Yet I would argue that if we turn things around everyone from Morton Smith onwards has noted that something about the raising of the 'rich youth' seems related to the more familiar 'raising of Lazarus' in the Gospel of John. Smith makes this explicit in all his studies of his discovery. For instance in Studies in the Cult of Yahweh, Smith writes:
He also quotes fragment of this gospel, a version of the Lazarus story of John 11:1-44. This version is written in Marcan style and is form-critically more primitive than the Johannine text.2 Moreover it goes on to report that Jesus and the disciples went to the house of the young man after he had been raised and stayed with him for six days, after which he came to Jesus, "wearing only a linen cloth" and "stayed with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mysteries of the Kingdom of God." [Folio 2, recto, lines 6-10; Smith, Clement, p. 452] Whether or not this report was written by the author of canonical Mark, it was almost certainly revered and read in the "mysteries" celebrated in Clement's church in Alexandria. Clement, to judge from his preserved works, was a model of ascetic propriety. The story, therefore, must have been understood to have an edifying meaning. The key to this meaning is the linen cloth worn as the sole garment. This was a common costume for ancient religious, especially mystery, ceremonies; it was customary for magically induced visions, and it became the standard costume for Christian baptism, the initiatory mystery of the church. [p. 68]
While Scott Brown has in more recent times argued against this interpretation of the manuscript, I for one whole-heartedly endorse Smith's conclusions. I would only go one step further and argue that the key to making sense of how John's corruption of the original resurrection narrative of 'Secret Mark' is in recognizing the latter's underlying connection with the Diatessaron as noted by C A Phillips.
It was Philips who recognized that Origen, Ephrem, Aphrahat and many other witnesses to the Diatessaron witnessed the existence of an interwoven narrative in the equivalent of Mark Chapter 10. I have demonstrated that Clement was another witness to this gospel type as well as Cyprian of Carthage. However Clement's gospel was clearly shared by the Carpocratians (Strom. 3.1 - 11) and more significantly is explicitly witnessed as possessing a resurrection of the 'rich youth' of Mark 10:17 - 30 in the narrative which Smith recognizes as the original prototype of the raising of Lazarus in John 11.1 - 44.
I believe that what I have called the 'Phillips gospel narrative' can help explain why the author of John called the youth 'Lazarus.' For if we look at the proto-Diatessaronic narrative identified by Phillips we see the story of Dives and Lazarus immediately precede the raising of the unnanmed 'rich youth':
- The Rich Fool (Luke 12:13 - 21)
- The Rich Youth (Mark 10:17 - 30)
- The Rich Man's Discussion with Abraham in the Underworld (Luke 16:19 - 31)
- The Resurrection of the Rich Youth (Clement's Letter to Theodore)
Indeed there are a number of clues in the Dives and Lazarus narrative that something like a resurrection or 'restanding' of Lazarus was about to take place. If we look at the strange narrative which now appears in Luke we see what was clearly in many early versions of the gospel, the same 'rich youth' who asks Jesus about eternal life, being sent down into the underworld where he sees 'Lazarus' residing in the bosom of Abraham. We read in the gospel shared by Aphrahat and Ephrem that the rich youth called to Abraham:
‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire. But Abraham replied, ’My son, recollect that thou receivedst thy good things in thy life, and Lazar received his evil things : but to-day thou dost beseech of him, and he doth not help thee 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’ He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’
As Burkitt notes Aphraates, and Ephraim Syrus read a verb which they interpret to mean "is besought" instead of what is read in our gospels - i.e. that Lazarus was 'comforted' in Abraham's bosom. This seems to help emphasize Lazarus's role as angelic 'comforter' as I have noted many times.
I cannot help look at this passage and not see that there must have originally been something like a resurrection or restanding of this Lazarus figure. This especially when we see the Acts of John witness exactly this resurrection narrative following the Dives and Lazarus account. As I have noted many times here, John quotes from his Diatessaron (cf. Connoly the Diatessaron and the Acts of John) the entire Lukan narrative but then witnesses that a resurrection narrative immediately followed:
Lord, unless one rise up again, they will not believe. Abraham said to him: If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe, if one rise again. And these words our Lord and Master confirmed by examples of mighty works: for when they said to him: Who hath come hither from thence, that we may believe him he answered: Bring hither the dead whom ye have. And when they had brought unto him a young man which was dead (Ps.-Mellitus: three dead corpses), he was waked up by him as one that sleepeth, and confirmed all his words. But wherefore should I speak of my Lord, when at this present there are those whom in his name and in your presence and sight I have raised from the dead: in whose name ye have seen palsied men healed, lepers cleansed, blind men enlightened, and many delivered from evil spirits But the riches of these mighty works they cannot have who have desired to have earthly wealth. [Acts of John 16]
The point of course that we have not yet discovered 'Secret Mark' but clearly once again the precedent for something like the 'resurrection of the rich youth' following the rest of the 'Phillips gospel narrative' in a gospel like Secret Mark.
As I see it there were a great number of gospels in the second century, many of which followed the basic form of the Diatessaron of Ephrem and Aphrahat. Origen witnesses a 'Gospel of the Hebrews' which was of this type. It is my assumption that Clement's 'Secret Gospel of Mark' might well have been the original prototype for this gospel tradition. There are a number of reasons for this assumption, none of which I want to get into in this post. I only want to focus on the idea that the Gospel of John's raising of Lazarus might have been yet another development of the basic idea which emerges from the so-called 'Phillips gospel narrative' that a youth was raised immediately following the introduction of 'Lazarus' (i.e. Eliezar) in the underworld.
The reason this is so important is that we have two witnesses from Alexandria which take an interest in the Lazarus's original Hebrew name and its numerological value 318. We have already cited Clement of Alexandria's reference in the Stromata. Yet the Epistle of Barnabas is even more interesting as it is certainly Alexandrian and dated by a number of scholars to the late first century. It clearly identifies the number 318 (i.e. Eliezar) with the introduction of the Christian sacrament of baptism in Alexandria. We read:
But thou wilt say; In truth the people hath been circumcised for a seal. Nay, but so likewise is every Syrian and Arabian and all the priests of the idols. Do all those then too belong to their covenant? Moreover the Egyptians also are included among the circumcised. Learn therefore, children of love, concerning all things abundantly, that Abraham, who first appointed circumcision, looked forward in the spirit unto Jesus, when he circumcised having received the ordinances of three letters. For the scripture saith; And Abraham circumcised of his household eighteen males and three hundred. What then was the knowledge given unto him? Understand ye that He saith the eighteen first, and then after an interval three hundred. In the eighteen 'I' stands for ten, 'H' for eight. Here thou hast JESUS (IHSOYS). And because the cross in the 'T' was to have grace, He saith also three hundred. So He revealeth Jesus in the two letters, and in the remaining one the cross. He who placed within us the innate gift of His covenant knoweth; no man hath ever learnt from me a more genuine word; but I know that ye are worthy. [Barnabas 9:5 - 9]
The point of course is that it is a standard part of Pauline doctrine that sacrament of baptism which is the replacement of the old rite of circumcision. Yet here in this very early Alexandrian document it is explicitly connected with the name 'Eliezer' or Lazarus as it is rendered in Greek.
How was 'Eliezer' understood by the author of the Epistle of Barnabas to be connected with baptism? Well, that is a good question one which is rarely asked by scholars. Nevertheless, I think my reconstruction of the 'Phillips gospel narrative' and it being followed by the resurrection of the rich youth in Secret Mark and his subsequent identification as 'Lazarus' by the author of the Gospel of John is as good a place to start as any ...
dating back to conversations with his grandfather, Gaston Frank. "He said we represent one of the last descendants of the Frankist Jewish faith in the world," he muses. "I grew up thinking that our family was something like the Last of the Mohicans."