On the Anti-Markan Motivation of the Previous Editors of the Catholic Canon

I am about to cite the heart of Trobisch argument, the one where he argues that the canon is organized in a very specific manner. What purpose does the New Testament canon serve according to this great 'African' scholar? (lol - Trobisch was born to missionary parents in Africa) Trobisch PROVES something I think we have all suspected USING THE ARRANGEMENT OF PHYSICAL MANUSCRIPTS WHICH MAKE UP THE CANON. He says that the 'final editor' wanted to dispel any doubts about conflicts in the Church between the Petrine and Pauline Churches as witnessed by Galatians (and I would argue the last chapters of 2 Corinthians).

What makes Trobisch such a great scholar is his focus and discipline. Even if I had studied the same manuscripts and had all the knowledge that Trobisch has, I would inevitably have gotten that argument bogged down in various distractions. What makes the Final Edition of the New Testament such a great read is that he neatly side steps questions like whether or not the canon was developed in reaction against Marcion etc.

Yet as I like to engage in speculation (I think it defines who I am as a person). I am convinced that Irenaeus is the elusive final redactor of the canon. Indeed in personal conversations I have had with Trobisch he never shoots down my suggestion. Instead he behaves like a reasonable scholar - even a polite scholar - and says that he enjoys reading and listening to my theories but nevertheless refuses to endorse any of my ideas (he could avoid answering my calls if he thought I was a REAL waste of time).

Trobisch has also avoided making any public statement on where he stands on the Mar Saba letter. I wonder though if we can see something of a precursor to the Catholic reconciliation of the Petrine and Pauline Churches in that document.

As for Mark, then, during Peter's stay in Rome he wrote an account of the Lord's doings, not, however, declaring all of them, nor yet hinting at the secret ones, but selecting what he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed. But when Peter died a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria, bringing both his own notes and those of Peter, from which he transferred to his former book the things suitable to whatever makes for progress toward knowledge. Thus he composed a more spiritual Gospel for the use of those who were being perfected.

As I noted here before this Alexandrian formula represents a parallel reconciliation between two factions in the Church. The major difference of course is that we are talking about the Christians aligned with 'Simon' (called 'Peter') and those associated with Mark.

I know the standard way of reading Clement's Letter to Theodore is that it DOES NOT reflect a whole different orthodoxy but rather 'the story of the Alexandrian See' AS IF Alexandria were already part of the Greater Church. But - as I have noted many times before - why would the Alexandrians have joined a Church which did not even include Alexandria in the story of the birth and development of Christianity.

I have already made my position clear in previous posts - I think 'orthodoxy' as we know it was IMPOSED on Alexandria from without (and in specific Rome and the Imperial court where Irenaeus acknowledges he and others sat and enjoyed the good will of Commodus).

The reason Clement and Origen never OPENLY take pride in their native city and its connection to St. Mark is because it was verboten and 'heretical' to do so. The ONLY accepted historical model for Christian origins was the canonical Acts of the Apostles.

In any event, let's just acknowledge for a moment that the description of Mark's role in writing the gospel associated with Peter and the gospel of Mark might have represented a precursor to Irenaeus' efforts with the New Testament canon as Trobisch sees it. Let us ask why Mark takes the place of Paul a generation or two before Irenaeus.

Could it be that 'Paulos' - an appellation we have come to take as a name but is more likely a title - was never the name of the Apostle in Alexandria? Could it be that the letters attributed to 'Paulos' by the circle of Polycarp were identified as 'Markan' in Alexandria?

Now I admit there is no way to prove any of this. Nevertheless I do see some hints of this situation in the anti-Marcoionite writings. I don't want to bore the reader with the citation of statements in Hippolytus and other sources right not. But let me say something else.

We all know that Irenaeus made the case that the text Paul mentions as 'his gospel' was written by Luke. I don't believe it. Neither did the Marcionites. When I refer to the Real Messiah for instance as 'my book' it is strange for someone else to come along and say 'no really, what Huller meant to say that it is his book written by Alan Schwartz.'

To this end, the Marcionites (a name which can be translated as meaning 'those of Mark' in Aramaic) had a formula where the same guy that wrote the letters wrote the gospel wrote the apostolic letters. Irenaeus says, no there was one guy who wrote the letter with the help of 'fellow workers' and his gospel by other fellow workers. I don't believe a word of it but again where did Irenaeus get the idea for this craziness? Where is the precedent? As I will demonstrate this week in future posts I think it comes from Polycarp and his canon.

I will demonstrate that there is an abundance of evidence that suggests that before Irenaeus, the church of Polycarp believed the canon had just one gospel - the Gospel of John - and that John wrote this gospel for Paul. This is not something which I just made up in my head. There is plenty of physical evidence and references in the Church Fathers to support this position.

Under my scenario Luke was actually created after Polycarp's Gospel of John as an anti-gospel of Mark. The opening lines of Luke were actually taken from the longer Gospel of John which resembled the Diatessaron. 'Theophilus' was Theophilus of Antioch (so Kuhn also has concluded) and the editor of the Gospel of John was Polycarp who wrote the opening words:

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

As a testimony about his relationship with John, the eyewitness of Jesus and this part of the single, long Diatessaron was broken off canonical John and developed into the introduction of the newly manufactured 'Lukios' in the court of Lucius Commodus.

What is so interesting about this scheme is that we actually do have canons where there is just the Gospel of John and then Acts. Acts then would not be ascribed to Luke in the Polycarpian Church but to John Mark who - as Trobisch notes acts as the glue between the Petrine Church and the Pauline Church.

As I will demonstrate it is Irenaeus who developed his new canon AFTER Polycarp in such a way to introduce Luke as the author of Acts. He does this by arguing that Paul rejected John Mark to accompany him on his most important journey. Irenaeus takes great pains to point this passage out to his readers in a section of Against the Heresies which focuses on (a) those who reject the name Paul for the apostle and (b) those who reject Luke.

In any event all that we need to see now is that there is a natural progression from the reconciliation in To Theodore to the 'final edition' of the canon developed by Irenaeus THROUGH Polycarp:

a) Clement writes that Mark wrote BOTH the Gospel of (Simon) Peter and the Gospel of Mark, the latter gospel being 'more perfect' than the one written for the man Irenaeus and others saw as being the 'head of the apostles.' In Alexandrian orthodoxy we would likely have seen TWO canons - one for those of the faith (i.e. those outside the presbytery) which began with the Gospel of (Simon) Peter and whatever else was included in that canon and then ANOTHER canon for the FULL members of the Church, those who had undergone initiation into perfection where the Gospel according to Mark was ultimately followed by the so-called 'Pauline' letters and which I believe included a text called 'to the Alexandrians (how could Alexandrians not have believed in the Alexandrian letter?).

b) Polycarp then developed a parallel canon around the original and longer Gospel of John. This canon looked more like the canons of the Syrian Church. The 'Gospel of the Mixed' (which was according to John) was first, followed by Acts (which was understood to be written by John Mark), followed by the Pauline letters, the Johannine letters and other familiar texts and concluded with the Revelations of John. John Mark was now the interpreter of Paul who has just been introduced to the Christian universe. It is not hard to see that 'John Mark' is still Mark but Polycarp claimed that he met the apostle after he had left Alexandria and went on to Asia Minor. Polycarp's canon was ultimately met with hostility from members of the traditional order (Clement of Alexandria's To Theodore, Gaius of Rome) and division existed in the Church thereafter.

c) Irenaeus attempted to reconcile the divisions in the Church by a fourfold division of the gospel which ultimately subordinated both Mark and Paul to John and Peter. I believe Polycarp claimed that John was 'John Mark' and that his version of the gospel was 'truer' that the one in Alexandria and/or the Marcionite text (assuming that these weren't the same which I think they were). Irenaeus developed John and Mark into two different people, ended John's original role in Polycarp's community as author of Paul's gospel, ended Mark's role in the Alexandrian Church as the author of the Gospel of Peter and subordinated the Gospel of Mark to all gospels of the canon making it so short that it had no real value other than to deny the existence of all other Gospel of Mark's in circulation in Alexandria or among the Marcionites.

Irenaeus then not only developed Polycarp's canon of Paul, John Mark and Peter he moved the headquarters of the Church from Peter's original See of Antioch (as reflected in the Acts of the Apostles) to Rome and in the process claimed that the Gospel of Mark was written for Peter in Rome (something which To Theodore never claims; that claim is reserved for the Gospel of Peter). Nevertheless to diminish the importance of the revelation of Mark, the Gospel of Matthew is given the primary spot even though the Gospel of Mark was purportedly written for the head of the Church Peter (!).

In other words, all features of the new canon had the purpose of subordinating and attacking the original Alexandrian revelation of Mark as referenced in the Letter to Theodore.

The Gospel of Mark lies like a dead shell of the text's original glory. All the contentious passages which were used to support Marcionite or Alexandrian arguments about the role of Jesus in the community of Mark were isolated in the Gospel of Luke and written with the implied authority of Lucius Commodus the disciples namesake.

Irenaeus then says that 'the Gospel of the Marcionites' was really a bastard copy of this text KNOWING THAT THE COMMUNITY IN QUESTION WOULD NEVER REVEAL THE SHAPE AND CONTENT OF ITS SECRET, SACRED GOSPEL. In other words, there never was a 'Marcionite' gospel but rather a community which 'belonged to Mark' (Marqiyone) in Alexandria which used a variant Gospel of Mark. The battlefield as it were which Irenaeus and the Catholics waged war against the Alexandrians was fought against GOSPEL READINGS - the actual physical text of the Evangelium was never revealed.

By stigmatizing READINGS as 'Marcionite' they prevented their dissemination. It wasn't only Clement who denied that his gospel was by Mark. Look at the Marcionites in corrupted copies of the Dialogues of Adamantius after a debate as to whether the Gospel really belongs to Peter (sounds Markan doesn't it?).

On the previous page, the statement by Peter, “you are the Christ” has been raised. Eutropius the pagan arbitrator asks whether Peter wrote the gospel. The Marcionite Marcus replies “Christ, not Peter, wrote the gospel.”

Pretty: “What right has Marcus to say that Christ wrote the gospel. The Gospel writer did not refer to himself; he refers to him who he is proclaiming – Jesus Christ.”

Rufinus: “Deinde quomodo dicit Christum scripsisse euangelium? Non enim tanquam de se scribens loquitur scriptor euangelii, sed tanquam alium et qui extra se sit praedicans Christum.”

Greek: “πῶς δὲ λέγει τὸν Χριστὸν γεγραφηκέναι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον? οὐ γὰρ ὡς περὶ αὑτοῦ ὁ γράψας τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἐσήμανε, σημαίνει ὃν κηρύσσει Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν,…”

Attempt from Greek: “But how does he say that the Christ has written the gospel? For he who wrote the gospel did not indicate himself, he indicates the one he is proclaiming – Christ Jesus.”

The point is that there are uncanny parallels as to whether Mark is the author of BOTH the so-called 'Marcionite' gospel and the Gospel of Mark of Alexandria. The inclusion of Peter into the mix in the Marcionite debate further references that it is the Gospel of Mark which is being referenced (remember BOTH Mark and the so-called 'Gospel of Marcion' begin with Mark 1:1 - it forms their title i.e. the Gospel of Jesus). Hippolytus' statement is now instructive:

When, therefore, Marcion or some one of his hounds barks against the Demiurge, and adduces reasons from a comparison of what is good and bad, we ought to say to them, that neither Paul the apostle nor Mark, he of the maimed finger, announced such (tenets). For none of these (doctrines) has been written in the Gospel according to Mark. [Hippolytus Ref. vii. 18]

I think that Trobisch's analysis is brilliant but it only goes so far. It wasn't just that Irenaeus was arguing FOR the working together of all the members of the Church. This is just the beginning. Let us ask - why should it matter than the Church had so many members were working together? Was it just to define or redefine pre-existing texts and personalities in the Church?

No I think that isn't it.

I think Irenaeus divined the weakness of the Markan tradition and its reliance on a single witness - i.e. St. Mark. Mark as I have always argued was originally much more like Mohammed than people would care to acknowledge. He had a heavenly revelation where he received the true Torah or the Torah according to perfection (the gospel) but this was ultimately a PERSONAL REVELATION (there were no human witnesses).

Maimonides only refers to the founder of Islam as 'the madman' for this reason. As there were no witnesses to his revelation the Jews tried to write it off as the product of a madman.

That is why in the rewrites of the Pauline canon we see 'Paul' confront and sometimes acknowledge that he is sounding like a madman. Just think of his employment also of Deuteronomy 17.6.

The editor of the canon NEEDED to surround HIS PAUL with countless fellow workers who - although able to prove his personal revelation - could now vouch for his orthodox character.

Irenaeus had divined the weakness of the Markan system when it ran afoul of the Roman government. They had an 'unspeakable' revelation - i.e. one that couldn't be revealed. The contents of their gospel, the identity of their apostle and his relation with the contemporary world couldn't be revealed to those outside the initiated.

Irenaeus did what any strategist would do - he controlled the identity of the Church for those on the outside and made 'secret knowledge' of any kind heretical. Just read Irenaeus again you'll see what I mean.

As such his reformation of the canon wasn't just to hide disunity in the Church but also it was a deliberate attempt to subordinate Alexandria, the Alexandrian gospel and the Alexandrian apostle by exploiting the traditions most glaring weakness - its secrecy.