Major Revelation: Clement Used A Diatessaron

I don't know if my readers can see what I see when I comes to early Christianity. I am - as I have 'confessed' many times before - a Jew. I was born not knowing a thing about Jesus. In fact the only thing I ever heard about Christianity growing up was about a guy named 'Yosef Pandera' - but that's another story.

When I finally started investigating this tradition I couldn't make sense of the four gospels business. I mean how do you have the apostle speaking about 'the gospel' or 'my gospel' and his war against 'false apostles' and their 'false gospel' and his condemnation of Peter to his face without some idea of a single, long gospel.

Call it me a Jew falling victim to 'typical Jewish errors about Christ' but not only does Catholic Christianity not make any sense but it seems at time as if it was established without NEEDING to make sense - i.e. that the weight and force of the Imperial government 'helped it along.'

In any event, I would have fallen victim to typically hostile opinions about Christianity had I not stumbled on to Marcion and Marcionitism early in my adult life. At last, I thought to myself, a Christian tradition which bothers to make its doctrine sensible.

Of course you can't be interested in Marcion without needing to go beyond the hostile witness of the Church Fathers. As my readers must be aware, I have developed a theory where I see the Marcione (the Syriac term for 'Marcionites' and which literally means 'those of Mark') as only the purest, truest expression of the Markan tradition based in Alexandria.

Origen had a 'reformed' Marcionite as a patron. I think Origen was an 'in the closet' Marcionite adapting his doctrines for the Imperial sponsored 'Catholic Church' which swept through the Empire in the Commodian period (177 - 191 CE).

Think what you want about my theory I can prove that Origen used a single, long gospel in his Commentary on Matthew. It was the gospel that was clearly closest to his heart. And now, thanks to my ongoing and fruitful friendship with James Snapp, I have discovered proof that Clement used a text which resembled the Diatessaron.

Here is my recent post in the Yahoo Textual Criticism group for those who are interested:

As you know James I am not against the idea that Clement and his Alexandrian gospel knew and used a gospel which ended with an enthronement. There are other circumstantial arguments that support this basic concept. In that way I should be very favorably disposed to your discovery. The problem for me is whether this reference in Cassiodorus actually says what you (and I) want it to say.

For whatever it is worth William Wilson decided to preserve the Cassiodorus reference as follows:

Now, in the Gospel according to Mark, the Lord being interrogated by the chief of the priests if He was the Christ, the Son of the blessed God, answering, said, "I am; and ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power. But powers mean the holy angels. Further, when He says "at the right hand of God," He means the self-same [beings], by reason of the equality and likeness of the angelic and holy powers, which are called by the name of God. He says, therefore, that He sits at the right hand; that is, that He rests in pre-eminent honour. In the other Gospels, however, He is said not to have replied to the high priest, on his asking if He was the Son of God. But what said He? "You say." Answering sufficiently well. For had He said, It is as you understand, he would have said what was not true, not confessing Himself to be the Son of God; [for] they did not entertain this opinion of Him; but by saying "You say," He spake truly. For what they had no knowledge of, but expressed in words, that he confessed to be true.

Your point would be that Clement is saying after this original reference of 'right hand of power' there is a conclusion where 'right hand of God' appears. Right?

Then in your response to my post you said "I'd say that precludes the idea that he is quoting the Diatessaron. The reason why the Diatessaron- passage corresponds with Clement's quotation is simple: Clement and Tatian both used the Gospel of Mark."

Yes but science is about the simplest explanation to the phenomena at hand.

Let start with what the Diatessaron has as the equivalent to what is cited above in Mark:

Jesus said unto him, Thou hast said that I am he. They all said unto him, Then thou art now the Son of God? Jesus said, Ye have said that I am he. I say unto you, that henceforth ye shall see the Son of man sitting, at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven. Then the chief priest rent his tunic, and said, He hath blasphemed. And they all said, Why should we seek now witnesses? we have heard now the blasphemy from his mouth. What then think ye? They all answered and said, He is worthy of death. Then some of them drew near, and spat in his face, and struck him, and scoffed at him. And the soldiers struck him on his cheeks, and said, Prophesy unto us, thou Mes- siah: who is he that struck thee? And many other things spake they falsely, and said against him.

Notice also the conclusion of the Diatessaron:

And our Lord Jesus, after speaking to them, took them out to Bethany: and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And while he blessed them, he was separated from them, and ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and at all times they were in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.

Thus the Diatessaron has Jesus say at first while alive "ye shall see the Son of man sitting, at the right hand of power" and then in the same gospel the conclusion reads "and [he] sat down at the right hand of God." The point is that change from 'power' to 'God' in Cassiodorus is represented in the Diatessaron.

Now you will say of course Clement is quoting from the gospel of Mark and then says 'further on ...' but he also says 'in the other gospels' also and the Church Fathers - Origen especially (cf. Commentary on Matthew) can switch from gospel to gospel because he thinks there is an underlying narrative - the Diatessaron - which holds all the individual 'separate' gospels together.

This would only be natural; it is only our inherited presuppositions about 'the gospels' being 'the gospel' which prevent us from seeing that. This presupposition would have been shared by Clement and Origen's co-religionists in Palestine and Syria who knew and used only the Diatessaron.

Of course if you want to get into 'speculation' - my speculation about Secret Mark as a variant of the Diatessaron - it is apparent that the ancients supposed that Mark was indeed the author of the Diatessaron. Just look at the introduction of the Borgian MS and the Old Latin harmony:

out of the four evangelists-Matthew the elect, whose symbol is M, Mark the chosen, whose symbol is R, Luke the approved, whose symbol is K, and John the beloved, whose symbol is H

The name 'Mark' emerges by taking the first letter of the 'Matthew,' the second letter of the name 'Mark,' the third letter of the name 'Luke' and the fourth letter of the diminutive form of the name 'John' all in Aramaic.

The introduction is the work of the scribe of this ms. or the work of the scribe of an ancestral ms., but not the words of Tatian himself. Either way, the words are an recent expansion of an old tradition. What is really important is that the name formed only fits SAMARITAN Aramaic, not Palestinian Jewish Aramaic and not Syriac. HERE YOU HAVE THE DOCUMENTATION OF THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE SAMARITAN FORM OF THE NAME 'MARK' - MARQE WITH THE ORIGINAL SINGLE EVANGELIST.

Take this as you want this is in my opinion the best and most logical way of explaining that curious reference you found in Cassiodorus.

Thank you for that James.

Stephan

If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here

If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here