As we go through this reconstruction I want everyone to be reminded of Origen's methodology in explaining the 'true meaning' of the gospel. Origen cites ALL the readings from the four gospel and compares what Matthew says against what Mark says against what Luke says and what John says in order to decide on what the true account is which - as I will illustrate in an upcoming post is derived from a 'Diatessaron-like' text which he later (in book 15) identifies as the Gospel according to the Hebrews.
In other words when I argue that the same neaniskos is present throughout the narrative which leads up to LGM 1 (to borrow the existing terminology for the additions from Secret Mark) and after this citation WE DON'T HAVE TO WORRY IF SOME OF CANONICAL MARK'S DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPANION OF JESUS DON'T SEEM TO APPLY TO A NEANISKOS.
Let me illustrate what I mean by quoting most of Mark chapter 10:
People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. Clement's successor Origen implies that there was a specific child being invoked here - John Mark - who was the greatest of the disciples and is threaded throughout the remaining narrative down through to the Passion narrative(Commentary on Matthew).
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'"
"Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."
Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!"
The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, "Children, how hard it is[e] to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, "Who then can be saved?"
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."
Peter said to him, "We have left everything to follow you!"
"I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first."
I believe there are reasons to believe that there was an Alexandrian gospel known to Clement's successor Origen (in Chapter 15 of Commentary on Matthew) which prove that this figure was one and the same with the child cited just before
They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. "We are going up to Jerusalem," he said, "and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise."
It is here that LGM1 is placed:
And they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightaway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb, they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do, and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan.
Then follows the most puzzling thing for me - that Salome is not referenced (as in Matthew). Clement says instead "After these words follows the text, "And James and John come to him", and all that section."
Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask." "What do you want me to do for you?" he asked.
They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory."
"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?"
"We can," they answered. Jesus said to them, "You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared."
Irenaeus and Hippolytus (who actually corrects the former) says that 'those of Mark' have a twofold ritual - a baptism and something else called 'redemption' which is linked to this section of text
Now I know every other scholar out there wants us just to compare what the existing canonical gospels of Matthew and Mark preserve about this narrative - but I think that is terribly naive. If I am correct (and how can I NOT be correct about this) this is the most important section of the gospel BEFORE the Passion. Just think about it.
A request is made to for John-Mark to sit on the throne WITH Jesus. We know that at the end of the gospel, Jesus does indeed sit on the throne with someone else - only now - thanks to Irenaeus' editorial emendations - it is an enthronement which occurs in heaven and between Jesus and his Father.
Yet I have already demonstrated that
(a) there was a dominant school of thought in Rome, Alexandria and elsewhere at the time who argued that Jesus was NOT the Son but the presence of the Father. As such these people must have thought that Jesus sat with someone else called 'the Son.'
(b) there was also an ending to the gospel (undoubtedly the Diatessaron) where an enthronement takes place ON EARTH. The reading we cited from Aphrahat (late 3rd century) was "And Jesus said to them 'I am with you till the world shall end. For Christ sits at the right hand of His Father, and Christ dwells among men.'"
(c) it seems utterly implausible that there would be this reference to John-Mark POSSIBLY sitting on a throne with Jesus when we know that the original Episcopal throne of Alexandria (which I discovered in Venice) explicitly references John-Mark sitting to the right of Jesus on this chair. This cathedra is called 'the throne of St. Mark' and must have been used by the earliest Alexandrians to argue that the gospel ended HERE.
Indeed let me ask my readers again how utterly clumsy and stupid the gospels seem when the idea of Salome or her sons ask Jesus to sit on this chair GIVEN THAT THE GOSPEL ENDS WITH JESUS SITTING BESIDE SOMEONE ON A THRONE. Or in the words of Tertullian that there was "a sitting with the Lord on His throne,-which once was persistently refused to the sons of Zebedee." (Scorpiace)
Now come on people! Let's grow up right this instant. I don't care whether the ROMAN TRADITION acknowledges this idea. The point is how we would imagine the earliest Alexandrian tradition - Clement of Alexandria to be precise - to reconcile the introduction of 'John Mark' sitting on the throne in Mark x.38 given that he knew the text ended with an enthronement.
The answer is - the only answer is - that the Catholics at Rome (Irenaeus) changed the ending AND the narrative where Jesus SAYS IN THE FUTURE TENSE i.e. "Can ye be baptized with the baptism which I shall be baptized with?"
I cannot help but suspect that Secret Mark is the original text of Mark and that our canonical versions of that text were changed so as to introduce the Passion as a kind of 'baptism' IN ORDER TO DENY THAT JOHN-MARK HAD ALREADY BEEN BAPTIZED AND PREPARED FOR THE 'REDEMPTION' WHICH WAS ABOUT TO TAKE PLACE WITH THE CRUCIFIXION.
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
