A Second Look at Irenaeus's Reference to a 'Hidden Gospel of the Perfect'

I know my writing style must be frustrating for some.  I don't know if anyone has noticed this yet, but I never think I have it 'figured out.'  I go back and forth going over the same material, looking at it upside down, rightside up, backwards, forwards seemingly forever.  I have very little interest in the New Testament.   My principal focus is the writings of the first commentaries on the earliest writings associated with the Fathers of the Church. I am more interested in what the earliest interpretations of the original sources rather than the original sources themselves. 

The reason why I approach matters this way is quite simple - I don't trust myself, or perhaps it would be better to say, that I don't trust my own presuppositions.  Maybe I want to interpret a certain text one way, but I'd rather have an early witness tell me it is possible to interpret it that way.  That's how the rabbinic sources develop Biblical material.  Perhaps I still Jewish for the study of early Christianity.  Who knows. 

In any event I made an important discovery this week, one which completely transformed my interpretation of the Marcionite gospel.  I think that Clement's Letter to Theodore when read alongside 1 Corinthians 2.1 - 7  read the way Marcionites interpreted it implies that the so-called 'Secret Gospel of Mark' was the Gospel of Marcionite community.  Indeed the Church Fathers already imply this throughout their attack against the Marcionite tradition - i.e. that their gospel was produced after the 'Catholic original(s).' 

Yet there is so much more here.  Every day there is so much to consider.  Yet for the moment I would like to go back to the place where I got the inspiration for connecting the Letter to Theodore to 1 Corinthians Chapter 2, that is Irenaeus Against Heresies Book Three Chapter Two.  I want to demonstrate why it is often a good idea not to listen to the experts.  It was because of them that I didn't see a deeper layer to the original reference. 

In a previous post I showed that the context of Irenaeus's reference to the unnamed heretics interpretation of 1 Corithians 2.6 was a 'hidden gospel' they reserved for 'the perfect.'  Irenaeus criticizes the heretics for claiming that they and their gospel was superior to the revelation given to Peter and the apostles.  I showed that Irenaeus's paradigm is the same as what is described in to Theodore only from a hostile point of view - i.e. a 'secret gospel' which is claimed to be superior to a preaching associated with Peter and the Roman tradition. 

What I didn't realize at the time is that I wrote this was that Irenaeus actually reports that the heretics pointed to two passages in the writings of Paul to support the authority of their 'secret gospel.'  When I looked closer 1 Corinthians Chapter 2 is actually introduced by an allusion to 2 Corinthians Chapter 3.  The original passage in Irenaeus:

When, however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of [their] tradition. For that the truth was not delivered by means of letters, but word of mouth (viva voce): wherefore also Paul declared, "But we speak wisdom among those that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world." And this wisdom each one of them alleges to be the fiction of his own inventing, forsooth; so that, according to their idea, the truth properly resides at one time in Valentinus, at another in Marcion, at another in Cerinthus, then afterwards in Basilides [AH 3.2.1]

The reference to 1 Corinthians 2.6 is obvious but because this section of the writings of Irenaeus only survive in Latin the juxtaposition of littera or 'letters' to viva voce which is usually translated as 'living voice.'  Yet because Irenaeus originally composed his text in Greek there is a strong possibility here that understanding only the literal meaning of voce might not be correct. 

Let's start with the pertinent argument in 2 Corinthians Chapter 3 where the apostle references a "new testament" which is "not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."  The Vulgate rendering of the last words is 'littera enim occidit, Spiritus autem vivificat' while Irenaeus speaks of the heretics emphasizing "non enim per literas traditam illam, sed per viva vocem."  Yet Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary makes clear that often vox is used not to signify a 'human voice' but that which is uttered by the voice, i. e. a word, saying, speech, sentence, proverb, maxim.  I strongly suspect that once again the same 'secret gospel' we have argued is being referenced in 1 Corinthians Chapter Two is also being invoked here. 

Notice how 1 Corinthians continually references the idea of the 'secret wisdom' being transmited by mouth to the perfect.  This is certainly present in the description of the mysteries associated with the 'secret gospel' in To Theodore.  The material in 2 Corinthians similarly describes a transformation of people according to a written text which is also 'spoken' in some ritual context involving the taking away of a veil.  The specific terminology 'secret gospel' appears a little later in this section (2 Cor 4 ).  The rituals associated with Secret Mark also involve someone 'speaking' or 'reading' the text according to the mysteries associated with it. 

Yet before we go too far down this road it is enough that we notice that the 'secret gospel' in To Theodore is at once a 'spiritual' text.  The terminology is very specific and it differentiates the gospel from its rivals:

Thus he composed a more spiritual Gospel for the use of those who were being perfected. Nevertheless, he yet did not divulge the things not to be uttered, nor did he write down the hierophantic teaching of the Lord, but to the stories already written he added yet others and, moreover, brought in certain sayings of which he knew the interpretation would, as a mystagogue, lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils. Thus, in sum, he prepared matters, neither grudgingly nor incautiously, in my opinion, and, dying, he 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.

There has been a lot written on the strange description of the gospel as a 'more spiritual gospel.'  I think that Irenaeus's allusion to 2 Corinthians 3 helps us provide some much needed context. 

The real question comes down to what the apostle is trying to convey in 2 Corinthians.  It would ridiculous to claim that he means here everyone should abandon writing things down.  As most scholars agree the underlying contrast here is not between 'writing things down' and 'feeling things' but the “letter” [of the law] and “spirit” (γράμμα and πνεῦμα).  This is certainly the Marcionite interpretation of the passage which Tertullian (or his original source) to some degree also acknowledges:

So also the New Testament will belong to none other than him who made that promise: even if the letter is not his, yet the Spirit is: herein lies the newness. Indeed he who had engraved the letter upon tables of stone is the same who also proclaimed, in reference to the Spirit, I will pour forth of my Spirit upon allflesh. And if the letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life, both of them belong to him who said, I will kill and I will make alive, I will smite and I will heal.  I have long ago established my contention that the Creator's power is twofold, that he is both judge and kind, that by the letter he kills through the law, and by the Spirit he makes alive through the gospel.

So clearly the apostle by everyone's definitiion is contrasting the 'letters' of the Law with a more spiritual or 'spiritual' gospel.  The point is now that this reconstruction is a far better explanation of Irenaeus's original introduction of 1 Cor 2.6 than the common assumption among people like Pagels who claim that it is the heretics 'oral tradition' which is being condemned here.

As we have noted many times Irenaeus makes explicit that the heretics are pointing to some writing - even a gospel - which is argued to have been an improvement over what is preserved in Rome and associated with Peter and the apostles.  Indeed when we go back to the original reference in Irenaeus there can be no doubt that he is clearly channeling the arguments of 2 Corinthians Chapter 3:

When, however, they are confuted from the [Catholic] Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of [their] tradition. For that the truth was not delivered by means of writings, but viva voce: wherefore also Paul declared, "But we speak wisdom among those that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world." And this wisdom each one of them alleges to be the fiction of his own inventing, forsooth; so that, according to their idea, the truth properly resides at one time in Valentinus, at another in Marcion, at another in Cerinthus, then afterwards in Basilides, or has even been indifferently in any other opponent, who could speak nothing pertaining to salvation. For every one of these men, being altogether of a perverse disposition, depraving the system of truth, is not ashamed to preach himself.

But, again, when we refer them to that tradition which originates from the apostles, [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. For [they maintain] that the apostles intermingled the things of the law with the words of the Saviour; and that not the apostles alone, but even the Lord Himself, spoke as at one time from the Demiurge, at another from the intermediate place, and yet again from the Pleroma, but that they themselves, indubitably, unsulliedly, and purely, have knowledge of the hidden mystery: this is, indeed, to blaspheme their Creator after a most impudent manner! It comes to this, therefore, that these men do now consent neither to [our] Scripture nor to [our] tradition. [Irenaeus AH 3.2.1,2]

Clearly then Pagels is certainly wrong when it comes interpreting the juxtaposition between 'writings' and 'viva voce' as something to do with a mystical hermeneutic passed from gnostic to gnostic by word of mouth.  There can be no doubt that the real context is 2 Corinthians Chapter 3. 

Why then would the material in 2 Corinthians be connected with 1 Corinthians 2.6 by the heretics - i.e. "we speak [hidden] wisdom among those that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world"?  Well, as we already noted 'wisdom of the world' is a reference to Jewish Law.  This clearly a prominent topic in 2 Corinthians Chapter 3.  Yet more important than this is the fact that the argument in 2 Corinthians eventually goes on to specifically mention a 'secret gospel':

And even if our gospel is hidden, it is hidden to those who are perishing. The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God [2 Cor 4.3,4]

I defy anyone to look again at Tertullian's analysis of the Marcionite interpretation of this material and deny even for a moment that the sectarians believed that they had a 'secret' and 'more spiritual' gospel in their possession and that these arguments were developed from their interpretation of the Apostolikon (i.e. the so-called 'letters of Paul').

To this end we enter into a radical new interpretation of the Marcionite canon.  The Marcionite must have read both the materials in 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians as ultimately supporting the idea that they had a secret and more spiritual gospel which was written after the preaching of the original apostles.  In that much the Church Fathers might have been accurate.  I even think the remaining portion of 2 Corinthians Chapter Four demonstrates that the opening words of the Marcionite gospel must have resembled the Johannine prolegomena.

Yet these are things for another time.  It is enough to merely say for the moment that we shouldn't always believe what the 'experts' tell us.  In the case of Irenaeus's 'viva voce' it has helped contribute to the veil of ignorance not being lifted from our appreciation of to Theodore.