Of course it is all 'hurry up and wait' now. Yet in the mean time we can start to think about something else that has always intrigued me about the Letter to Theodore and Secret Mark - the idea of 'double death.' It is the central difficulty with the possibility of a narrative like Secret Mark.
Jesus certainly 'appears crucified' at the end of the gospel. There can be no doubt about that. But now a disciple that Jesus loved 'dies' in chapter 10. Why the 'double death'? I am surprised that those who promote the hoax hypothesis don't seize upon this more. Is it possible to discern anything resembling a 'double death' theology in ancient Christianity? The closest thing of course is Irenaeus's statement (AH 3.11.7) that " Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified." Yet this isn't exactly a 'double death' just a confirmation that 'Jesus' and 'Christ' were separate people in the early Markan tradition.
Why have the death of the disciple whom Jesus loved just before the entry into Jerusalem? This is a very significant problem which isn't easily immediately reconciled with any known tradition in the Catholic tradition. The only lead which seems to have any possibilities is the very early understanding of what we might call a 'docetic' Passion narrative - i.e. Jesus doesn't really die but 'changes places' with someone else. In other words, he only 'appeared to die' but was really in another person's body or assumed another form.
I know this sounds outlandish but even Church Fathers like Ephrem promote a variant of the same basic idea. The idea that 'Jesus' or 'Christ' was now in the disciple whom he loved is at the heart of LGM 1 (= the first addition to the longer gospel of Mark mentioned in the letter to Theodore) is a very real possibility in my mind. Consider for a moment the ambiguity inherent in the last line of the passage:
Now rising, he returned from there to the other side of the Jordan [to Theod. 3.10,11]
Who arose and returned and crossed the Jordan - -Jesus or the young man? The crossing of the Jordan could also well be related to a messianic theme as Bethany is 'beyond the Jordan' (i.e. on the other side). The question again is who is being depicted as 'crossing the Jordan' - Jesus or the young disciple?
Indeed we can already begin to see overlap with the more familiar baptism narrative of the gospel (at least in theory). The two figures might well have been called 'Jesus' and 'John' in either case - the Catholic of tradition emphasizing that Jesus was the Christ and 'John' the forerunner. The Marcionite tradition, for instance, knew absolutely nothing at all of this 'Jesus baptized by John' paradigm. Is it possible that they also had a different formulation as to whether Jesus was 'Christ'? I certainly think so.
The Marcionites are repeatedly identified as not holding that Jesus was the messiah of the Jewish prophetic writings. But what other kind of 'messiah' is there? The Samaritans don't use that terminology at all. It implies the revelation of a royal figure - so too the terminology τὸ μυστήριον τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ [to Theod. 3.10] As we have noted before baseleia is better translated as empire than kingdom. The implication being that the young man is being initiated into "God's imperial rule", or sometimes "God's domain" which culminates potentially in his crossing of the Jordan.
If, as Scott Brown notes, water is deliberately left out of the description of the 'mystery' reference - is it possible that it was ritually 'remembered' in Alexandria with the reference which follows of him 'crossing the Jordan'? We should also notice that the crossing of the Jordan happens on the eighth day. This was certainly recognized by the ancient Alexandrians ...
