It is impossible for a mzungu to imagine how frustrating it is to be a Jew in the study of earliest Christianity. Before a chorus shouts 'Then just get out of the field!' I have to acknowledge that I must have a masochistic streak in my genetic wiring. How else can I endure being stuck among this lot of men?Indeed I have to sometimes wonder how I have managed to put up with countless 'experts' who write endless papers on what amounts to being a first century Jewish messianic tradition with no discernible Jewish messiah.
Indeed don't get me started on the European concept of 'Jesus Christ.' There's an oxymoron if there ever was one. I will just remind the reader that Jesus never once applies the title 'Christ' to his own person in the gospel. If that isn't enough to raise serious doubts about WHAT ELSE two thousand years wazungu research into the origins of a non-existent first century tradition, I don't know what else will ...
All of which leads us back to my main point. In order to establish a rational explanation for the origins of Christianity we can't start in the middle. We can't begin with what Mommy and Daddy and their Mommies and Daddies believed was the 'story of the origins of Christianity.'
Instead of recycling the same nonsensical 'faith-based claims' developed from the Acts of the Apostles and other Catholic pseudepigryphal texts, we owe to ourselves and to science itself to actually develop alternative explanations which don't rely on these tradition.
Clearly none of us can honestly claim that a 'spirit' speaking to four different people in four different parts of the world is a SCIENTIFIC explanation which similarities and differences in the canonical gospels. So why keep pretending that it is?
It is about time that we move on and find other explanations to the phenomena in question instead of just changing words around to make faith 'scientific-sounding.'
The earliest sects OUTSIDE the Catholic Church rejected the Catholic canon as a 'deceitful codex.' At the very least we at least owe to it to ourselves to figure out the story of Christian origins in those very same traditions which rejected Acts.
I know it might seem like groping in the dark for some but there are some ready places for us to start. Indeed I happen to think the Letter to Theodore will end up being the cornerstone upon which all future models of scientific research into the origin of Christianity will be based.
Whatever the case may be, I think I have done some trailblazing work in this regard with my discovery that Clement of Alexandria was really a member of the very 'Marcosian' or 'Markian' sect condemned by Irenaeus in nine of the thirty one chapters of the First Book of his Against the Heresies. I believe that it completely transforms our whole understanding of the Letter to Theodore.
Let me say for the record that I see no evidence for Morton Smith's discovery as anything but authentic. Where there is no smoke there is by inference no reason to look for a fire.
Yet my discovery that Clement was a member of the aforementioned 'Markians' changes everything. It finally shines light on something that Morton Smith could never adequately explain - the actual context behind Clement's writing the Letter to Theodore.
What I propose is that there is enough evidence to suggest that Irenaeus and Hippolytus were aware of the Letter to Theodore or 'Secret Mark' and its ritual context in the contemporary Alexandrian Christian community. All that is required is for the reader is to acknowledge my irrefutable proofs that Clement was indeed a 'Marcosian' and then discern a number of places within the body of Irenaeus' work (and that of his disciple Hippolytus) which demonstrates an ongoing dialogue between the Roman and Alexandrian communities regarding the identity of St. Mark, his proper role within Christianity and the true shape of his gospel.
Let's start, however, at what I consider to be the clearest sign that the Roman Church was engaged in a 'dialogue' regarding a secret tradition associated with St. Mark.
Hippolytus notes in Book Six of his Against the Heresies that the Markians:
on meeting with (Irenaeus' work), deny that they have so received, but they have learned that always they should deny" [Hippolytus AH vi.37]
As I have noted many times this sounds remarkably similar to Clement's own curious instruction in the Letter to Theodore that to those who
put forward their falsifications [about the true shape of the Gospel of Mark], 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. Again it says, "From him who has not shall be taken away", and "Let the fool walk in darkness."
Scott Brown wants us to believe that this instruction was ONLY directed at the Carpocratians. He has told me in a personal correspondence that there is no way that the Roman Church could be inferred to be the subject of Clement's admonition. Yet I counter that the only 'Carpocratians' we ever see up close are Christian ex-patriots of Alexandria living in Rome like the 'Marcellina' mentioned in later rewrites of Book One of Irenaeus' Against the Heresies.
The point here is that while 'Carpocrates' was a wholly imaginary figure developed from a garbling of 'Harpocrates,' the young Horos of the Hellenistic cult of Serapis, the only 'Carpocratians' we ever come across in the writings of the Church Fathers are prominent Alexandrian Christians making a name for themselves outside of Egypt - and in particular Rome. It's not so simple then to say that Clement isn't addressing 'misrepresentations' of Alexandrian Christianity among ex-patriots active in the Roman Church. We just have to learn to see things with a critical eye.
If we get back to our original comparison of Hippolytus' notice and the Letter to Theodore, we should begin by acknowledging that Clement is specifically talking about denying that idea that St. Mark was the 'Mark' behind the 'secret gospel.' This much even Scott Brown will acknowledge. However there is more to Clement's denial than just this. Clement says that Secret Mark is actually responsible for the central baptismal ritual which establishes 'initiates' into the mysteries of the Alexandrian community.
We don't need Morton Smith's interpretation of LGM 1 or the first 'addition' to the Gospel of Mark mentioned in the Letter to Theodore. Clement makes this clear in his first paragraph where he says that St. 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."
This can only mean one thing - this variant Alexandrian autograph of the Gospel of Mark and this text alone was the basis for the contemporary Alexandrian baptismal rituals.
The point here is that Irenaeus in his report identifies 'another Mark' - a heretical 'boogey man' who ran around the Empire establishing a rival church and gospel to the orthodox tradition of Peter AND a rival baptismal ritual based on the same section of the gospel of Mark that LGM 1 now appears.
As I have noted many times in my blog posts there is absolutely nothing in chapter ten of our canonical gospel of Mark which would have suggested the rival baptismal ritual of the heretics. When anyone stops and thinks about matters, the evidence of LGM 1 in the Letter to Theodore is EXACTLY the kind of thing which the Marcosians would have used to develop their 'redemption' rite.
Of course with my discovery that Clement was in fact a Marcosian we come back full circle to where we began. Irenaeus and Hippolytus become ancient witnesses for the existence of Secret Mark.
Hippolytus makes clear that the the 'Markians' pointed to misrepresentations in Irenaeus' original report which has to do with the CONTEXT of the redemption baptism - a baptism INTO Jesus, which transformed our mortal nature into something 'perfect. Hippolytus says again that
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 the Marcosians,) 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 in the case of the first bath, styling it by some such name; and in the case of the second, which they denominate Redemption. But not even has this secret of theirs escaped. [ibid]
The point of course is that Irenaeus also defines two baths - one associated with John the Baptist for the redemption of sins and a second 'redemption' baptism associated with Mark chapter 10 just before (as I have argued elsewhere) Mark 10.38 where Jesus addresses the request of the sons of Zebedee to sit at his left and right.
When taken together it certainly appears that Hippolytus and Clement are referencing the same 'situation' - i.e. where Irenaeus has written a report about the followers of Mark WHO ARE MEMBERS OF THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL OF ST. MARK but who 'deny' their association with this evangelist just as Clement proscribes in his Letter to Theodore.
As Robert McQueen Grant notes Irenaeus continued to produce books in the Against the Heresies series after his initial report in Book One (fed by false information presumably by leading members of the Markan tradition who should be associated with or identified as Clement of Alexandria himself).
Interestingly Book Three has Irenaeus introduce his fourfold gospel against a background of a gnostic tradition which 'prefers' the Gospel of Mark [AH iii.11.7] and more significantly he seems to introduce the whole work with words with reflect awareness of Clement's Letter to Theodore or again - like his student Hippolytus - with Clement's methodology:
Since, therefore, the tradition from the apostles does thus exist in the Church, and is permanent among us, let us revert to the Scriptural proof furnished by those apostles who did also write the Gospel, in which they recorded the doctrine regarding God, pointing out that our Lord Jesus Christ is the truth, and that no lie is in Him. As also David says, prophesying His birth from a virgin, and the resurrection from the dead, "Truth has sprung out of the earth." The apostles, likewise, being disciples of the truth, are above all falsehood; for a lie has no fellowship with the truth, just as darkness has none with light, but the presence of the one shuts out that of the other. Our Lord, therefore, being the truth, did not speak lies; and whom He knew to have taken origin from a defect, He never would have acknowledged as God, even the God of all, the Supreme King, too, and His own Father, an imperfect being as a perfect one, an animal one as a spiritual, Him who was without the Pleroma as Him who was within it. Neither did His disciples make mention of any other God, or term any other Lord, except Him, who was truly the God and Lord of all, as 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. And to those who imagined that the Demiurge alone was God, they preached him; 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. For the apostles, who were commissioned to find out the wanderers, and to be for sight to those who saw not, and medicine to the weak, certainly did not address them in accordance with their opinion at the time, but according to revealed truth. For no persons of any kind would act properly, if they should advise blind men, just about to fall over a precipice, to continue their most dangerous path, as if it were the right one, and as if they might go on in safety. Or what medical man, anxious to heal a sick person, would prescribe in accordance with the patient's whims, and not according to the requisite medicine? But that the Lord came as the physician of the sick, He does Himself declare saying, "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." How then shall the sick be strengthened, or how shall sinners come to repentance? Is it by persevering in the very same courses? or, on the contrary, is it by undergoing a great change and reversal of their former mode of living, by which they have brought upon themselves no slight amount of sickness, and many sins? But ignorance, the mother of all these, is driven out by knowledge. Wherefore the Lord used to impart knowledge to His disciples, by which also it was His practice to heal those who were suffering, and to keep back sinners from sin. He therefore did not address them in accordance with their pristine notions, nor did He reply to them in harmony with the opinion of His questioners, but according to the doctrine leading to salvation, without hypocrisy or respect of person. [AH iii.5.1,2]
The ENTIRE BEGINNING of Book Three of Irenaeus' Against the Heresies - written near the end of the reign of Commodus (c. 190 CE) - can be viewed as a reaction to the writings of Clement generally but also a number of points specifically raised in the Letter to Theodore and its instantiation of a 'secret gospel' of Mark.
Clement again urges his hearers to "deny it on oath" saying that "Not all true things are to be said to all men." Earlier in the same letter Clement identifies 'truth' with this physical object hidden behind the seven veils of the adyton of the Church of St. Mark. I have an article coming out this month in the Journal of Coptic Studies which identifies this object with the throne of St. Mark, which I believe the cattedra di San Marco of Venice is either a copy or the same throne mentioned in the letter.
Irenaeus however argues against identifying 'truth' with a physical object on which the 'power of God' resides and has the power to transform mortals into living representatives of Christ (see my article). Irenaeus instead - as a number of scholar have noted - identifies 'truth' with the rival Episcopal throne of St. Peter.
Yet more interesting for us is the fact that Irenaeus goes on to specifically tackle Clement's charge that 'the Wisdom of God' implores Christians not only to deny the existence of the secret gospel but to:
"Answer the fool from his folly", teaching that the light of the truth should be hidden from those who are mentally blind. Again it says, "From him who has not shall be taken away", and "Let the fool walk in darkness."
It is against this teaching that Irenaeus develops the argument that:
The apostles, likewise, being disciples of the truth, are above all [such] falsehood; for a lie has no fellowship with the truth, just as darkness has none with light, but the presence of the one shuts out that of the other. Our Lord, therefore, being the truth, did not speak lies ... as 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. For the apostles, who were commissioned to find out the wanderers, and to be for sight to those who saw not, and medicine to the weak, certainly did not address them in accordance with their opinion at the time, but according to revealed truth. [ibid]
I hope at least some readers can see that I am on the verge of a grand revaluation of all traditional interpretations of Christianity with the Letter to Theodore as the core of my revelation. Clement of Alexandria REALLY WAS a Marcosian. The Diatessaron-like gospel mentioned in Irenaeus' report REALLY WAS an allusion to readings from Secret Mark. Clement and Irenaeus were REALLY playing a cat and mouse game which led to the creation of our FALSE fourfold canon.
Scholarship has to start taking these ideas seriously in order to arrive at a scientific explanation of the origins of Christianity ... but first we have to take a wrecking ball to the tradition as a whole.
That day is coming, my friends. I call it the day of vengeance and recompense. It will start in the year of favor which will begin in 2010. Just wait, my friends, Just wait.
I will not disappoint you, I promise ...
