The further we go back in history, the more 'Jewish' that Christian and its liturgy appears. There is just no question of this and most attempts to argue against this thesis in my opinion develop from some latent anti-Semitism on the part of the scholars ('anti-Semitism being used here not in its familiar sense i.e. 'anti-Jewish' but rather an attempt to preserve Christianity as a 'Greek' or European religion). It is very surprising then that neither Talley nor Jeffery attempt to figure out what day of the week the events described in LGM 1 (= the first addition to the longer gospel of Mark mentioned in the Letter to Theodore) fell on with respect to Passover.
After all, what is called 'the Passion' by Europeans is really properly regarded as a some form of messianic Passover. Traditional scholarship has no explanation other to imply that it was a 'passion' because Jesus 'suffered.' As early as Origen this etymology was rejected - but what are we left with? The term notzrim is a well established Aramaic term denoting Christians from the rabbinic literature. It is undoubtedly the original term behind the title 'Nazarene' and - as I am about to demonstrate - it actually stands behind the seemingly familiar concept of the Passion of Christ.
It is my suggestion to read the term נוצרים as notsarim (root YOD-tsade-resh, nif‘al participle). I believe this deserves serious consideration. Of course there could have been a pair of terms, an exoteric term notsrim from nun-tsade-resh meaning “guardians” and an esoteric term notsarim from yod-tsade-resh meaning “re-formed." If we consult the shades of meaning of yetser listed in Jastrow's Handbook of Jewish Aramaic it is obvious that the term is descriptive of “those with a new yetser."
The point here is that the term 'the Passion' is rooted in some mystical interpretation of the initiation ritual developed from the original description of what happened during the original historical Passover that the actual events occurred. As such this notion of a 'Passion week' is something of a misnomer. What we are really looking for instead is some kind of liturgical event that began with LGM 1 and then ended presumably with the Resurrection.
I think it is very dangerous to simply assume that the earliest Christians had any special reverence for 'Sunday' or the 'first day' as it is termed in Hebrew. There is a clear intimation that the Resurrection was emphasized to be an 'eighth day' - a term that is necessarily outside the calculation of weeks in any culture. Yes, to be certain the eighth day is in a sense a 'first day' but it is clear from the various controversies in the late second century Church that certain groups emphasized not only a Jewish calculation of 'Easter' but did not venerate the eighth day as a Sunday per se. This is absolutely clear from the evidence.
The idea that the Resurrection has to fall on a Sunday was strenuously imposed on the Alexandrian Church by the Roman Church (see the Liber Pontificalis for a confirmation of this). So how did the Alexandrians commemorate the event? This is not clear from the text but one can certainly make the case from this and other anecdotal evidence that the Resurrection was an 'ogdoad' - i.e. an eighth day calculated from some as of yet unidentified marker.
Now regular readers of this blog know that I have developed a lot of attempts to calculate the original Christian Pascha using the traditional Jewish understanding of the Festival of Unleavened Bread as a guide. There are a number of ancient witnesses to something like this being promoted in the early Church. However I wonder if I had 'missed the mark' so to speak the first time around.
Clement of Alexandria makes it absolutely plain when his Alexandrian tradition thought the crucifixion occurred - 14 Nisan - as we see from the passage quoted in a lost work in the Paschal Chronicle:
Quoted in the Paschal Chronicle. Here is what Clement says:
Accordingly, in the years gone by, Jesus went to eat the passover sacrificed by the Jews, keeping the feast. But when he had preached He who was the Passover, the Lamb of God, led as a sheep to the slaughter, presently taught His disciples the mystery of the type on the thirteenth day, on which also they inquired, "Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the passover?" It was on this day, then, that both the consecration of the unleavened bread and the preparation for the feast took place. Whence John naturally describes the disciples as already previously prepared to have their feet washed by the Lord. And on the following day our Saviour suffered, He who was the Passover, propitiously sacrificed by the Jews.
The same source tells us that Clement also wrote a little later that:
Suitably, therefore, to the fourteenth day, on which He also suffered, in the morning, the chief priests and the scribes, who brought Him to Pilate, did not enter the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled, but might freely eat the passover in the evening. With this precise determination of the days both the whole Scriptures agree, and the Gospels harmonize. The resurrection also attests it. He certainly rose on the third day, which fell on the first day of the weeks of harvest, on which the law prescribed that the priest should offer up the sheaf.
I see no need to reconcile the description here with the existing chronologies of the synoptic gospels or the gospel of John for that matter because - after all - Clement undoubtedly preferred the Secret Gospel of Mark. All that matters is what Clement thought was true, not what was historically true.
There is absolutely no proof whatsoever that Clement thought that the Resurrection had to fall on a Sunday. In fact the chronology presented here denies this possibility outright. Given that Clement certainly knew the that the Resurrection took place 'on the third day' (cf Extracts from Theodore 61) there can be no doubt that this took place on 17 Nisan.
Yet the whole argument over the existence of an ancient Alexandrian 'Holy Week' somehow connected to Secret Mark is now obviously solved. For if the Resurrection took place on the 17 Nisan then it can only be an 'eighth day' if it was calculated from 10 Nisan which makes absolute sense to any Jew or Samaritan given the significance of this date. Anyone Jewish person - even Jacob Neusner - should immediately recognize what is being suggested here. For everyone knows that an unblemished lamb or goat is to be set apart and selected on Nisan 10, and slaughtered on Nisan 14 "between the two evenings", Nisan 15 roasted, without the removal of its internal organs with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
What is being described in LGM 1 is clearly Jesus's selection of a single disciple to accompany him into Jerusalem. Yes of course Mark 14:52 - i.e. 'he left the linen cloth and ran away naked' - makes it seem as if the same disciple ran away and 'failed' Jesus but let's be realistic - there are absolutely no witnesses to Mark 14:52 anywhere before the time of Constantine. Already, we see in Clement's citation of Mark 10:34 (Excerpts of Theodore 61) there is the suggestion that someone else was being prepared to be sacrificed in place of him or better yet - in order that his soul might escape death.
Without getting too deeply involved in the mysticism it is worth noting that there are as many people in the world who do not believe that Jesus ended up crucified on the cross as believe it. Every single member of the Muslim faith I have ever encounter believes that someone other than Jesus died there. The understanding clearly made its way to the Jewish tradition too as Herford notes:
Rabbi Meir used to say, What is the meaning of (Deut. xxi. 23), For a curse of God is he that is hung ? [It is like the case of] two brothers, twins, who resembled each other. One ruled over the whole world, the other took to robbery. After a time the one who took to robbery was caught, and they crucified him on a cross. And every one who passed to and fro said, * It seems that the king is crucified. Therefore it is said, A curse of God is he that is hung. [T. Sanh. ix. 7]
Commentary. R. Meir lived in the second century, and we shall see that he had some knowledge of the Gospels (see below, p. 163). It is hardly to be doubted that the above passage contains a reference to Jesus. One ruled over the whole world, that is God. They resembled each other suggests He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. The mention of the cross obviously accords with the Gospel story. The scornful gibe of the passers-by suggests Matt, xxvii. 37 and 39, and esp. 42, 43. The curious remark that the second took to robbery (listaia) I cannot explain, but it should be noted in connexion with what was said above (see p. 73), about Pinhas Listaah (Pontius Pilatus). R. Meir's interpretation of the text in Deut. is somewhat obscure; so far as I understand it he seems to mean that the raillery of the bystanders was a cursing of God, because they said the King is hung, which would be the case if Jesus were supposed to be God. [Robert Travers Herford Christianity in Talmud and Mishnah p. 86, 87]
The point of all of this of course is that the individual who has 'died' in the preparation for initiation into the 'mystery of the kingdom of God' has not only been 'purified' in order to be selected for martyrdom. The mystic interpretation of the rituals certainly took a backseat for the 'practical' interest in the early Church preparing martyrs for their death.
There is no doubt that we haven't as of yet deciphered all the mystical interpretations of the passage but this would be unrealistic. There likely were no end to such interpretations. The most important thing is now to see that LGM 1 was most likely connected with 10 Nisan. For long before I started thinking about this Scott Brown offered up his explanation of the material as:
LGM 1 and 2 and Mark 16:1–8 as a Frame for the Passion
The addition of LGM 1 and 2 obviously makes the frame formed by 10:32 and 16:7–8 as apparent as the matched pair around the central section. But it also develops the significance of this inclusio and affects a reader’s perceptions of 14:51–52 and 16:1–8. In order to appreciate this, we need to consider these additions sequentially, as developments in a subplot.
Following the depiction of Jesus leading his disciples in the way to life through death (10:32–34), Jesus arrives in Bethany and raises a young man, who then wishes to become a disciple and receives private instruction. The placing of LGM 1 and 2 around Jesus’ words about his cup and baptism implies that Jesus taught the young man that honour comes through humiliation, life through death. Elsewhere, when Jesus retires to a house and gives private instruction, the teaching gives insider information concerning the preceding incident (7:17–23; 9:28–29, 33–37; 10:10–12). Accordingly, we may infer that the mystery of the kingdom of God is apropos of the young man’s own rising from the dead.
The relationship between the raising and private teaching on the mystery of the kingdom of God will be explored in the next chapter. Stated simply, the young man’s return to life becomes the basis for his instruction in the nature of salvation, the eschatological truth that in order to attain “life” one must first “die” to the self. His linen sheet signifies the transformation that comes through death (baptism being a symbolic death by drowning). When Jesus is betrayed, the young man will again put on this garment and attempt to accompany Jesus back to Jerusalem in order to undergo Jesus’ “baptism” of suffering and death.
To our surprise, at the first sign of trouble the young man fails in his resolve, becoming an epitome of the flight of the disciples as a whole.41 Why this ideal disciple, who responded so quickly and positively, should fail just as quickly and miserably is difficult to fathom, though his story is in keeping with Jesus’ analogy of the seed sown upon rocky ground (E:IG|9:0), “who,
when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away” (4:16–17). It is not too surprising that the other disciple to fall this way was nicknamed “Peter”, meaning rock.
Following the crucifixion, the young man whom Jesus raised from the dead appears once more, this time to proclaim Jesus’ resurrection and continuing leadership in the way. Donning the white robe of a vindicated martyr, the one who, with Peter, exemplified the disciples’ failure to follow now inexplicably announces the restoration of this group, including Peter, and prefigures their success. A reader of longer Mark will not see this young man as an angel bearing tidings from heaven, but as a man from Peraea whose startling reappearances in Gethsemane and the open tomb validate his message.
For quite despite himself, this young man abandoned Jesus, in fulfillment of Jesus’ words “You will all fall away; for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’” And now he sits nobly and serenely inside an empty tomb, reiterating Jesus’ words “But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee” (14:27–28).[Scott Brown, Mark's Other Gospel p. 195, 196]
There are of course things that I think are quite wrong about Brown's analysis, nevertheless the one thing he gets right is the context of LGM 1. It is most certainly connected with the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.
Now it is well known that there was a version of the Gospel of Mark which had Jesus crucified and Christ surviving watching the event 'impassably.' Irenaeus reports about it in Book Three of his Against All Heresies. Nevertheless the thing which all the non-Jews miss is the obvious connection of all of this to the traditional celebration of Passover. More about this later, but let me wish all of my readers a Happy LGM 1 day (until we think of a better name) ...
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."