My Plans For Tomorrow - Photocopy Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron Discussion of Luke 10:22/Matt 11:27

I actually drove to the library this morning but the University of Washington library only opens at noon on Saturday. I got into this argument when the lady at the cashier told me that the ten dollars I paid was non-refundable (it IS refundable during the week). She directed me to the parking office where I went with wife, son and dog only to find out no one was there.

Oh the joys of being a second rate academic!

For those of you who don't follow my post every day, let me tell you some of the big exciting news I am working on. I discovered that the Gospel of Mark was originally longer than our received text. No I am not talking about the 'long ending' or Secret Mark for the moment. I discovered that Irenaeus witnessed that a certain passage now only found in Matthew and Luke was also in Mark. This can't be a mistake on Irenaeus' part. He is very specific in his testimony.

So what I am now trying to establish is where this section of text 'fit' in the narrative relative to our surviving text. The section in question read something like:

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. "All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."

I don't think anyone can reasonably make the case that just the one line - No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him - appeared in Irenaeus' Gospel of Mark. My hunch is that the second century Gospel of Mark promoted by Irenaeus had 'retained' the whole section cited above. I just don't know where it would have been placed in the existing narrative and whether more material was also there.

I also still think that Irenaeus' Gospel of Mark was different from the 'Secret Mark' text of Alexandria. I can't believe that the Gospel of Mark in Rome contained LGM 1 and LGM 2 (the two additions to Secret Mark mentioned in the Letter to Theodore). My guess would be that Irenaeus edited the Catholic Gospel of Mark from a copy of Secret Mark that was brought to Rome by the 'Marcellina the Carpocratian' who I identify with Marcia Aurelia Ceionia Demetrias the Christian mistress of Commodus. Again this is all speculation of course but Marcia could well have been called 'little Marcia' at the time 'Marcellina' is said to have come to Rome (150 - 167 CE).

I take 'Carpocrates' to be a corruption of Harpocrates and was developed from an ancient identification of Alexandrian Christianity as related to the cult of Serapis (of which Harpocrates was an important component).

In any event my working theory is that Secret Mark resembled the single, long gospel in other traditions including the Diatessaron and Irenaeus' Gospel of Mark was a shortened version of THAT text - and Clement knew that it was - and so develops the business in to Theodore about 'Secret Mark' being an extension of the gospel Mark wrote at Rome with Peter's notes (Clement, was a true 'hanif' like all Alexandrians).

More to follow ...