both the 10th c. lectionary and another 9th c. Egyptian lectionary, and both those lectionaries use Jn 3 for that day, instead of Jn 11. If Secret Mark was originally used in baptisms, Jeffery insists, it should have been used for the Sunday of Baptizing. But the proper parallel with Secret Mark 1 (Jn 11) is not found in the later lectionaries; instead, Jn 3 is found, instead of Jn 11, as we might expect. Indicating to Jeffery that a Secret Mark reading was never there, because if it had been, it should have been replaced with Jn 11.


But I disagree that Secret Mark must have been used for water baptisms. I also disagree that Jesus' meeting with the man must have symbolized instruction prior to baptism. Instead, in Secret Mark, the man is instructed after he is raised--so the symbolism seems to represent instruction after (water) baptism!

So, we find the Lazarus reading (Jn 11) on Zion/Palm Sunday in the 10th c. manuscript, the week after the Sunday of Baptizing--just where we ought to, if it were replacing an older passage from Secret Mark. We also find Jn 11 on the sixth Friday--just before Zion/Palm Sunday--in the East Syrian rite, as Jeffery mentions (Jeffery, p. 84). Jeffery dismisses this, since it is a different tradition, but based on the above argument, I am not sure it's that simple.

The 9th c. manuscript doesn't include Jn 11 at all, but Eventually, in the medieval Egyptian church, Jn 11 was read on the Saturday just before Zion/Palm Sunday. This is probably just related to the tradition we just mentioned of reading it on Zion/Palm Sunday, reflected in the 10th c. manuscript. So we're just seeing different traditions picking out one of the two Sundays, and then picking either Jn 3 or Jn 11, and leaving out the other.

In fact, Jn 11 was used in some Latin lectionaries for their fifth Sunday, i.e. the Sunday before Palm Sunday, inj the western tradition...and, not surprisingly, they leave Jn 3 out of their Sunday readings altogether.

So, I would argue that they just picked Jn 11 instead of Jn 3 to replace Secret Mark 1. And in Rome, Jn 11 was used on the Friday before that fifth Sunday, coming near to the other Latin usages. And Rome didn't use Jn 3 during Lenten Sundays, either

So the choice between Jn 3 and Jn 11 to replace the original Secret Mark readings was, I propose, somewhat arbitrary. Some churches chose one, some chose the other; some centered it around Zion/Palm Sunday, some centered it around the Sunday before. And at least one Egyptian church used both.

It seems to me these multiple traditions are all related--they all focus on the two passages of John most closely linked thematically with Secret Mark, and they all work within the confines of the week falling between Palm/Zion Sunday and the Sunday before. To me (following Jeffery's extension of Talley's thesis) this looks like local churches using John to "orthodoxise" their lectionaries, making different but nevertheless related decisions about their initiation rites, and their cycles of readings. These decisions were made at an early date, and subsequent liturgists followed their example, forgetting why the decisions were made in the first place.

We don't need a direct influence from Alexandria (as Jeffery suggests) to explain this--no doubt the churches' areas of influence overlapped one another. Influences may have been relatively local, but sometimes "telegraphed" directly from one patriarchal center to another.


And so the fact that, as Jeffery claims, these lectionaries "favored John, not Mark" in constructing their readings cycles, especially with respect to the week preceding Palm/Zion Sunday, is consistent with the Secret Mark hypothesis. This is because, as I propose, Secret Mark was a source for the gospel of John, so they are naturally related with one another. GJn and GMk are textual cousins, so we shouldn't be surprised if readings from one were used to replace readings from the other.


Whew!


Next we'll try to tackle a somewhat mysterious subject in the early church: the baptism of the dead.