A Secret Diatessaron-like Gospel of Alexandria Known to Clement and Origen

I have just written about my theory of a relationship between the Diatessaron and Secret Mark. It have long noticed that Alexandrians have ALWAYS thought that Mark chapter 10 was special. A careful reading of Clement and Origen reveals that the section which IMMEDIATELY PRECEDES the one cited in To Theodore was preserved 'in a different form' by both Alexandrian Church Fathers.

It might be useful to cite from Peterson's book on the Diatessaron:

Phillips noted that the harmonies followed the Parable of the Rich Fool with the Story of the Young Ruler which was then followed by the Parable of Dives and Lazarus. Elements of this combination as well as specific variants from the harmonies, are found in the Gospel 'secundum Hebraeos' as quoted by Origen, Comm in Matt XV.14 (on Matt 19.16ff). Origen's quotation begins "The other of the two rich men said to him ..." implying Origen knew a text which joined the stories of the two rich men. Also in Origen Jesus tells him to "do the Law" a variant found in Ephrem's Commentary, Aphrahat, Syr [c], the Georgian, and at Mark 10.20 in Greek MSSf1 565 1542. [p.257]

I happen to think that this text was 'according to Mark' because of things that Clement says in his Quis Dives Salvetur.

We already demonstrated in a post from months and months ago that in McCarthy's translation of Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron the Appendix demonstrates the order of Ephrem's Diatessaron:

XV 1 - 11 The Rich Man
XV 12 - 13 The Rich Man and Lazarus
XV 14 - 17 The Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard
XV 18 - 19 The Request of James and John
XV 20 - 21 Zacchaeus

I think it implies that the Alexandrian Gospel of Mark inserted the Zacchaeus narrative either IN THE PLACE where LGM 2 appears or right after it. But that's another post for another time.

Let's just demonstrate that Clement used an Alexandrian Diatessaron-like gospel.

While discussing the heretic Carpocrates - hint, hint, hint - Clement alludes to a variant gospel narrative that was known to Origen.

Here is the passage from Stromata III:53 - 56:

Furthermore, the selfsame man cried aloud that "the kingdom of God does not consist in food and drink," not indeed in abstinence from wine and meat, "but in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." Which of them goes about like Elijah clad in a sheepskin and a leather girdle? Which of them goes about like Isaiah, naked except for a piece of sacking and without shoes? Or clothed merely in a linen loincloth like Jeremiah? Which of them will imitate John's gnostic way of life? The blessed prophets also lived in this manner and were thankful to the Creator.

The "righteousness" of Carpocrates, however, and those like him who pursue immoral "communion" is to be refuted by an argument along the following lines. Immediately after the words "Give to him that asks you," he continues: " And do not turn away from him who wishes to borrow ."Thus it is this kind of communion which he is teaching, not the immoral kind. How can there be one who asks and receives and borrows unless there is someone who possesses and gives and lends? What, then, is the position when the Lord says, "I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you took me in, naked and you clothed me," after which he adds "inasmuch as you did it to one of these little ones, you did it to me"? And does he not lay down the same principle in the Old Testament? "He who gives to the poor lends to God," and "Do not avoid giving to the needy," he says.

And again: "Let not your almsgiving and faithfulness lapse." And: "Poverty brings a man low, but the hands of the energetic are made rich." And he adds: "Behold the man who has not given his money on usury is accepted." And does he not declare expressly, " A man's wealth is judged to be his soul’s ransom"? Just as the world is composed of opposites, of heat and cold, dry and wet, so also is it made up of givers and receivers. Again when he says, "If you would be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor," he convicts the man who boasts that he has kept all the commandments~ from his youth up. For he had not fulfilled "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Only then was he taught by the Lord who wished to make him perfect, to give for love's sake.

Accordingly he has not forbidden us to be rich in the right way, but only a wrongful and insatiable grasping of money. For "property gained unlawfully is diminished." "There are some who sow much and gain the more, and those who hoard become impoverished." Of them it is written: "He distributed, he gave to the poor, his righteousness endures for ever." For he who sows and gathers more is the man who by giving away his earthly and temporal goods has obtained a heavenly and eternal prize; the other is he who gives to no one, but vainly "lays up treasure on earth where moth and rust corrupt"; of him it is written: "In gathering motley, he has gathered it into a condemned cell." Of his land the Lord says in the gospel that it produced plentifully; then wishing to store the fruits he built larger store-houses, saying to himself in the words dramatically put into his mouth "You have many good things laid up for many years to come, eat, drink, and be merry. You fool," says the Lord, "this night your soul shall be required of you. Whose then shall be the things you have prepared?"[Stromata III.53 - 56]

Now I have already cited what Phillips had to say about Origen's use of a 'Diatessaron-like' text which began with two divites - one a fool, the other the young man whose struggle with Jesus' teaching in the Gospel of Mark Clement says in Quis dives salvetur only culminates with the example of Zacchaeus (which of course only follows these stories in the Diatessaron tradition).

For the moment however I want to only draw the readers attention to what Origen's reference to a continual thread going through the story of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21) and the Rich Man (cf. Matt. 19:16 - 30, Mark 10:17 - 31, Luke 18:18 - 30) to the Rich Man and Lazarus (cf. Luke 16:19 - 31) means for the study of Secret Mark.

Origen tells us that this portion of the text reads:

The other of the two rich men said to him: Master, what good thing must I do that I may live? He said to him: Man, fulfil the law and the prophets. He answered him: That have I done. He said to him: Go and sell all that thou possessest and distribute it among the poor, and then come and follow me. But hte rich man then began to scratch his head and it (the saying) pleased him not. And the Lord said to him: How canst though say, I have fulfilled the law and the prophets? For it stands written in the law: Love thy neighbor as thyself; and behold, many of the brethren, sons of Abraham, are begrimed with dirt and die of hunger - and thy house is full of many good things and nothing at all comes forth from it to them! And he turned and said to Simon, his disciple, who was sitting by him: Simon, son of Jona, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

So Origen's says of this section that:

The other of the two rich men said to him: Master, what good thing must I do that I may live?

And just in this way that this section begins with what we would call 'a story from Luke' and then follows with the story common to all synoptic gospels Clement uses the same word 'other' to connect the same stories in what we saw earlier:

For he who sows and gathers more is the man who by giving away his earthly and temporal goods has obtained a heavenly and eternal prize; the other is he who gives to no one, but vainly "lays up treasure on earth where moth and rust corrupt"

The story of the rich fool is juxtaposed against the story of the rich youth which clear Markan characteristics in the version of the story cited by Clement. Thus BOTH Clement and Origen used an Alexandrian single, long gospel text which closely resembled the Diatessaron. In Clement's case - as we shall demonstrate it is clearly identified with a version - even a spiritual version - of the Gospel of Mark.

Now some would argue that Origen's citation of the 'Diatessaron-like text' is different than Clement's and this has to be acknowledged. Yet my point isn't that there was just one 'Secret Gospel' - and come to think of it, that is exactly what is implied by Scott Brown's translation of To Theodore.

Clement is made to say that there was more than one 'longer version' of Mark. Clement is arguing that the text that HIS COMMUNITY USES is the original autograph and those of other communities - in this case the Carpocratians - are corrupt copies.

Could the ancient Christian environment have been filled with 'corrupt versions' of a single, long original gospel text? Isn't this what Celsus implies in antiquity? Isn't this what is preserved in 'Abd al-Jabbar preserves from a much earlier Palestinian Christian source?

Why then is my theory about a 'secret Alexandrian Diatessaron-like gospel' so crazy? The Western tradition about the development of the gospel isn't the only one. Scholars in this part of the world should come to terms with that ...