So it is that the study of the New Testament and the Church Fathers are filled with assumptions which have been wholly directed by tradition which established the former as 'the canon of the immaculate word of God' and the latter as 'the canon of the holy saints.'
Sure they changed the terminology and thus pretend to engage in 'science' but the whole endeavor can be characterized as little more than 'a faithful, uncritical examination of the faith by people of the faith.'
So it is that we agree with Irenaeus - the 'right number of gospels is four,' the apostle's name was Paul who was formerly Saul who had a spat with Peter formerly named Simon who reconciled in Antioch and founded the Church.
The problem with this whole scenario of course is that even with this ridiculously unproven set of assumptions - all of which are flatly contradicted in one way or another by the so-called 'Marcionites' or 'those of Mark' - cannot possibly explain how the canon was established.
You may want to accept the canonical Book of Acts as your starting point for Christian history. You may want to do this, but I would strongly advise against it, again because the Marcionites and others vehemently denied its authenticity.
Yet even if you take this essentially stupid set of assumptions how do you get from here to the canon promoted by Irenaeus at the end of the second century? Seriously no straight line can logically get us from a gathering of fishermen and taxgatherers in Antioch c. 50 CE to Irenaeus and the court of Commodus c. 180 CE when Irenaeus began promoting the idea that four is the right number of gospels to constitute 'the gospel' repeatedly referenced in the earlier period. Indeed Irenaeus can't even cite one authority before him who accepted this 'four as one' proposition ...
Again, I am not trying to point out how smart I am for noticing this. The point is that EVERYONE - and I mean everyone who has any brains at all have puzzled over this difficulty. I know that David Trobisch has struggled to explain this phenomenon and both of us have come to the same conclusions - it has to have something to do with the transmission from Polycarp to Irenaeus.
The point for those who aren't as smart as Trobisch, is that the Book of Acts is utterly useless to solve the central problem of early Christianity. It is a fable to distract us from the central problem that Antioch had no REAL AUTHORITY. All decisions which later governed Christianity were established outside of Antioch. Just look at Luke-Acts itself. Someone send these documents TO someone named 'Theophilus' who had a strong personal attachment with Antioch (I simply say that the addressee WAS Theophilus of Antioch.
So the whole business about a primitive church in Antioch is a fable. I call it fable because it doesn't have enough reality to solve the central problem of Christianity - how did we get to be a Church? How did we come to use four gospels as one, identify the 'Apostle' as Paul and the rest of the assumptions of our tradition?
For the Church over the last two thousand years or so, the answer to this question unanswerable from Acts is 'faith.' Modern scholarship can't allow itself to acknowledge this solution so it develops a better distraction - something I call 'pretend science' a process by which we don't question the basic presuppositions inherited from the Church and 'busy ourselves' to such a degree that we don't realize that we are in fact swimming in a fish bowl created by the very tradition we should be rigorously deconstructing.
The actual answer to the question I just asked is that we can indeed solve 'how OUR Church was developed.' The key again is not to get distracted by the mythology established in the Book of Acts and the many additions added to the original canonical writings of the Marcionites (and split up, renamed and rearranged too).
All we have to do is follow the OTHER thread which Irenaeus himself provides for us.
You see as I already noted at the very same time Irenaeus is using the mythology of Acts to silence the tradition of the Marcionites and the heresies, he also reinforces that all things of importance have been established by the Roman Episcopal throne.
I encourage everyone and anyone to go through Irenaeus' writings and see how 'truth' in Christianity is explicitly connected with the throne of Peter in Rome.
Okay, so there are all these Protestant scholars - and I mean LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of Protestant scholars. Practically every academic who has ever written about the subject of early Christianity in the last fifty years is some kind of Protestant. These guys don't like Rome, don't see the 'chair of Peter' as at all necessary so they emphasize the 'primitive Church' somehow - who knows how - 'naturally' developing a sense of what 'orthodoxy' is ...
Yet again is this remotely scientific? Is there even a theory posited to explain this phenomenon without the authority that Irenaeus himself directs our attention to solve the riddle about how Christianity became Christianity?
No, no, no, no, no!
Don't you see, people? I am agreeing - albeit in a qualified manner - with Irenaeus. I am not the 'enemy of the Church' that everyone portrays me to be. I am saying if you want to know how it is that we have four gospels, how we accept the Book of Acts as 'Christian history,' how it is that we identify the Apostle as being named 'Paul' etc. we have to follow Irenaeus' lead and say that the 'truth' was established by the throne of St. Peter in Rome.
You see now we have settled the first part of the problem by agreeing with our only source on any of this.
So we have crossed out the See of Antioch as a make-believe center of Christianity. This is the distraction that Irenaeus purposively set before people's eyes (inherited from his master Polycarp) as he also brought forward the idea whatever the truth was in the beginning it was 'confirmed' by the throne of St. Peter.
Of course I would simply turn this around and simplify what Irenaeus is saying and simply arguing that the reality of ancient history was that Rome established what the truth was.
Now some would say that if Antioch never had the authority that Acts claims it did, what is stopping us from accepting Irenaeus' claims about Roman Episcopal primacy? The frequent reader of this blog already knows the answer to this - there was one other Episcopal throne which had to be brought into the mix - the See of Alexandria.
All traditional scholars look to the writings of the Church Fathers from the second and third centuries and see no reference whatsoever to the Alexandrian See. So it is that all subsequent references to Patriarchy are viewed with suspicion. 'Surely if there really was an Alexandrian Episcopal line the Church Fathers would mention it ...' they mutter to themselves.
Yet let's consider this matter seriously for a moment. Hadrian does testify to the existence of an Alexandrian Patriarch (and thus an Alexandria Patriarchy) fifty years before Irenaeus' claims about a throne of Peter. Indeed Irenaeus doesn't even bother to explain the basics about how Peter was actually
Irenaeus says that the Roman See confirmed what the truth was. Yet if the truth was already established and everyone agreed to it apriori why even have the throne at all? We should have a confirmation of the Protestant 'apostolic golden age' where everyone partook of the Holy Spirit (oh I forgot scholars avoid putting it out there like this) and no Papacy was needed or required.
So why was it that everyone went along with the Roman teaching established and promoted by Irenaeus if they didn't already know it in advance?
Well Irenaeus lays out what happens to those in the Church who ally themselves with 'contrary views':
They have now been fully exposed; and simply to exhibit their sentiments, is to obtain a victory over them. Wherefore I have laboured to bring forward, and make clearly manifest, the utterly ill-conditioned carcase of this miserable little fox [i.e. the heretics] for there will not now be need of many words to overturn their system of doctrine, when it has been made manifest to all. It is as when, on a beast hiding itself in a wood, and by rushing forth from it is in the habit of destroying multitudes, one who beats round the wood and thoroughly explores it, so as to compel the animal to break cover, does not strive to capture it, seeing that it is truly a ferocious beast; but those present can then watch and avoid its assaults, and can cast darts at it from all sides, and wound it, and finally slay that destructive brute. So, in our case, since we have brought their hidden mysteries, which they keep in silence among themselves, to the light, it will not now be necessary to use many words in destroying their system of opinions. For it is now in thy power, and in the power of all thy associates, to familiarize yourselves with what has been said, to overthrow their wicked and undigested doctrines, and to set forth doctrines agreeable to the truth. Since then the case is so, I shall, according to promise, and as my ability serves, labour to overthrow them, by refuting them all in the following book. Even to give an account of them is a tedious affair, as thou seest. But I shall furnish means for overthrowing them, by meeting all their opinions in the order in which they have been described, that I may not only expose the wild beast to view, but may inflict wounds upon it from every side.
Oh, I know - Irenaeus is just speaking metaphorically here. He isn't REALLY going to kill the heretics. This is just a way of speaking 'metaphorically.'
Okay, so let's keep this in mind while we think through matters for a moment. Irenaeus is speaking about heretics within the presbytery. There can be no doubt about this. He passes around this document to the body of the Church and then they recognize that their bishop or their deacon or their priests hold these beliefs. What's going to compel these people to leave the Church?
So let me let me get this straight. Irenaeus is acknowledged by virtually everyone who has ever written about him that he was familiar with the court of the Emperor Commodus. Commodus' mistress was actively establishing and freeing the very people who sat on the throne of St Peter. Irenaeus just happens to have these 'friends in high places' and he writes this incredibly boring and pedantic treatise that everyone - and I mean everyone in the contemporary Church embraced and we are supposed to believe that when he 'joked' or made a 'figurative reference' to the slaughter of people who disagreed with him all his contemporaries were 'in on the joke' or just shrugged their shoulders thinking to themselves 'that Irenaeus; always pushing the envelope ...'
For God's sake people learn your history. There were Christian persecutions in the period. Marcionites were being executed in this period. It was just those people who embraced the Catholic faith - Irenaeus' ideas about what orthodoxy was - who were spared from having any harm come to their person.
Here are some more of the 'jokes' or 'exaggerations' which Irenaeus made sure to repeat throughout his Against the Heresies.
He makes clear that ‘punishments’ await the heretics who disagree with his reforms. He says that “those that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished” (AH iv. 27.4) and that “lest, therefore, we should incur the same punishment as these men, the Lord reveals [to us] their end.” (ibid iv.2.4)
Irenaeus specifically speaks of ‘punishments’ and ‘dangers’ for the members of the ‘Marcionite’ sect. He says that:
if reject these (reforms), they will then possess no Gospel at all … but if, on the other hand, they feel compelled to receive the remaining portions also, then, by studying the perfect Gospel, and the doctrine of the apostles, they will find it necessary to repent, that they may be saved from the danger (to which they are exposed). [ibid iii. 14. 4]
It is therefore with good reason that Irenaeus describes the Catholic Church as a “harbour of safety to those in peril” in this age of turbulence (ibid V.34.3). All that is required from the repentant is to acknowledge turning away from the beliefs of previous ages (ibid) and to embrace the reforms encouraged by Irenaeus and the Imperial court of Commodus.
Is it any wonder that there was a body of Christian believers in the Middle East down to the time of the coming of Mohammed who proudly identified themselves as 'hypocrites' or 'flatterers'?
To this end we have demonstrated in previous reports that the Middle East and Ethiopia retains countless reports of Irenaeus' collusion with the Roman authorities. I don't care to repeat them here.
The point however is that if we acknowledge Irenaeus' claims that the throne of St. Peter was the ultimate source for the 'truth' of Catholic orthodoxy and this 'truth' was forced onto rival traditions like that of Alexandria, do we really have to defend or explain Clement's hiding of a gospel like Secret Mark?
Do we really have to take everything he says in To Theodore as the 'last word' on what Secret Mark was or what it's relationship with the canonical gospel of Mark was? The bottom line is that Clement HAD TO SAY that Secret Mark didn't challenge the authority of the authorized version of Mark which Irenaeus says was written at Rome for the Roman Church - the same Roman Church which alone of all Sees had the authority to establish truth!
To this end, it is incredible to me that scholars before me have not connected Irenaeus' statement regarding 'those who prefer the gospel of Mark' [AH iii.11.7] who "separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered." First of all how can anyone say that Clement's Alexandrian tradition did not 'prefer' the Gospel of Mark - i.e. their autograph copy of the gospel of Mark if To Theodore is accepted? Yes, Clement never stands up and says we prefer the Gospel of Mark in his other writings, but for God's sake people - Irenaeus' writings give a good reason why that would have been suicide.
'those who prefer the gospel of Mark' + 'separating Jesus from Christ' + 'alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered' = heresy.
when Catholics identify 'heresy' = "throwing darts at it from all sides, and wound it, and finally slay that destructive brute."
It's that simple, folks.
I'd have to say that Clement's Alexandrian community 'prefers' Secret Mark to the canonical gospels encouraged by Irenaeus. When someone says that Mark "left his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries" I'd say that qualifies as a 'preference' on the part of the community? I mean, why aren't the other texts equally 'carefully guarded' and hid?
Now it may be argued that Clement never separates Jesus from Christ but this point can be easily disputed. But since we are pressed for time I want to focus on the particular word here 'impassable' which Irenaeus uses to identify a heretical group whose love of Mark and his gospel is misguided for according to Irenaeus "if they read it [the gospel of Mark] with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified." [ibid]
Irenaeus identifies this interested in a state of impassibility as the height of the Markan heretical community's system. The point is that just as Clement and his Alexandrian community can be identified as 'preferring' their autographed copy of the Gospel of Mark in to Theodore, Irenaeus' witness of this community's interest in the term 'impassibility' turns up as the telos of Christian initiation in Clement's accepted writings.
Whereas Irenaeus says that the truth of the Roman tradition is that God actually suffered on the cross and that his heretical opponents denied this doctrine:
[they] say that He merely suffered in outward appearance, being naturally impassible ... [but I say] He took up man into Himself, the invisible becoming visible, the incomprehensible being made comprehensible, the impassible becoming capable of suffering, and the Word being made man, thus summing up all things in Himself [iii.14.1]
Clement however argues that it is Irenaeus' opinion which diverges from 'the truth' presumably of the Alexandrian throne saying on more than one occasion that:
if we as would appear, do not cease in such matters to understand the Scriptures carnally; and starting from our own affections, interpret the will of the impassible Deity similarly to our perturbations; and as we are capable of hearing; so, supposing the same to be the case with the Omnipotent, err impiously. [Stromata i.14]
But He was entirely impassible; inaccessible to any movement of feeling -- either pleasure or pain. While the apostles, having most gnostically mastered, through the Lord's teaching, angel and fear, and lust, were not liable even to such of the movements of feeling, as seem good, courage, zeal, joy, desire, through a steady condition of mind, not changing a whit; but ever continuing unvarying in a state of training after the resurrection of the Lord. [ibid vi.9]
The point of course is that there is now absolutely solid reasons for suspecting YET AGAIN that Clement's Alexandrian community of Mark is really behind Irenaeus' heretical community of Marcus. The only reason that stops us from making the full connection of course is that we are at this 'standstill' arguing whether Morton Smith forged to Theodore owing to the highly subjective arguments of Carlson (and the highly amusing arguments of Jeffrey).
Yet if you have gotten this far into my argument you are undoubtedly one of those who accepts Morton Smith's discovery as authentic anyway so let me move on to my last points.
We have developed another proof that To Theodore is entirely consistent with Clement's writings and in a way that Smith could not have known or at least did not publicly write about. Those who would say that the fit is not exact because Clement never identifies a 'separate Christ' from a 'separate Jesus' better pay careful attention to Irenaeus' words in what follows. We read:
they understand that Christ was one and Jesus another; and they teach that there was not one Christ, but many. And if they speak of them as united, they do again separate them: for they show that one did indeed undergo sufferings, but that the other remained impassible; that the one truly did ascend to the Pleroma, but the other remained in the intermediate place; that the one does truly feast and revel in places invisible and above all name, but that the other is seated with the Demiurge, emptying him of power. It will therefore be incumbent upon thee, and all others who give their attention to this writing, and are anxious about their own salvation, not readily to express acquiescence when they hear abroad the speeches of these men: for, speaking things resembling the faithful, as I have already observed, not only do they hold opinions which are different, but absolutely contrary, and in all points full of blasphemies, by which they destroy those persons who, by reason of the resemblance of the words, imbibe a poison which disagrees with their constitution, just as if one, giving lime mixed with water for milk, should mislead by the similitude of the colour; as a man" superior to me has said, concerning all that in any way corrupt the things of God and adulterate the truth, "Lime is wickedly mixed with the milk of God." [ibid 17.4]
Don't you see, this is a consistent argument that is found throughout Irenaeus writings which is key to make sense of this heretical group. For all intents and purposes they sound exactly orthodox. You wouldn't know you were reading the writings of a heretic until they revealed (a) that they had a separate gospel of Mark which they 'preferred' and (b) that they SECRETLY held that Jesus and Christ were separate individuals who were united in one sense (owing to the redemption ritual described earlier) but disguised in the 'real' gospel narrative.
Now I don't mean to be a know it all but because of the absolutely pathetic job that traditional scholars have done understanding and giving voice to the so-called 'heresies' I am left sorting out these details on my own.
Let's start with the whole concept of 'Secret Mark.'
(a) is everyone out there convinced at the very least that there are grounds for identifying this hidden 'Gospel of Mark' which is preferred by a community which uses the word 'impassable' in a like manner to Clement of Alexandria with the Secret Gospel of Clement's To Theodore?
I certainly think so and F F Bruce has developed a similar (but weaker) argument long before me.
(b) does everyone at least tentatively accept that Clement COULD HAVE kept silent about Secret Mark and his beliefs that 'Jesus and Christ' were two separate beings in his accepted writings owing to the fact that Irenaeus and the Roman establishment (Imperial or otherwise) were actively trying to bring harm to those that held these views?
At the very least reconsider the following piece of evidence from Hippolytus about his master's original efforts:
For also the blessed presbyter Irenaeus, having approached the subject of a refutation in a more unconstrained spirit, has explained such washings and redemptions, stating more in the way of a rough digest what are their practices. (And it appears that some of those of Mark,) on meeting with (Irenaeus' work), deny that they have so received (the secret word just alluded to), but they have learned that always they should deny. [AH vi.27.1]
Clement similarly argues on behalf of the idea that those who inquire of the secret doctrines of his community and his gospel should be greeted with denial:
To them, therefore, as I said above, one must never give way; nor, when they put forward their falsifications, should one concede that the secret Gospel is by Mark, but should even deny it on oath. For, "Not all true things are to be said to all men". For this reason the Wisdom of God, through Solomon, advises, "Answer the fool from his folly", teaching that the light of the truth should be hidden from those who are mentally blind.
We can moreover intimate an echo of Clement's encouragement toward 'denial' and deception in Book III of Irenaeus' writings too who writes:
these most vain sophists affirm that the apostles did with hypocrisy frame their doctrine according to the capacity of their hearers, and gave answers after the opinions of their questioners,--fabling blind things for the blind, according to their blindness; for the dull according to their dulness; for those in error according to their error ... but to those who are capable of comprehending the unnameable Father, they did declare the unspeakable mystery through parables and enigmas: so that the Lord and the apostles exercised the office of teacher not to further the cause of truth, but even in hypocrisy, and as each individual was able to receive it. Such belongs not to those who heal, or who give life: it is rather that of those bringing on diseases, and increasing ignorance; and much more true than these men shall the law be found, which pronounces every one accursed who sends the blind man astray in the way. [AH iii.5.1]
Remember what I have been arguing throughout all my posts on this subject that in order to understand the interplay between Irenaeus' writings and Clement's To Theodore is the idea that Irenaeus only wrote the first book of Against the Heresies first (without chapters 22 to the conclusion) and then each book was added in succession as he learned more about the heretical tradition he was combating.
In this way the testimony of Hippolytus which suggests that 'those of Mark' were receiving the very heresiological manual that Irenaeus' was developing as he was developing so that they could modify their position and learn what to 'hide' of their true doctrine to save themselves from peril. To this end, my suspicions are that To Theodore was composed after Book Two but before the distribution of Book Three which as Robert McQueen Grant notes was in a later period - Irenaeus 'sent books I and II to an unnamed correspondent, then III, IV and V in succession" [p. 6]
The point then is that we are doing nothing dissimilar than Grant who for instance is forced to explain how Irenaeus could have met up with the Nag Hammadi Gospel of Truth but done such a bad job describing his contents. His solution is to put forward the idea of a developing text of Against the Heresies:
It is regrettable that [Irenaeus] apparently did not encounter the Valentinian Gospel of Truth until he was writing his Third Book for his criticisms already discussed do not really apply to it. [p. 26]
To this end it is hardly implausible to argue that Irenaeus did indeed come across Secret Mark - viz. a preferred 'gospel of Mark' according to 'perfection' - in the same way as his mention of the Gospel of Truth. The inaccuracies and exaggerations (deliberate or otherwise) inherent in his reporting should be expected and accepted as a means to strengthen our proof for the existence of To Theodore.
Of course I would like to stop right here and ask my readers to go back to Clement's original testimony and do something that regular scholars rarely do - viz. just shut up and shut off that internal dialogue which prevents one from actually hearing what Clement is saying in to Theodore.
We have used Irenaeus to help establish that Clement's Alexandrian community must have PREFERRED their autograph of the Gospel of Mark (something inherent but not explicitly mentioned in Clement's own testimony in To Theodore).
Now let's take a second look at Clement's words again:
Thus he composed a more spiritual Gospel for the use of those who were being perfected. Nevertheless, he yet did not divulge the things not to be uttered, nor did he write down the hierophantic teaching of the Lord, but to the stories already written he added yet others and, moreover, brought in certain sayings of which he knew the interpretation would, as a mystagogue, lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils. Thus, in sum, he prepared matters, neither grudgingly nor incautiously, in my opinion, and, dying, he left his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.
Now let's do that thing that scholars rarely do and just let the words of the text float into our minds without reconfiguring according to our own presuppositions and let me ask just one question that never gets ask by others - could a gospel like 'Secret Mark' which is portrayed with this kind of strong language - i.e. adjectives like 'perfect,' 'more spiritual,' 'great mysteries' - still be a part of a four gospel system encouraged (or first envisioned by Irenaeus)?
In other words, how could a gospel which made people 'perfect' not be itself 'perfect' and complete? How could a mystery text which ALONE was read in Alexandria to those being initiated into the 'great mystery' of the tradition need or require the other three 'base' or necessarily 'imperfect' texts of Matthew, Luke and John in order to 'complete' its understanding of the Truth?
I know this is abrupt but let's get down to brass tax. We've moved past arguing whether or not Secret Mark is a real gospel. The next logical fight is to figure out HOW IT COULD NOT HAVE BEEN A 'SUPER GOSPEL' - i.e. a single, long gospel like the Diatessaron which contained all the stories of Matthew, Luke and John already in its narrative.
I know that we can't PROVE this from the textual fragments presented in to Theodore but if scholars as I said actually stopped doing what they do - i.e. the ongoing mental dialogue going on in their heads 'reconstructing' phenomenological experience into their own version of the truth the argument against the logic that Secret Mark had to be something like a single, long 'Diatessaron' is absolutely unassailable.
I don't want to break this silence I have asked to be created in the spaces in people's heads with arguments I have already developed in my Real Messiah for accepting that Secret Mark had to be related to the Diatessaron. That's not the point. I'd like to end this discussion with a simple reinforcement of a basic idea first brought to my attention by David Trobisch.
Canonical Mark is absurdly short. It couldn't have functioned on its own because 'so much is missing from it.' Is it at least possible that this was intentional? That it was designed to be incomplete so that those who traditionally relied on Mark's authority would have to accept other sources for truth (and thus dilute the strangle hold he had on Christianity especially at Alexandria)?
At the very least let me ask the question again - how could this perfect gospel of Mark held secretly in the holiest place in the Alexandrian Church, 'preferred' by the Alexandrian Church, not in itself have been 'complete'?
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
