My assumptions are quite simple - by the end of the second century the Imperial government was actively attempting to reshape Christianity into something 'manageable.' In my mind there is no difference then than there is now. When George Bush and other world leaders make reference to 'good' and 'bad' forms of Islam they are in effect encouraging the spread of the forms of the religion which are more favorable to American and Western interests. To think that the Imperial government in Rome almost two thousand years ago DID NOT engage in the same policies is idiotic but this idiocy penetrates every level of the existing scholarship on early Christianity.
I happen to know that the Orthodox Patriarch in Jerusalem is actively trying to track down the Mar Saba letter. My guess is that the document will not be found but - I think that Agamemnon Tselikas' efforts to determine the authenticity of the document (see last month's Biblical Archaelology Review) will eventually prove that the letter is genuine.
At that point I think the debate about the Mar Saba letter will shift and alliances which now exist will break apart. There will still be a majority of scholars who will want to interpret the letter as if it was written in a religious environment pretty much like our own - i.e. four canonical gospels and 'Secret Mark' being a longer version of our canonical gospel of Mark.
Right now of course I am in the minority when I emphasize that Clement of Alexandria never references our canonical Gospel of Mark. He mentions three gospels - (a) the Alexandrian Gospel of Mark (which may or may not have been 'secret' or 'hidden'), (b) an 'account of the doings of the Lord' which Clement claims Mark wrote to capture the essence of the kerygma Petrou and (c) a falsely 'mixed' gospel associated with the Carpocratians which they claim is the gospel written by Mark.
It is only owing to our inherited prejudices that we think that (b) is the canonical gospel of Mark and that when Clement cites from what appears to be chapter ten of our Mark to demonstrate where the Alexandrian text seems to have 'additional material.'
You see there are two kinds of people. There are the kind of people who go in a large group to a foreign city, stay at a Holiday Inn, eat at McDonalds every night, go on tourist junkets to 'see the sites' and then come home and tell everyone 'what it is like' to be in this foreign country.
The other kind of person GOES ALONE, meets and makes friends with locals and completely immerses himself in the local culture.
The standard religious scholar is like the former person. He can only think in terms of our existing canon because - well - he is an unsophisticated boor.
The point however is that when we try and make sense of Clement's reference to the three aforementioned gospels, the real question which has to be asked EVEN IF IT CAN'T BE ANSWERED DEFINITIVELY is when was the Letter to Theodore written. In my opinion, the earlier the authorship of the letter is assigned the less likely it is that our canonical gospel of Mark is being referenced in the text and - moreover - the greater the likelihood that the 'mixed' gospel is, in fact 'the Gospel of the Mixed' i.e. the Syriac 'ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ ܕܡܚܠܛܐ' (Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê) which - as I have just noted has the connotation of 'the gospel of the circumcision' in Jewish Aramaic (as opposed to Syriac).
My guess (and I will spend next week going through the proofs behind this 'educated guess') is that Polycarp employed a Diatessaron. Polycarp is 'Carpocrates' by way of the gematria for 'the seven churches of Asia Minor' (Rev. ). As I noted in a previous post Carpocrates = 897 = 'the seven church which are in Asia.'
In any event, if Polycarp did indeed use a text which resembled Ephraim's Diatessaron as I suggest, my basic theory would be that Clement wrote To Theodore before the creation of the four-faced gospel and when the Diatessaron associated with John was the official gospel of the Polycarpian Church - or if you will the Maphryono Church which is the current name of the Syrian Orthodox tradition (literally "one who bears fruit" or "Polycarp" to use the Greek equivalent).
To get a crash course on my interpretation of Polycarp please read this article at Hermann Detering's site.
The basic point of the article is that the Maphryono Church, the one headed by Polycarp, was a sect of the Markan tradition of Alexandria. In the same way, that the Alexandrian sources tell us that a certain 'Carpocrates' copied and 'mixed' a gospel based on the Gospel of Mark held by the Alexandrian Church, Polycarp can be demonstrated to have visited Alexandria and went to Rome bringing with him a Gospel of John - which I believe got him into controversy with the prominent elder Gaius.
It is difficult of course to spell out exactly what happened in this gospel controversy of the late second century as we have so little independent sources left for us to employ. Nevertheless I believe that the Alexandrian community knew from its ancient canon that it followed a pattern of controversies which existed in the Church from the very beginning (cf. the Letter to the Galatians, 2 Corinthians etc.).
I suspect that in some manner the Alexandrian community had learned to reconcile itself between the two camps that employed the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Peter. In the end, the Markan tradition came out on top in the struggle and the former gospel was reserved for the elite who had underwent ritual initiation which the Gospel of Peter was the gospel of the greater Church.
It is my guess that by the time Irenaeus emerged in the Commodian period, he sought - with the 'assistance' of the Imperial government - to reconcile the plurality of gospels within a fourfold canon. According to Irenaeus' claims the Gospel of the Hebrews was properly identified with the Gospel of Matthew which now held the principle position within the canon.
I think too many scholars accept Irenaeus' claims without the proper scrutiny. The Gospel of Hebrews was first. No one disputes that. Irenaeus just says that it is properly defined as 'according to Matthew.' I think the actual situation in antiquity was a lot more complicated than this.
My suspicion is that when Polycarp emerged with his original Gospel attributed to John (what else could we expect from Polycarp?) it was above all else a 'mixed' text. It added new stories - attributed by Polycarp to 'John' - which the Alexandrian tradition wrote off as 'inventions' of Polycarp himself.
There clearly was a form of the Diatessaron which DID NOT HAVE this new 'Johannine material.' This is the gospel that was in the hands of Justin and likely also his disciple Tatian. Polycarp's text was eventually misidentified as Tatain's 'heretical' gospel owing to the incompatibility of admitting that Polycarp did not use Irenaeus' four-faced gospel (which is evident from Polycarp's only surviving letter to the Philippians').
I know this is getting very complicated for many of my readers but they have to remember that we have left the comfort of the canonical Matthew, Mark, Luke and John universe. I think in the period BEFORE Irenaeus there were a plurality of canons governed by a single, long gospel. The fact that Irenaeus misleads as much as he informs.
I must confess I don't know all the answers yet. I am taking a trip with my readers in order that we can figure out the truth together. There are bits and pieces that I have sorted out, but the big picture remains up for grabs. The place to start the next phase in our investigation is sorting out Polycarp's relationship with the Diatessaron or if you will the 'ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ ܕܡܚܠܛܐ' (Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê).
I am fairly certain that Clement's use of the term 'mixed' in To Theodore is reflecting an association between Polycarp's gospel according to John (also called 'Mark' hence the other part of Clement's argument) with the title 'the Gospel of the Mixed/Circumcision.'
Whether this was a historical remembrance of gospel controversies past (cf. Galatians 2:7) or a reflection that Polycarp identified the longer 'Diatessaron-like' gospel of John as the 'Gospel of the Circumcision' is difficult to say right not. I have learned so much engaging my readership over the last two months that I think that we can start sorting all of this out together over the next few weeks.
The one thing I am absolutely certain of whoever is that Clement is not saying that there were two gospels of Mark - one longer and one shorter - being used together in Alexandria and that yet another 'heretical' gospel of Mark was circulating among a sexually charged group of Christians. This is not what the Letter to Theodore actually says. It is only intellectual laziness, a lack of imagination and a profound fear of the unknown which has driven scholars to accept this otherwise untenable - but perfectly 'safe' - position.
Let's not be cowards like the rest of these babies. Let's try to make sense of Clement on his (Alexandrian) terms, once and for all.
We better hurry up, though. The proof that the Letter to Theodore is authentic is coming faster than most people realize. At least the regular readers of my blog will be prepared for that eventuality ...
