As it stands we have uncovered what is certainly a historical context for Clement's seemingly 'unprecedented' statements about a 'mystic gospel' of Mark in the Letter to Theodore. As we noted in our last post in this series the Letter to Theodore's claims about a contemporary struggle over the proper interpretation of an Alexandrian gospel are witnessed in Clement's other writings. No one else seems to have noticed that this struggle seems focused on one chapter in this Alexandrian gospel - viz. the equivalent of Mark chapter 10.
We just demonstrated in the first part of this series that the first eleven chapters of his Stromata Book Three focus on a line from an Alexandrian version of Mark 10:17 - 30 - a strange textual variant which he repeatedly cites as 'But I say, Thou shalt not lust' and on one occasion the full sentence is cited 'But Jesus said "You have heard that the law commanded, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say, Thou shalt not lust.' I also noted in our previous post that Clement's writings make absolutely certain that this line derives its origins from a variant text of Mark 10:18. The closest parallel is actually found in Aphraates Demonstrations XX where he quotes the following from the opening words of the same section in his Diatessaron "And again, regarding that rich [man] who came before our Lord, and said to him, 'What shall I do that I may inherit life eternal?'. Our Lord says to him, 'You shall not commit adultery.'"
Yet we went beyond this observation and noted that C A Phillips showed that many ancient writers witness an ancient gospel related to the Diatessaron which actually blend together three or four seemingly separate narratives in our four canonical gospels into a tightly woven 'secret' narrative. When we reconcile the order of narratives in this section of the Diatessaron (i.e. from Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron) with Epiphanius's report that the Marcionite omitted the Parable of the Vineyard (Panarion Scholia 55; Tertullian fails to reference the saying in Against Marcion 4.38), we end up with the following:
- The Rich Fool
- The Rich Youth
- The Rich Man's Discussion with Abraham in the Underworld
- The Resurrection of the Rich Youth (LGM 1)
- Salome's Request for the Enthronement of her Children
- Zacchaeus
- Blind Man of Jericho
It is very difficult I think for people to even consider that this section of the gospel might have been the most important in the whole narrative. Our focus usually is in thinking of Jesus's crucifixion as its climax. Nevertheless it is without question that Clement and the Carpocratians were locked in a bitter struggle over the implications of this material. For those who do not accept the authenticity of to Theodore there are still two important treatises to consider - viz. Stromata Book Three which deals displays the interconnectedness of (1) and (2) and Quis Dives Salvetur which connects (2) and (6) to establish the central doctrine of the Alexandrian Church.
I want to leave aside a detailed examination of Quis Dives Salvetur for the moment. I have said many times now that I don't want to overwhelm the reader with information. Instead I want to focus our attention on another writer, Aphrahat the Persian and see how his exegesis of the interconnectedness of the aforementioned material in Demonstration XX.
Of course I remind my readers that Phillips has already laid out the case for the interrelatedness of the material in Aphrahat's writings. Nevertheless it is sometimes useful to confirm the observations of others on our own. Shemunkasho for instances notes that Aphrahat connects (1) and (3):
"Aphrahat refers to the episode of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19-31) to explain the parable of the rich fool (Lk 12:13 - 31)" [Aho Shemunkasho Healing in the Writings of Ephrem p.75]While Murray notes a much more startling interpretation which seems to connect (3) and (4) when he references:
the unique example in Aphrahat of an allegorical interpretation of a parable of Jesus namely 'Dives and Lazarus', which comes in strangely in the Demonstration'' On Almsgiving' Dives stands for 'the nation which ate and grew fat, kicked and forgot the Lord (Deut 32:15); one might expect Lazarus to stand for the Gentiles, but no: "the poor man who lay at his gate is a similitude of our Saviour. He longed and sighed to get some fruit from them and receive it for him that had sent him ; but no man gave to him. And where he said the dogs came and licked his sores, the dogs that came are the Gentiles who lick the wounds of our Saviour - his Body which they receive and place on their eyes." (Dem. 20.905.13 - 19)
As Murray goes on to note that "Aphrahat seems to have specially liked the figure of 'licking Christ's wounds' for this practice, for he brings it in in a totally different context in vn, 349.8-1 1 ; cf. ix, 432. 16-19. On similar references in Ephrem, see E. Beck, Die Eucharistic,' p. 65, n. 73."
The reason I suggest a connection between this interpretation and the idea of the rich youth resurrected in LGM 1 is because it naturally follows from Marcionite theology. The Marcionites always emphasized that Jesus wasn't the messiah of the Old Testament; that was apparently 'someone else.' They took special interest in the question posed to Jesus 'are you the one to come or do we look for 'someone else'? (Matt 11.2 - 6) Irenaeus says explicitly that those who preferred another Gospel of Mark "separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered." It should be clear that for Clement being 'impassable' is the purpose of the Alexandrian mysteries.
The identification of Lazarus as the Lord makes absolutely no sense in our conventional understanding of the passage. It makes far more sense, I would argue, that he is the same Eliezar who appears as an angelic hypostasis in the Genesis narrativewhere Abraham took “318 men” to pursue the four kings (
Yet this line of interpretation is also already found in the Epistle of Barnabas and most importantly in a section of the writings of Clement of Alexandria which Schaff has demonstrated draw from the heretical tradition of the so-called 'Marcosians' i.e. those of Mark' (cf. Irenaeius AH 1.14.5). Clement writes:
As then in astronomy we have Abraham as an instance, so also in arithmetic we have the same Abraham. “For, hearing that Lot was taken captive, and having numbered his own servants, born in his house, 318 (τιη),” he defeats a very great number of the enemy. They say, then, that the character representing 300 is, as to shape, the type of the Lord’s sign, and that the Iota and the Eta indicate the Saviour’s name; that it was indicated, accordingly, that Abraham’s domestics were in salvation, who having fled to the Sign and the Name became lords of the captives, and of the very many unbelieving nations that followed them. [Clement Stromata 6.11]
I don't think anyone would object to the identification of the Greek name Lazarus (Λαζάρου) as a form of the Hebrew Eliezar. To argue against this would be utterly reckless.
At the same time it has to be recognized that Eliezar the servant could easily be developed into a prototype of the Paraclete. The first mention of "captive" in the Bible is where Abraham, hearing that "his brother, Lot, was taken captive," arms "Eliezer" (as Jewish tradition interprets the passage) — the symbol of the Help of God— and brings back the captives. This is the traditional function of the messianic 'comforter' or manachem (i.e. Greek Parakletos) in Jewish literature.
There is certainly a lot in the Lazarus and Dives narrative which would suggest that Lazarus prefigured the coming of the 'Comforter.' The rich man calls to Abraham to send Lazarus to comfort him. The word for "comfort" is parakaleo. It is akin to parakletos the one who is to come after Jesus is crucified and identified by the Marcionites with the apostle called 'Paul' by the Catholic tradition. Lazarus is said to have been called near to Abraham's side. Lying at one's bosom or chest suggests comfort, care and intimacy. It is a desired position at the heavenly banquet (see 13:28–29; Jn 13:22). Three times the rich man begs Father Abraham to send Lazarus for help: first for a bit of of water, then to warn his brothers, and finally to plea again that his brothers might repent (16:24, 27, 30).
Of course since scholars ignore the underlying Marcionite identfiication of Paul as the awaited Paraclete (implicit in Origen Hom. Luc 23, and explicit in the throughout Acts of Archelaus). Eznik of Kolb spells it out in the following terms "Jesus, having left the Lord of creatures, took Paul and delights, and he found redemption, and sent him to preach (and advertise) that: "We are redeemed (by redemption), and whoever believes in Jesus has been sold by the right (being good)." [Eznik Ref. 4.1] The connection between the apostle and 'redemption' is particularly striking given the fact that this is the term used to describe 'another baptism' associated with Mark 10:38 even though no reference to anything resembling such a rite survives in our existing canonical gospels (cf. Irenaeus AH 1.21.2; Epiphanius Pan. 42.3.9)
I have argued on a number of ocassions that all the Patristic references to the 'redemption' baptism of the followers of Mark (whether called 'Marcosians' or 'Marcionites') in this section are clearly allusions to the resurrection of the rich youth in 'Secret Mark.' The manner in which this 'lines up' with the Lazarus narrative which immediately precedes it should be quite obvious to those who have a little familiarity with the Marcionite tradition.
The Marcionites are always identified as identifying their ritual as a baptism on behalf of the dead. That this cannot possibly be reconciled with the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist is so obvious it requires no explanation. Yet the fact that the Marcionite gospel did not preserve this narrative necessitates the existence of a narrative which could support this practice.
If we go back to our original ordering of narratives in the Diatessaron-related gospel traditions from C A Phillips it is immediately obvious that the rich youth who has a discussion with Jesus about riches is the same figure who ends up in the underworld and ultimately is the one resurrected in Secret Mark. Yet it is important to note that a Marcionite baptism would necessarily assume that he took on a soul as he came out of the water - a soul appropriated from the underworld.
Tertullian tells us that the Marcionites practiced a form of vicarious baptism. With his customary vigor, Tertullian refutes the notion that Paul advocated vicarious baptism in 1 Cor. 15:29 as ridiculous and heretical (Adv. Marc. 5.10). Chrysostom explains in detail his understanding of the Marcionite practice of vicarious baptism: "when a catechumen died among them, a living person having been hidden underneath the bed of the deceased, they approach the dead person, speak to him and ask him if he would like to receive Baptism. Since he does not answer, the one who is hidden underneath speaks for him, saying that he does wish to be baptized. And so they baptize him for the sake of the one who has just died, just as if he were acting on a stage." (Chrysostom Hom in 1 Corinthians)
Now there can be no doubt that the Marcionites and the Catholics were in agreement that individual actually undergoing the water immersion was also identified to be in a ritualized 'state of death.' Tertullian makes this explicit in his discussion of 1 Cor 15:29 and it stands to reason in the case of the Marcionites given their strict adherence to the Apostolikon (the Pauline texts being replete with references to an understanding of baptism being an imitation and participation in the death of Christ). Of course in the heretical community as we have already seen Jesus is not the Christ. The Christ was the one who ultimately 'impassably' witnessed his crucifixion on the 'tree' (tree in Aramaic being a literal rendering of the number 318 = שיח).. Who then is this other Christ? He is clearly the 'rich youth' of the narrative we are examining.
We should notice the description of this 'death baptism' in Irenaeus's account of the redemption baptism of the followers of Mark who are said to:
redeem persons even up to the moment of death, by placing on their heads oil and water, or the pre-mentioned ointment with water, using at the same time the above-named invocations, that the persons referred to may become incapable of being seized or seen by the principalities and powers, and that their inner man may ascend on high in an invisible manner, as if their body were left among created things in this world, while their soul is sent forward to the Demiurge ... But he goes into his own place, having thrown [off] his chain, that is, his animal nature. These, then, are the particulars which have reached us respecting "redemption." (Irenaeus AH 1.21.2,3)
There is clearly an exchange of souls taking place here. The old soul of the person is returned to the Demiurge in exchange for a new perfect 'inner man' which is 'ascending' upwards from below. But can we prove once and for all that the Marcionite understood this to have taken place with regards to the Dives and Lazarus narrative? Irenaeus surprisingly makes this absolutely explicit in his discussion of the passage in Book Two Chapter Thirty Four of Against Heresies during the course of an attack against the heretical belief that baptism will make one equal to Christ (AH 2.32) through metempsychosis (AH 2.33) he brings in the story of Dives and Lazarus.
Unfortunately this accursed Blogger program routinely doesn't save everything you type. It literally cut off everything else I had after this point so I will have to retype everything tomorrow. Sorry about that ...
