Is There a Problem With Secret Mark 2? (part 2)

Continuing my last post--

2) Jesus does reject the women at Jericho, for unclear reasons.  It does seem to be a specific repudiation of his female disciples, which is troubling in general, but also rather non-canonical. IMO this is much more out of place in Secret Mark than the purportedly homoerotic love that Jesus and the resurrected man share for one another.

However, keep in mind 1 Cor 7:1: “Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman”.  Jesus, if portrayed as a good Pauline Christian, would have to keep himself away from women.  (This is admittedly an overly-literal interpretation of Paul’s admonition, but it does illustrate the point.  Perhaps the writer of Secret Mark was working against traditions like those found in the Gospel of Philip, where Mary Magdalene is made into Jesus’ consort.)  If this seems like a stretch, keep in mind the many contacts of canonical Mark with 1 Cor, as listed by Michael Turton in his online commentary.  Note also Jesus’ own admonition in Jn 20:17 to Mary Magdalene: “Do not touch me”. (Yet another link between GJn and Secret Mark—one which I’ve pointed out before.)

Furthermore,

Is There a Problem With Secret Mark 2? (part 1)

[ETA: some small edits have been made below]

While most of the attention that To Theodore earns centers around the first quotation from Secret Mark, much less attention is given to the second quotation.

Yet it's the second quotation that is really the source of all the trouble.

Secret Mark 1, without Secret Mark 2, is a largely unproblematic passage.  It's only Morton Smith's somewhat bizarre interpretation of it that has made it notorious.  There is simply no conceivable way, for example, that the "mystery of the kingdom" in Clement's time could have anything to do with an erotic ritual.  Maybe for the Carpocratians, but the author of To Theodore is writing against the Carpocratians.  There is simply nothing in Secret Mark 1 that would imply any such ritual, in the context of the 2nd c. CE.

It's Secret Mark 2 where things get a little more complicated: now we have a Jesus who loves back the man (NEANISKOS, an adult male in his twenties) who loves him.  Jesus also rejects the women at Jericho--as though they were unworthy to be in his presence.  It's really Secret Mark 2 that is in any way scandalous!

So, the "scandal" is two-parted: 1) the man's love for Jesus is reciprocated, and 2) Jesus wants nothing to do with the women disciples of Jericho.  But let's look at each part a little more carefully.

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.

Egyptian Lectionaries, Pt. 1: Establishing Plausibility

[rewritten substantially to discuss the healing of the boy with the unclean spirit in more detail]


We will now discuss the possibility, suggested in general by Thomas Talley in The Origins of the Liturgical Year, that readings from the canonical gospels were substituted for readings from Secret Mark that were originally in Egyptian lectionaries. If Talley is right, this is evidence for Secret Mark, since the early lectionaries at Constantinople interrupt a Markan cycle of readings with Jn 11, the raising of Lazarus.  Talley suggests this reading was originally Secret Mark 1, and was replaced by the orthodox Johannine version at some point. Jefferey argues against this (The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled, p. 72ff) 


1/23 ETA:

The Symbolism of Secret Mark

Now I want to mention something Jeffery gets right: the language of "mystery" in To Theodore. This is discussed in, again, Jeffery's rejected comment on Scott Brown's review of Jeffery's book. Jeffery is correct about the two-stage process of Christian initiation that To Theodore reflects. (I've spoken about how To Theodore reflects this in earlier posts and comments). Furthermore, I don't doubt his claims about the three-fold typology of "mystery" in Christian theology of the time.

But Jeffery wants to dismiss the authenticity of To Theodore for just these reasons. He finds one of the typologies (the "apocalyptic-incarnational vocabulary) absent from the letter, and considers the baptism represented in To Theodore "the wrong kind of baptism", reflecting a resurrection theme rather than the baptism of Jesus more closely associated with Epiphany traditions.

But I think Jeffery is wrong. First, he does admit that two out of three "mystery" typologies are present in the letter (the "Tabernacle" typology and the "mystery-cult" typology). I agree with this. But I also think that the "apocalyptic-incarnational" typology is strongly implied. The "great mysteries" for the early church were surely related to the eucharist. I have (again, in an earlier post) linked Secret Mark to the Johannine foot-washing/passover tradition, which is a narrative parallel with the Last Supper story--and I also showed, in that same post, an additional link between the Last Supper narrative in John and Mark. Furthermore, we should keep in mind that the eucharist was liturgically "protected" from non-initiates in the early church, and the newly-baptized and anointed were (and are, in the Orthodox church) often given the eucharist shortly after their baptism/anointing. We shouldn't be surprised if the passage in Secret Mark was taken to refer to an explanation, to those initiated by baptism at one point or another, of eucharistic symbolism (and that Clement was about to launch into an explanation of this in the truncated section of To Theodore). The eucharist is directly linked to incarnational theology, and so we have a likely reference to the incarnational typology that Jeffery thinks is absent from this Secret Mark pericope. Furthermore, if this eucharistically-incarnational typology were present, that would strengthen the presence of the Tabernacle typology (which Jeffery feels is only weakly present).

Secondly, I am not sure that any baptismal symbolism in To Theodore is "the wrong kind of baptism". I've written before that I'm uncertain To Theodore represents any baptismal tradition at all. However, if it does, I think there are a couple of different ways it might relate to baptisms. The first is simply via the liturgical traditions Jeffery discusses in chapter 4 of his book. We'll have a look at that next.

Anti-Carpocratian symbolism in the Arrest of Jesus

Ancient authors, contemporary with Clement, stated that the Carpocratians marked their members with a scar or tattoo on the ear.

Irenaeus:

Others of them employ outward marks, branding their disciples inside the lobe of the right ear. (Against Heresies, 1.25.6)

Hippolytus:

Certain, likewise, of these (heretics) brand their own disciples in the back parts of the lobe of the right ear. (Refutation of All Heresies, 7.32.8(7.20))

Irenaeus' claim is also repeated in Epiphanius, two centuries later, but Epiphanius appears to be copying Irenaeus almost verbatim. (The same could be said, btw, of Epiphanius' information about Carpocratian homosexuality.)

Now note the incident during the arrest of Jesus, where the high priest's servant's ear is cut off (Mt. 26:51, Mk 14:47, Lk 22:50, Jn 18:10).

This seems plausibly related to Marcionite practices of ear-branding. I find the incident to be a narrative problem in the passion narrative; exegetes usually interpret it as an example of pacifism by Jesus, and indeed that does seem to be the lesson of the text. But is that really all the text represents? We have the detail of the severed ear to explain as well, but no really good text-critical explanation has been provided for it. Jesus doesn't seem to be protesting violence in general, but rather a specific kind of violence.

So, if it was originally intended to represent attacks on Carpocratians, with their ear-branding practices, that would make a lot of sense. In the original version (wherever it was written), a disciple of Jesus cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant--symbolically representing the proto-orthodox's hatred of the Carpocratians. Hence, the high priest and his men represent the gnostic opponents of the proto-orthodox church. This would be an interesting insight into the symbolic uses of the Passion Narrative in the early church.

And notice a detail: both Luke and John add that it was the servant's right ear that was cut off. It just so happens that the Carpocratians branded the right ear! This can hardly be coincidence. So, the best evidence for anti-Carpocratian symbolism is in Luke and John.

But, I admit, not Matthew and Mark. If the Luke-John version of the capture of Jesus goes out of its way to drive home the anti-Carpocratian message...what about the Matthew-Mark version? Doesn't this seem to cast a bit of doubt on their anti-Carpocratian symbolism? Why would Luke and John need to add this extra detail, if the symbolism were already there?

On the other hand, maybe canonical Mark simply dropped the detail, thinking it was superfluous, and Matthew copied Mark's version.

I'm not here to sort out this particular synoptic issue, but I do make the claim that the version in Luke and John, at least (and, possibly, all four gospels), is anti-Carpocratian symbolism. I'd be intrigued to learn if anyone else has noticed.

While I'm at it, this is a passage that Epiphanius singles out in Panarion as "falsified". It remains unclear what Epiphanius means when he calls a Marcionite passage "falsified"--absent? replaced?--but it's intriguing that the Marcionite version is different in some significant way from the Lukan one.

A parallel passage with To Theodore in Stromata?

Just wanted to mention this interesting passage from Stromata. This is the very end of 6.16 7.16 and the very beginning of 6.17 7.17:

For we must never, as do those who follow the heresies, adulterate the truth, or steal the canon of the Church, by gratifying our own lusts and vanity, by defrauding our neighbours; whom above all it is our duty, in the exercise of love to them, to teach to adhere to the truth. It is accordingly expressly said, "Declare among the heathen His statutes," that they may not be judged, but that those who have previously given ear may be converted. But those who speak treacherously with their tongues have the penalties that are on record.

Those, then, that adhere to impious words, and dictate them to others, inasmuch as they do not make a right but a perverse use of the divine words, neither themselves enter into the kingdom of heaven, nor permit those whom they have deluded to attain the truth. But not having the key of entrance, but a false (and as the common phrase expresses it), a counterfeit key (ἀντικλεῖς), by which they do not enter in as we enter in, through the tradition of the Lord, by drawing aside the curtain; but bursting through the side-door, and digging clandestinely through the wall of the Church, and stepping over the truth, they constitute themselves the Mystagogues of the soul of the impious.

So those who follow the heresies:

1) adulterate the truth,
2) steal the canon of the Church, by
3) gratifying their own lusts, and
4) do not draw aside the curtain to attain the truth, but
5) dig secretly into the church to become
6) false mystagogues.

Very much like the Carpocratians in To Theodore, who

1) mix the truth with inventions, by
2) stealing the secret gospel, and
3) engage in carnal sins, unlike
4) the Christians who witness the truth hidden by veils. The Carpocratians
5) stole the most carefully guarded gospel, which for the Christians serves as
6) a mystagogue.

The Mar Saba Letter: Correcting the Record

[ETA:

This post has been heavily edited; much of it was simply irrelevant to the Secret Mark debate. I am greatly relieved by this. Of the rest, I have tightened the focus on the fact that the letter's author did not need a modern source for its account of the Carpocratians. I will leave it at that for now.]


In Peter Jeffery's response to Scott Brown (the "official" version, rejected by RBL but self-published on Jeffery's website), Jeffery protests that Clement's known writings show no awareness of homosexuality among the Carpocratians:

[T]he vice Clement ascribed to the Carpocratians was heterosexual wife-swapping, the sharing of wives like common property as in Plato's Republic (Strom. 3.5-10, 3.25.5, 3.54.1). Whoever was trying to set up a confrontation between Clement and homosexuality, in other words, picked the wrong heretical group. Where did the Mar Saba "Clement" get the idea that the Carpocratians were particularly interested in naked men?

Jeffery suggests that Smith got the idea from Gershom Scholem's studies of the Sabbateans:

The answer: from Smith's teacher Gershom Scholem, who compared the Carpocratians to certain antinomian sects descended from the seventeenth century Jewish heresy of Sabbatai Zevi. Scholem's opinion that these sects believed in "Redemption through Sin" appears to explain Smith's statement that "Carpocrates was said to have taught that sin was a means of salvation."

But, first of all, we have evidence from Irenaeus, closely pre-dating Clement, that Carpocratians did have a "redemption through sin" theology (Against Heresies, 1.25.4: "They deem it necessary, therefore, that by means of transmigration from body to body, souls should have experience of every kind of life as well as every kind of action"). Furthermore, we have evidence in Stromata that the Carpocratians and the group Clement calls “the Opponents” held a similar theology (Strom. 3.34.3-4: "Since it is the [demiurge] who said 'You shall not commit adultery,' we should, they say, commit adultery so as to annul his order). All this is similar to Irenaeus’ description of the Carpocratian teachings concering the “adversary”:

They also declare the "adversary" is one of those angels who are in the world, whom they call the Devil, maintaining that he was formed for this purpose, that he might lead those souls which have perished from the world to the Supreme Ruler....Again, they interpret these expressions, "You shall not go out thence until you pay the very last farthing," as meaning that no one can escape from the power of those angels who made the world, but that he must pass from body to body, until he has experience of every kind of action which can be practised in this world, and when nothing is longer wanting to him, then his liberated soul should soar upwards to that God who is above the angels, the makers of the world. (Against Heresies, 1.25.4)

Notice also that in defining each group, both Clement’s Opponents and Irenaeus’ Carpocratians refer to Mt 5:25-26, quoted in Against Heresies, 1.25.4 above (and again later in the same passage), as well as in Strom. 3.36.1, in reference to the Opponents. Irenaeus also writes that the Carpocratians “declare they have in their power all things which are irreligious and impious, and are at liberty to practise them”, and if they also “lead a licentious life” (Against Heresies 1.25.3).

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to think that To Theodore attributes homosexuality to the Carpocratians. True, the letter opens with a denunciation of the Carpocratians as those who wander “into a boundless abyss of the carnal and bodily sins” and goes on to describe a man who is said to love Jesus upon seeing him, and who begs to “be with” Jesus. But there is certainly nothing the text of Secret Mark that attributes homosexual behavior to either Jesus or the man.

We also know that the Carpocratian text went on to add something about “naked man with naked man”, but that's all. Nowhere in any of this do we have persuasive evidence of Carpocratian homosexuality. Indeed, the reference to male nudity might be entirely non-sexual, as we know that early Christian baptismal rituals, for example, involved nudity. The only thing the letter accuses the Carpocratians of is “carnal and bodily sins”--and in this it is quite consistent both with what Clement says of them in Stromata and with what Irenaeus says of them in Against Heresies. The letter's account of the Carpocratians provides no evidence for forgery.

The Hunter hypothesis

Sorry it's been so long; my busy life has intervened. Let's get back to our discussion of the James H. Hunter novel The Mystery of Mar Saba and whether or not it tells us anything about the likelihood of a forgery by Morton Smith.

Let's try to think about what one might term the "Hunter hypothesis", or the idea that because James H. Hunter wrote about a fictional discovery of a piece of bogus early Christian literature at Mar Saba, any subsequent discovery of early Christian literature at Mar Saba must also be bogus.

But does this apply to, say, any discovery of early Christian literatre at an eastern monastery? Probably not, since much of Hippolytus' Philosophumena was discovered at Mt. Athos in 1842! Think also of Tischendorf's discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus. Indeed, one should not be surprised if discoveries such as these were an inspiration for Hunter (along with the real forgeries of apocrypha in the decades preceding Hunter's novel).

So, it can't be impossible in principle for lost early Christian writings to be discovered in eastern monasteries, in any given year. The only suspicion introduced by Hunter's gospel is the involvement of Mar Saba specifically, as the location of some bogus early Christian literature. But why should we be surprised if some early Christian literature were discovered at Mar Saba? Does the writing of Hunter's novel somehow preclude this possibility? The idea is absurd.

We should only be surprised if any discovery at Mar Saba, after the publication of Hunter's novel, closely resembled the manuscript described in that novel. But the letter to Theodore in no way resembles this (fictional) manuscript--not even remotely.

So we see that the only connection between Hunter's novel and Smith's discovery is the fact that the Mar Saba monastery is the location for both.

The other connection that Smith's critics make is the connection between the forgery of the fragment in Hunter's gospel, and the purported forgery of To Theodore. But the forgery of To Theodore cannot be proved in this manner, because that would be taking the conclusion as a premise. The forgery in Hunter's novel does not resemble the discovery of To Theodore, unless the forgery of To Theodore can be independently demonstrated!

So Hunter's novel is of no help at all in proving that To Theodore is a forgery. Only after a probable case has been made for the forgery of To Theodore, can Hunter's novel be proposed as any supporting evidence at all.

Indeed, Hunter's novel relies on the plausibility that a fragment of early Christian literature could in principle be discovered at Mar Saba! Hunter's plot requires the reader to believe that the forgery of the Shard of Nicodemus is a plausible scenario. (Hunter himself also obviously found it plausible, otherwise he wouldn't have written a novel in which the world uncritically accepts the "Shard of Nicodemus" as authentic. Furthermore, his publisher obviously thought it would be plausible to the general readership. Hunter's novel is not presented as a work of fantasy; instead, it is presented as a thriller, set in the real world, however contrived its characters and plot.)

So, Hunter's novel can in some ways be seen as a small piece of evidence supporting the authenticity of To Theodore.

And at this point, I think we can leave the Hunter hypothesis aside, and instead consider only the real arguments for and against the authenticity of To Theodore.