I am in a strange predicament when it comes to scholarship. On the surface I am an 'amateur scholar.' I do not possess a PhD or any sort of post graduate degree. Nevertheless by the end of the year I will have two academic articles published in two major academic journals. I am developing a major documentary on the subject of the Letter to Theodore which aims to be objective even though I have come to my own conclusions about Morton Smith's discovery.
I happen to think the letter is genuine, nevertheless I do not consider myself a member of one side in the debate.
I have written about this before at this blog. Most of the people who make the case for the authenticity of To Theodore do so through textual form criticism. I have corresponded with all of the most important contemporary scholars who argue the case this way - and I have to admit it's not my style, it's not my way of thinking.
In fact as I have noted here many times, I think it's the right way to win the academic debate but I am not sure that it doesn't open up a whole other can of worms down the road.
Call me stupid or naive (or ignorant) but I don't see how 'Mark' continues to be 'canonical Mark' once you allow the idea that there were two 'additions' within the very small section of the gospel of Mark that Clement deals with in the Letter to Theodore.
In other words the Letter to Theodore adds thirteen verses to a fourteen verse section between Mark 10:32 and Mark 10:46. If you take that as a rough estimate of the work as a whole, that would suggest that the Gospel of Mark goes from being 609 verses to something approaching 1100+ verses.
How can we possibly account for all this 'additional' material?
I know this isn't scientific. We can't possibly know how much additional material there was in Secret Mark. But at the same time it seems ridiculous to assume that these were the only additions.
I happen to think the Gospel According to the Egyptians cited by Clement in the Stromata and known to other authors is a good place to start looking for 'extra material.' But still even this can't possibly make up for something approaching five hundred verses or more.
I happen to think that the most likely solution to the problem is that Secret Mark was 'Diatessaron-like.' Wieland Willker basically silenced or ignored me whenever I suggested this in his forum.
I eventually left the group.
This is the paradox of Scott Brown's argument that never made sense to me. Yes I acknowledge that 'Mark' has a particular 'form' that Secret Mark seems to agree with. I also acknowledge Jeff Jay's point that the fabrication of Secret Mark would be a superhuman accomplishment which - Koester points out in the latest BAR issue - Morton Smith was incapable of pulling off because he didn't think this way.
I get it. But so what?
As long as we are locked in this struggle with the 'hoaxers' these form criticism arguments are important. But let's suppose the day comes that we rediscover the manuscript of To Theodore or that the general consensus of scholars shifts back toward acknowledging the authenticity of Morton Smith's discovery (or at least denying that he forged it).
We are still stuck with the task of figuring out what this Alexandrian 'ur-Mark' looked like described in the Letter to Theodore.
Yes, Clement ends up assuring Theodore that the sanctity of our canonical text of Mark is not affected by this revelation. This acknowledgement reassures people like Scott Brown and Wieland Willker and the whole new generation of scholars who have argued in favor of the authenticity to keep marching into battle with the opposition thinking that when they return home from victory everything will be the same as it was when they left.
This is stupid. It is such a stupidly naive and uninformed assumption that it makes me want to join the other side.
Because once again even though we don't know the exact amount of extra material throughout the rest of Mark one has to suppose that it is - in the words of Forrest Gump - 'a lot.'
I estimated five hundred verses. It could be three hundred. It could be seven hundred and fifty. Again who knows.
The point is that logic dictates that it is 'a lot.'
The fact that a 'secret' version of the Gospel of Mark was being hidden away in the adyton of the Church of St. Mark in Alexandria with five hundred or so extra verses challenges the foundations of every inherited assumption we have come to assume about the Gospel of Mark.
Clement's language implies that THIS gospel and ONLY THIS gospel was used to initiate members of the Alexandrian community. This sounds suspiciously similar to Irenaeus' statement that a group of heretics (the Marcosians?) PREFERRED the Gospel of Mark and used a variant text which was the basis to their assertion that Christ stood by impassably as Jesus suffered on the Cross.
I have gone over the interrelatedness of Irenaeus' statement and To Theodore and the clear implications of this state of affairs is that THIS SECRET GOSPEL WAS NOT LIKE CANONICAL MARK. It can't have been.
I sometimes think that Scott Brown and others on the 'for' side can't see 'the big picture.'
Again I ask - how can 'Mark' continue to be 'canonical Mark' if it ends with (a) the idea that Jesus and Christ were two separate people and (b) the notion that this Christ-who-is-not-Jesus ends up sitting enthroned at the very concluding words of the narrative (I have gone over Irenaeus testimony in this regard a number of times in last month's posts).
I don't think that Scott Brown and the many other prominent members of the 'for side' have thought through the implications of their position thoroughly enough. They want to distance themselves from Morton Smith because of course he knew and embraced the very implications I mention here (albeit coming to very different conclusions from my own).
As I said IF To Theodore is deemed authentic THEN Irenaeus' statement about a group who had a variant text of Mark with that heretical ending MUST BE ACCEPTED TO BE a 'Secret Mark' sighting in antiquity (F F Bruce certainly thought so).
The community that used this gospel COULDN'T POSSIBLY have willing accepted Matthew, Luke and John to 'compliment' this gnostic gospel. A codex with four gospels was clearly forced upon them from the outside, from Rome, from Irenaeus and his acknowledged co-conspirators who sat in the Imperial court of Commodus presumably next to or close to his beloved concubine Marcia who was a Christian.
I know that with this set of assumption we completely leave the safety of EVERYTHING that we have come to accept as 'holy truth' in Christianity, but isn't that what reason demands of us? The one thing that I could never understand with people like Scott Brown and Wieland Willker and the rest is how does the universe continue to stay the same, how is there the same center of gravity if Secret Mark is admitted into the ancient world of the New Testament?
I actually respect people like Stephen Carlson and Peter Jeffreys in this regard is that I think they HAVE SEEN THE IMPLICATIONS OF SECRET MARK and that's why they struggle against it. I know from first hand correspondence with J Harold Ellens that he thinks the whole idea of an ancient Alexandrian Church is a fairy tale.
Again I have to admire on one level the logical consistency of the position of these men. While I might not agree with their conclusions (or their presuppositions) they 'make sense' from beginning to end.
I find myself in the exact opposite situation with Scott Brown and Wieland Willker and the rest. I simply don't understand how you can allow for five hundred verses to be 'added' to our canonical text of Mark - verses that were either unknown or unused by the editor(s) of Matthew and Luke - AND then assume the antiquity of an Alexandrian See unknown or ignored by the editor of Luke and then just shrug your shoulders and say to yourself some how it's all going to just going to 'work itself out.'
The existence of Secret Mark exposes what every Jew, Samaritan or Muslim has always felt about Christianity - it just doesn't add up. The Islamic tradition - supported by references in other more ancient sources - explicitly states that there was an Imperial cabal to re-engineer Christianity away from its original roots - a conspiracy which involved the manufacture of false gospels like Matthew, Luke and John - which I happen to subscribe to.
I can't make sense of Clement's hypocrisy any other way.
Again if to Theodore is accepted to be authentic then Clement's hypocrisy is openly exposed and it is interestingly confirmed in Hippolytus' citation of Irenaeus' attack against the Marcosians (i.e. those of Mark), a sect I just spent fifty posts demonstrating had Clement as one of its most prominent (albeit ultimately secret) adherents.
"For also the blessed presbyter Irenaeus, having approached the subject of a refutation (of those of Mark) 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 these heretics) 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. Wherefore our anxiety has been more accurately to investigate, and to discover minutely what are the (instructions) which they deliver ... [Hippolytus AH vi.37]
I know people like Timo Paananen (whose blog I adore) ridicule the notion of 'conspiracy theories' - ancient of modern. Apparently there really was transparency in ancient despotism ...
Yet I wonder how else can Clement's perplexing attitude be explained toward Secret Mark? Who was it that his Alexandrian community was hiding the text from if not the rest of the church which used a shorter version of Mark WITHOUT THE HERETICAL ADDITIONS.
Morton Smith wrestled with Secret Mark for fifteen years KNOWING THE IMPLICATIONS of his discovery. I am utterly convinced that those who have lined up in favor of the authenticity HAVE NOT realized the full implications of this text. They aren't familiar enough with the writings of the Church Fathers. They are too stuck in the minutiae and so avoid (deliberately?) seeing the big picture.
I cannot accuse the 'hoaxers' of the same thing. As I already noted they see what to Theodore is all too clearly and so they declare:
How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning?
Yes I really think To Theodore is that much a danger to the existing order. Those who now argue for the authenticity of the letter might one day learn regret their efforts ...
