Does Irenaeus Let it Slip Out that He Was the Real Author of the Cento Gospels of the Commodian Age (= Our Canonical Gospels)?

All we have to do is follow Unger's notes to his translation of Irenaeus's Against the Heresies volume 1 p. 182. The original section in Irenaeus introduces a Homeric cento which many scholars see as Irenaeus's own composition:

Then, again, collecting a set of expressions and names scattered here and there [in Scripture], they twist them, as we have already said, from a natural to a non-natural sense. In so doing, they act like those who bring forward any kind of hypothesis they fancy, and then endeavour to support them out of the poems of Homer, so that the ignorant imagine that Homer actually composed the verses bearing upon that hypothesis, which has, in fact, been but newly constructed; and many others are led so far by the regularly-formed sequence of the verses, as to doubt whether Homer may not have composed them. Of this kind is the following passage, where one, describing Hercules as having been sent by Eurystheus to the dog in the infernal regions, does so by means of these Homeric verses,-- for there can be no objection to our citing these by way of illustration, since the same sort of attempt appears in both:--

Thus saying, there sent forth from his house deeply groaning.
The hero Hercules conversant with mighty deeds.
Eurystheus, the son of Sthenelus, descended from Perseus.
That he might bring from Erebus the dog of gloomy Pluto.
And he advanced like a mountain-bred lion confident of strength.
Rapidly through the city, while all his friends followed.
Both maidens, and youths, and much-enduring old men.
Mourning for him bitterly as one going forward to death.
But Mercury and the blue-eyed Minerva conducted him.
For she knew the mind of her brother, how it laboured with grief.

Now, what simple-minded man, I ask, would not be led away by such verses as these to think that Homer actually framed them so with reference to the subject indicated? But he who is acquainted with the Homeric writings will recognise the verses indeed, but not the subject to which they are applied, as knowing that some of them were spoken of Ulysses, others of Hercules himself, others still of Priam, and others again of Menelaus and Agamemnon. But if he takes them and restores each of them to its proper position, he at once destroys the narrative in question. In like manner he also who retains unchangeable in his heart the rule of the truth which he received by means of baptism, will doubtless recognise the names, the expressions, and the parables taken from the Scriptures, but will by no means acknowledge the blasphemous use which these men make of them. For, though he will acknowledge the gems, he will certainly not receive the fox instead of the likeness of the king. But when he has restored every one of the expressions quoted to its proper position, and has fitted it to the body of the truth, he will lay bare, and prove to be without any foundation, the figment of these heretics.

Unger's endnote for the Homeric cento is very interesting and reads as follows:

These lines are respectively from Homer's Od. 10.76; Od. 21.26; ll. 19.123; Il. 8.368; Od. 6.130; Il. 24.327; Od. 11.38; Il. 24.328; Od. 11.626; Il. 2.409. This manner of quoting from all sections of Homer's two works is thought by some to indicate that Irenaeus had a personal and rather close acquaintance with Homer. And really Irenaeus does not say that he is copying from someone else. His construction clearly supposes that he is the composer of the cento. He uses a present participle (scribens] in a conditional sense, "if one would write," just as in a previous sentence he wrote "like those who would propose": similia facientes. The construction is the same in the Greek. Further, his remarks after the poem also betray competence in Homer. Irenaeus knew the classics. He refers to and quotes Homer in AH 1.12.2; 1.13.6; 2.5.4; 2.'4.2, 2.22.6; 4.33.3. Other poets to whom Irenaeus also refers include Anaxilas, Hesiod, Pindar, Antiphanes, Menander, Sophocles, Stesichorus, and the Comic poets in general. On this see AI I. 1.13.1; 1.23.2; 2.14.1; 2.14.2; 2.14.4; 2.'4.5; 2.18.5; 2.21.2; 5.13.2; cf. WR Schoedel, "Philosophy and Rhetoric in the Adversus haereses of Irenaeus," VC 13 (1959) 22-32, and M. Clark, "Builders of the Christian Culture: A Study of Irenaeus of Lugdunum and Clement of Alexandria," Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1970, passim. Homer was the backbone of Hellenistic education, and, among the early Christians, Homer was a topic of discussion and controversy. But the Gnostics also used him; he was the prophet of the Valentinians (cf. 4.33.2)Hippolytus accuses them of falsifying Homer (cf. Haer. 6.19.1 [GCS 26.145]). Rousseau (SC 263.222 [SC 264.149 n. 1]) also notes that some have thought Irenaeus himself wrote this cento, notably H. Ziegler, Irenaus der Bischof von Lyon (Berlin 1871) 17. J. Danielou, The Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture, vol. 2 of A History of Early Christian Doctrine before the Council of Nicaea, trans. JA Baker (London and Philadelphia 1973) 85, thinks that Valentinus himself composed this cento and that he gave it an allegorical meaning in reference to the Gnostic tenets, particularly in regard to the sending of Savior who is surrounded by angels and accompanied by Christ and the Holy Spirit. RL Wilken, "The Homeric Cento in Irenaeus, 'Adversus haereses' I,9,4," VC 21 (1967) 25-33, doubts that Valentinus wrote it and gave it this alleged allegorical meaning, since Irenaeus gives no such indication, and he quickly forgets about the cento. He wished merely to show how the Gnostics misinterpret Scripture by distorting the passages when lifting them from their context. Benoit 6o-61, flatly denies that Irenaeus wrote this cento.

The point of course is that given that Irenaeus identifies a contemporary accusation (his own) that Christians in the age were creating gospels after the manner of Homeric centos (see AH 1.8.1) the fact that he is apparently so skilled in creating centos makes him a prime suspect for refashioning from Secret Mark into the canonical gospels (see Morton Smith's discussion in Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark).

Why Did a Later Editor Blame the Heretics For Irenaeus's Gospel Centos?

When you are writing blog posts as long as I have, you become quite aware when what you are writing will be very difficult for most people to understand.  This is one of those posts.  I don't think many of my readers will even know what a 'cento' is, nor indeed where or why Irenaeus says that the gospels of the heretics were developed in the manner of centos generally.  Nevertheless I have to write this post because it is so essential to the understanding of how the New Testament came to be and why the Letter to Theodore is so utterly essential to the study of that phenomenon.

A cento is a type of poem which literally was conceived as a patchwork of lines adapted from Homer or Virgil for a whole new literary purpose.  There were centos dating back to the period two hundred years before the Common Era when lines from the Iliad and Odyssey were rearranged and developed into something totally new.  The cento was not a respected literary genre until much later in history (i.e. to a period when classical culture had already died).  It was nevertheless extremely popular in Rome during the reign of Commodus, the time Irenaeus was telling us that 'heretics' were developing new gospels from the canonical four.

Irenaeus's testimony is extremely significant for the study of the 'Secret Mark' because a number of scholars including Robert Grant connect Irenaeus's description with the longer gospel of Alexandria.  I think Grant has missed the mark here and not scrutinized Irenaeus's remarks and seen that our canonical gospels might themselves have been centos created in the Commodian period.  I have always noted that the name 'Lukas' (a rarity in antiquity) is clearly related to the Emperor's given name 'Lucius.'  Luke literally emerges out of a void to become the spokesmen for Paul, the original theologian of Christianity.  I have also always felt that Irenaeus speaks of there being a 'danger' for the heretics in rejecting the two compositions associated with 'Luke' (i.e. the anti-Marcionite gospel and Acts) is a reflection of the contemporary association of the text with the Emperor (cf. AH 2.15,16)

The point however is that it is very important that Irenaeus puts forward the cento as an explanative tool for understanding why many gospels seem to have been composed in the Commodian period.  Indeed Celsus similarly notes that "certain of the Christian believers, like persons who in a fit of drunkenness lay violent hands upon themselves, have corrupted the Gospel from its original integrity, to a threefold, and fourfold, and many-fold degree, and have remodelled it, so that they might be able to answer objections." (Origen Contra Celsum 2.27)  Origen only says that he does not "know of any others who have altered the Gospel, save the. followers of Marcion, and those of Valentinus, and, I think, also those of Lucian. But such an allegation is no charge against the Christian system, but against those who dared so to trifle with the Gospels." (ibid)  Yet Irenaeus's testimony regarding the 'inspiration' of centos is clearly related.

It is now very important for us to see that Irenaeus's original statement about the development of gospels from centos was itself not a part of the original material behind Against Heresies 1.8.  The reason we know this is that Tertullian preserves an older version of Irenaeus's original treatise written against the Valentinians (i.e. before the material was fixed to the 'Five Books Against Heresies' by a later editor).  Our side by side comparison not only shows how significant the 'touch up job' was in Against Heresies (Photius explicitly mentions how problematic the original material of Irenaeus was cf. Bibliotheca  120) but that allusion to the gospels being manufactured as centos was certainly added much later, probably by the final editor of Irenaeus's corpus (Hippolytus?).

I have emboldened the original material from Irenaeus's lost treatise against the Valentinians in the left column and then shown where the parallels are in what survives in Against Heresies.  The reader should notice first of all the number of times that the editor of Against Heresies has rearranged original material from Irenaeus to somewhere else in the same argument.  I have also emboldened in red the introduction of the cento argument which is wholly unknown to the earliest copies of the anti-Valentinian treatise.  It should also be noted that the editor of the Five Books Against Heresies has not only inserted the red material at the point shown below but also stopped following the original Against the Valentinians treatise of Irenaeus redistributing the material which follows (a) earlier in the narrative (cf. 20, 21, 22) and then again in what proceeds in AH 1.6 (all of our observations here are based on Riley's original study).

Adv. Valentininos 27 -  31

Now I continue with what they say about Christ on whom they graft Jesus--with the same liberty as when they stuff the spirit-like seed in him along with the soul-like breath. They make him a mash of inventions of both Men and gods: [1] the Demiurge also has his own Christ, his natural son (consequently soul-like), produced from himself, preached by the prophets.

[2] His nature must be decided by prepositions: specifically, he was produced through a virgin, not from a virgin, because he came into existence carried in a virgin in a transportational, not a generational, sense. He came through her, not from her; he experienced her not as a mother but as a conveyance. [3] Upon this Christ, then, in the sacrament of baptism, Jesus descended in the form of a dove. Apart from this, there was even [4] in this Christ spice from the spirit-like seed of Achamoth-to keep the rest of the stuffing from spoiling, I presume.  [5] Following the analogy of the first Tetrad, they crowd him with four substances: the spirit-like from Achamoth, the soul-like from the Demiurge, the bodily which is indescribable, and the substance from Saviour, namely dove-like. Saviour at any rate remained in Christ untouched, unhurt, unknown. Finally, [6] when captured, he left him during Pilate's questioning. [7] Likewise, the seed from his mother did not receive injury, being equally, immune and unknown even to the Demiurge. [8] The soul-like and bodily Christ suffered to illustrate the experience of the higher Christ who was stretched on Cross, otherwise known as Horos, when he shaped Achamoth in essence, though not in intelligible form. In such a way everything becomes an illustration or image; even, obviously, these Christians themselves are imaginary.

[9] Meanwhile, the Demiurge is still ignorant of all this. [10] Even though he is supposed to proclaim these matters through the prophets, he is not aware of the true meaning of this task of his, because [11] the Valentinians allot the prophets' patronage to three entities: Achamoth, her seed, the Demiurge. [12] Anyway, when he has heard of Saviour's approach, he runs to meet him crying "Hail!" [13] He came with his entire force (the symbol for this is the centurion in the gospel), and when he was enlightened by Saviour concerning everything, he discovered his own prospects, namely that he would succeed to his mother's office. [14] Hereafter he administers the world confidently, especially for the sake of protecting the church as long as necessary. I shall now gather from various sources material to demonstrate what they have decreed about the classification of the human race. [15] They say that from the beginning man had a threefold nature which was nevertheless united in Adam. After Adam they divide up man's nature according to its individual characteristics. [16] They have found an opportunity to explicate this sort of division in the posterity of Adam himself, a posterity, divided into three different moral characters. Cain, Abel, Seth, who can be called the well-springs of the human race, distribute to this race their qualities of character and the results of how they were judged. [17] Specifically, the Valentinians assign the earthy nature, regressed from salvation, to Cain; the soul-like nature, balanced between good and evil prospects, they place in Abel; the spirit-like, prejudged fit for salvation, they find in Seth. [18] Consequently they separate souls into two groups, good or evil, according to their nature, earthy from Cain, soul-like from Abel. [19] They distinguish only two groups because they put the spirit-like nature from Seth on a different level arbitrarily and call it grace, not a nature, a grace which Achamoth rains from above into good souls, i.e., souls of the soul-like category. (Only into these, for the earthy kind, i.e., evil, can never attain salvation. They define this earthy nature as unchangeable and incorrigible by nature.) 


> AH 1.8.1 INSERTION HERE <


[20] Therefore, this grain of a spirit-like seed is insignificant and small when it is sown, but because of its training, the worthiness of these souls grows and advances--as we said above--[21] until they become so outstanding that the Demiurge, ignorant at that time (i.e., before Christ's appearance) of the cause, values them highly. [22] From their number he habitually chose kings and priests. Even now if they attain a full and complete knowledge of these idiocies, they will gain certain salvation, a salvation which is indeed due them since they are born into the spirit-like state.

Because of these beliefs, they do not consider good works necessary for themselves, and they do not observe any calls of duty. They also avoid the necessity of being martyrs by any convenient quibble, for they say this rule of works has been prescribed for the soul-like seed in order that we might work out by our actions that salvation which we do not possess by virtue of our nature ...

Adv. Haeresis 1.7.1 - 1.8.1

... [1] There are also some who maintain that he (= the Demiurge) also produced Christ as his own proper son, but of an animal nature, and that mention was made of him by the prophets. [2] This Christ passed through Mary just as water flows through a tube; [3] and there descended upon him in the form of a dove it the time of his baptism, that Saviour who belonged to the Pleroma, and was formed by the combined efforts of all its inhabitants. [4] In him there existed also that spiritual seed which proceeded from Achamoth. [5] They hold, accordingly, that our Lord, while preserving the type of the first-begotten and primary tetrad, was compounded of these four substances,--of that which is spiritual, in so far as He was from Achamoth; of that which is animal, as being from the Demiurge by a special dispensation, inasmuch as He was formed [corporeally] with unspeakable skill; and of the Saviour, as respects that dove which descended upon Him. [7] He also continued free from all suffering, since indeed it was not possible that He should suffer who was at once incomprehensible and invisible. [6] And for this reason the Spirit of Christ, who had been placed within Him, was taken away when He was brought before Pilate.  [7] They maintain, further, that not even the seed which He had received from the mother [Achamoth] was subject to suffering; for it, too, was impassible, as being spiritual, and [9]  invisible even to the Demiurge himself. It follows, then, according to them, that [8] the animal Christ, and that which had been formed mysteriously by a special dispensation, underwent suffering, that the mother might exhibit through him a type of the Christ above, namely, of him who extended himself through Stauros, and imparted to Achamoth shape, so far as substance was concerned. For they declare that all these transactions were counterparts of what took place above.

[20] They maintain, moreover, that those souls which possess the seed of Achamoth are superior to the rest, and are more dearly loved by the Demiurge than others, [21] while he knows not the true cause thereof, but imagines that they are what they are through his favor towards them.[22]Wherefore, also, they say he distributed them to prophets, priests, and kings; and they declare that many things were spoken by this seed through the prophets, inasmuch as it was endowed with a transcendently lofty nature. [11] The mother also, they say, spake much about things above, and that both through him and through the souls which were formed by him. Then, again, they divide the prophecies [into different classes], maintaining that one portion was uttered by the mother, a second by her seed, and a third by the Demiurge. In like manner, they hold that Jesus uttered some things under the influence of the Saviour, others under that of the mother, and others still under that of the Demiurge, as we shall show further on in our work.

The Demiurge, while ignorant of those things which were higher than himself, was indeed excited by the announcements made [through the prophets], but treated them with contempt, attributing them sometimes to one cause and sometimes to another; either to the prophetic spirit (which itself possesses the power of self-excitement), or to [mere unassisted] man, or that it was simply a crafty device of the lower [and baser order of men]. He remained thus ignorant until the appearing of the Lord. [12] But they relate that when the Saviour came, the Demiurge learned all things from Him, and gladly with all, his power joined himself to Him. [13] They maintain that he is the centurion mentioned in the Gospel, who addressed the Saviour in these words: "For I also am one having soldiers and servants under my authority; and whatsoever I command they do. [14] They further hold that he will continue administering the affairs of the world as long as that is fitting and needful, and specially that he may exercise a care over the Church; while at the same time he is influenced by the knowledge of the reward prepared for him, namely, that he may attain to the habitation of his mother.  [15] They conceive, then, of three kinds of men, spiritual, material, and animal, represented by Cain, Abel, and Seth. [16] These three natures are no longer found in one person, but constitute various kinds [of men]. The material goes, as a matter of course, into corruption. [19] The animal, if it make choice of the better part, finds repose in the intermediate place; but if the worse, it too shall pass into destruction. But they assert that the spiritual principles which have been sown by Achamoth, being disciplined and nourished here from that time until now in righteous souls (because when given forth by her they were yet but weak), at last attaining to perfection, shall be given as brides to the angels of the Saviour, while their animal souls of necessity rest for ever with the Demiurge in the intermediate place.

And again subdividing the animal souls themselves, [18] they say that some are by nature good, and others by nature evil. The good are those who become capable of receiving the [spiritual] seed; the evil by nature are those who are never able to receive that seed.

Such, then, is their system, which neither the prophets announced, nor the Lord taught, nor the apostles delivered, but of which they boast that beyond all others they have a perfect knowledge. They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures; and, to use a common proverb, they strive to weave ropes of sand, while they endeavour to adapt with an air of probability to their own peculiar assertions the parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without support. In doing so, however, they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures, and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth. By transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions. Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skilful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the ignorant who had no conception what a king's form was like, and persuade them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king. In like manner do these persons patch together old wives' fables, and then endeavour, by violently drawing away from their proper connection, words, expressions, and parables whenever found, to adapt the oracles of God to their baseless fictions. We have already stated how far they proceed in this way with respect to the interior of the Pleroma. (AH 1.8.1 INSERTION)

Then, again, as to those things outside of their Pleroma, the following are some specimens of what they attempt to accommodate out of the Scriptures to their opinions ...

Were the Canonical Gospels Originally Developed as Centos? [Part Two]

M. Aurelius' degenerate son Commodus (born a. 161, Emperor 180-192) took no interest in intellectual pursuits. But the excellent Septimius Severus (born a. 146, Emperor a. 193-211), who ascended the throne after the brief reigns of Pertinax (January-March a. 193 ; cf. § 364, 6) and Didius Julianus (April and May a. 193), wrote a description of his life. Papinian's labours as a jurist belong mainly to this period. The Christian religion now gained ground even among the educated, and found an eloquent advocate in Tertullian. In poetry this period produced nothing besides Vergilian centos. From this time, indeed, begins the general decline in art, knowledge and culture. [Wilhelm Sigmund Teuffel, A History of Roman Literature: The Imperial period p. 293 - 294]

Where the Canonical Gospels Originally Developed as Centos?

As a researcher dwelling on the fringes of scholarship I am afforded a freedom that well respected academics lack. So it is that when I read Morton Smith's summary of Robert Grant's observations about parallels between Secret Mark and Irenaeus's testimony about a heretical 'cento' gospel I was able to turn around the argument into something new. Smith rejected Grant's position - i.e. that 'Secret Mark' might have been created from a patchwork of lines from the canonical gospel - because it basically took Irenaeus's testimony at face value. In other words, Irenaeus said that the heretics 'reused' stones from the existing canonical mosaic in order to fashion a new gospel which reflected their heretical views and both men see this as the only possibility at play here. Yet I can't help see that Irenaeus might be revealing to us how he developed the canonical set from the Alexandrian longer gospel original.

Indeed, as most of us know, Irenaeus is the first Church Father to witness anything to do with the shape of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (even Eusebius's citation of Papias is filtered through the agency of Irenaeus). The world before Irenaeus is a world without the same canonical set which he must be thought to have edited. Irenaeus has to be considered the most likely candidate to have been the final editor of our existing New Testament canon (this even though Trobisch prefers his alleged master Polycarp). Why isn't it considered at all likely that Irenaeus (and/or Polycarp) might have been involved in 'moving the stones' from the Alexandrian longer gospel of Mark?

All of this is old news for regular readers of this blog. The topic is picked up at various internet discussion groups related to the Bible. The new wrinkle of course is our adaptation of Grant's ideas with respect to the Homeric cento to the gospel writing process. In case any of my readers don't know what a cento is I cite the following from Wikipedia:

The term comes from the Latin cento, a cloak made of patches; and that from the Greek κεντονιον. The Roman soldiers used these centones, or old stuffs patched over each other, to guard themselves from the strokes of their enemies. Others say, that centos were probably used for the patches of leather, etc, with which their galleries or screens, called vineae, were covered; under which the besiegers made their approaches towards any place. Hence centonarii, the people whose business was to prepare these centos.

The cento originated in the 3rd or 4th century. The first known cento is the Medea by Hosidius Geta, composed out of Virgilian works, according to Tertullian.

Ausonius (310–395) laid down the rules to be observed in composing centos. The pieces, he says, may be taken either from the same poet, or from several. The verses may be either taken in their entirety, or divided into two; one half to be connected with another half taken elsewhere. Two verses should never be used running, nor much less than half a verse be taken. In accordance with these rules, he made a cento from Virgil, the Cento Nuptialis.

It should be noted that the Wikipedia article is incorrect on several points. The actual original Greek term was κέντρων (so Lewis) and Liddell Scott notes that this is a "piece of patch-work, rag, Bito 55.4, Herasap.Gal. 13.1044, Sch.Ar.Nu.449; perh.pen-wiper, POxy.326 (i A.D.): hence, copy of verses made up of scraps from other authors, Eust.1099.51, 1308 fin."

The point of course, before we go any further in our analysis of the important testimony of Irenaeus, is that one can immediately imagine that if the canonical gospels were developed originally as centos would have needed very little in the way of justifications as this was a very popular form of literary imitation. While it is true that centos were originally used exclusively with respect to poems and poetry, the testimony of Irenaeus makes explicit that gospels (which are the furthest things removed from lyrical compositions) were indeed conceived as centos in the late second century. They were clearly also identified as 'hypomnemata' (cf. Justin).

Most important of all to our preliminary discussion is the fact that Clement of Alexandria's Stromateis are explicitly referenced as a 'patchwork' of 'notes' (hypomnemata) perhaps reflecting a broader understanding within late second century Christianity.

Robert Grant and Morton Smith Team Up to Pave the Way for the Solution to the Mystery of the Secret Gospel of Mark

Robert Grant and Morton Smith are two of my favorite scholars and when Smith cites the former in his 1973 book it should surprise anyone that he provides the key to unlock the contextual framework for the Secret Gospel of Mark and the four canonical gospels in the late second century. I will quickly cite from the pertinent section and continue developing an understanding for the material over the next few posts. Smith tells us that Grant has effectively noticed the same thing we have about the Irenarus's comments at the beginning of Book Three of Against Heresies - i.e. he connects them with Secret Mark:

The high frequency of parallels in the longer text affords support for a special theory of imitation which has been suggested independently by P. Benoit and R. Grant, viz.: The longer text is a cento produced from the text of the canonical Gospels. Grant supports this theory by a reference to Irenaeus (Harvey, I.1.15 - 20 = Stieren I.8.1 - 9.5). Irenaeus is there attacking the Valentinians. He says that, since the they have a theory which neither the prophets proclaimed nor the Lord taught nor the apostles handed down, but which they read out of agrapha (that is, uncanonical works, Harvey), they try to twist the dominical, prophetic, or apostolic sayings to fit their teachings, so as to have some evidence for what they say, and to this end they neglect the order and context of the scriptural passages they use and also distort them. He compares their treatment of Scripture to the breaking up of a mosaic in order to make a different picture with the same tessarae. The examples he gives to illustrate this, however are examples of allegorical or esoteric exegesis of individual sayings or passages of the canonical Scriptures and afford no evidence for the composition of new, pseudo-Scriptural centos. However, he goes on to say (Harvey, I.1.20, middle = Stieren, I.9.4): "Then, collecting scattered expressions and terms, they transfer them, as we said, from the in reality to an unreal much as do the Homeric poems, so that less experienced readers might think Homer had composed the verses, since both are attempting a similar and, indeed, identical feat." And he concludes that, as the man acquainted with Homer will recognize the verses, but not the theme, and by referring to their proper contexts will show the theme to be spurious, thus the true Christians "will recognize the terms from the scriptures and the expressions and the parables, but will not recognize the blasphemous theme." He will acknowledge the tessarae, but not the picture which has been made of them, "and, referring each of the things said to its proper place and fitting it into the body of the truth, he will expose their fiction and show it to be unsubstantial."

On the strength of this passage, Grant has suggested that the longer text may be a gnostic work of the sort attacked by Irenaeus. (Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark 1973, p. 73 - 74)

The second citation of material here is from a section of the account of the Valentinians which was unknown to Tertullian when he cited from Irenaeus's original treatise against the sect which was later incorporated (by an editor?) into the beginning of Book One of Against Heresies.

The point of course is that either Irenaeus or perhaps more likely a later editor has taken individual treatises of Irenaeus against various sects (so Photius) and added something about the Valentinians reworking an original 'mosaic' of the four canonical gospels. In other words, stories are moved from here to there, according to Ireanaeus (or the editor) from the four to the single gospel of the heretics. Yet I think the exact opposite happened - i.e. the stones were taken from a single long gospel and moved to the four canonical texts by Irenaeus (for he is the first to report on the shape of a fourfold canon of gospels). The reference is placed in the section against the Valentinians because the same editor has also connected the followers of Mark (i.e. the 'Marcosians') in the section which immediately follows making the Marcosians appear as a Valentinians sect.

Nevertheless, as I have repeatedly noted here, I think this is deliberate. The Marcosians clearly weren't original understood as a sect of the Valentinians because no mention of the Marcosians are found in the original Irenaean treatise known to Tertullian and called 'Against the Valentians' by him. The editor of the Irenaean corpus - i.e. the person who organized his early lectures and incorporated them into a five book treatise entitled 'Against Heresies' has inserted the reference to the moving of stones from the four to single, long gospels in the section pertaining to the Valentinians because all Valentinian sects are now being accused of the practice. The pattern of 'moving stones' isn't then just from 'Secret Mark' but in fact the gospel that was especially dear to the Valentinians - i.e. the Gospel of John.

Yet I think that the original 'Gospel of John' known to the Valentinians was itself a form of 'Secret Mark.' It was Irenaeus who deliberately removed all the common synoptic passages for a specific theological purpose. I have always argued that the ur-Gospel of John used by the heretics was a form of 'Secret Mark,' the one potentially associated also with the Carpocratians. Yet this is something we should take up later. It is enough for us to say for the moment that Grant has found the very same passages that we have been discussion for months and helps clarify the thinking of Irenaeus, the 'final editor' of our New Testament canon - viz. he argued that like the Homeric centos an earlier lost form of the gospels had to have existed. He then just set out to establish them according to the Pythagorean (and gnostic) interest in the number four.

More to follow ...

Home Sweet Home

I am back from my 'vacation' - a week in Orlando with my son, mother, brother and his family. I have a very nice family. I love them very much but my wife somehow managed to spend a week at the Encore in Vegas on somebody else's tab.

I had a week off from blogging and some big news came walking through the door while I was away. I will tell you about all of this stuff later in the week. The immediate concern is that I managed to bring Morton Smith's 1973 book along with me for the vacation. Let me tell everyone, I was completely wrong about Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark. I now think it is absolutely brilliant. I don't see how anyone can possibly believe that Morton Smith forged the Letter to Theodore if you take the time to go through the work from end to end.

Yet how many of the 'hoaxers' have actually read this book in its entirety? Seriously. It is oft repeated defense of the authenticity of the document that the Letter to Theodore is an incredibly difficult feat to have pulled off as a forgery. You know, you've heard it all before. You'd have to manage to know how Mark the evangelist introduces his narratives. Then you'd have to write a Markan version of the Johannine Raising of Lazarus story and on top of that create a letter which introduces the new material which perfectly matches the style of writing of the Alexandrian Church Father.

However what doesn't get said often enough is the fact that we also have to factor in Smith's development of his 1973 analysis of said 'forgery.' This is the point at which the conspiracy theory simply becomes so absurd that no one who ever read the book can possibly subscribe to it.

For the attention to detail in this work is simply staggering. The book is so dense that it is almost impossible to read it from end to end. It reminds me of a rabbinic text in that way. Up until this vacation I basically flipped through its pages and just landed in sections quite randomly or simply looked up a topic in its index.

I think I finally managed to read the book the way Smith intended it is that I myself have conduct many of the same investigations. It is often quite comforting to see that Smith has actually noticed many of the things that I have about the text. For instance he makes reference to the fact that Clement speaks of more than one narrative in which Jesus is called the 'son of David' (there is only one narrative in the canonical four).

There are of course many more occasions where Smith and I have arrived at the same or similar conclusions. Yet this isn't the point of this post. What I want to say is that Smith's analysis of Secret Mark keeps skimming around a possibility that he never quite understands perfectly.

I think everyone who accepts the authenticity of the Letter to Theodore accepts in some form that canonical Mark was shortened from the Alexandrian longer gospel of Mark. Yet the one thing I walked away from his book was the possibility that Matthew and Luke might have been justified to a late second century audience on the basis that they represented canonical Mark + additional material just like the Alexandrian 'longer' gospel of Mark. In other words, Clement's formulation in to Theodore might have been a reflection of a generally recognized pattern already obliquely referenced in the writings of Celsus (Origen, Contra Celsum 2.27)

Could it be that Matthew, Luke and even John were reflections of patterns in Secret Mark ultimately obscured by the shortening of canonical Mark? More on that later ...

Ruaridh Boid Confirms the Likelihood of Two Systems of Counting of Sabbatical Years and Jubilees Among the Ancient Samaritans

Just a short note. I developed a theory about Sabbatical years and Jubilee years in my book the Real Messiah which is now at odds with my identification of the year after the `fifteenth year of Tiberius` (Luke 3.1) as a Jubilee. In the Real Messiah I used the system of Abul Fath (fourteenth century Samaritan chronicler) to prove that 38 CE was a Jubilee year among some Samaritans. I just recently found out that the Tulidah similarly identifies 27 CE as a Jubilee. I asked him whether the differences here represent two different systems of counting Sabbatical years and Jubilees. Professor Boid agrees and will commit further resources to study this idea.

Bart Ehrman`s Most Recent Statement on the Question of Whether the Letter to Theodore is a Forgery

We have seen another motivation, or combination of motivations, in the case of Dionysius the Renegade. One could argue that Dionysius perpetrated his fraudulent play, the Parthenopaeus, principally in order to see if he could get away with it. Or he may have done it to make a fool out of his nemesis, Heraclides. We have other instances in the ancient world of a similar motivation, to pull the wool over someone's, or everyone's, eyes. As it turns out, some such motivation may still be at work in our world today, as some scholars have thought that one of the most famous “discoveries” of an ancient Gospel in the twentieth century was in fact a forgery by the scholar who claimed to have discovered it. This is the famous Secret Gospel of Mark allegedly found by Morton Smith in 1958. Other authors forged documents for political or military ends. The Jewish historian Josephus, for example, reports that an enemy of Alexander, the son of King Herod, forged a letter in Alexander's name in which he announced plans to murder his father ... (Forged: Writing in the Name of God 2011, p. 14)

The last I checked Morton Smith discovered a letter from Clement rather than a copy of Secret Mark. This and other statements by the otherwise learned scholar clearly demonstrates that he doesn`t care very much about the actual details of the controversy. Pity ...

Vacation Notes (Part Two)

I have a few minutes to get away from the sun here in Florida and I want to continue my last post on lust. My readership must realize that German was my mother tongue, yet another language which does not distinguish between `love` and `lust.` My question isn`t just how could anyone possibly justify condemning lust as evil - a position which Clement associates with the Carpocratians - but whether we should believe even for a minute that Clement`s claims about the Carpocratians are legitimate.

For I mentioned to my reader an experience that I had at Magic Kingdom, a brief moment in another wise wholesome vacation. I was left wondering, how is it possible to control even the feeling of sexual longing? Isn`t this an involuntary response? How then could the Carpocratians have claimed that Jesus wanted us to beyond merely desiring the things of our neighbors but the longing for things as such?

My question is whether the first part of the Carpocratian interpretation of Secret Mark (i.e. a commonly held apocryphal gospel of Alexandria) can be argued to be compatible with Clement`s description of the sect as a licentious community in what follows. Let me cite the two parts to the continuous narrative. First Clement says in Strom. 3.2:

Clearly the command which says "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife" speaks of the Gen- tiles, in order that anyone who, as the law directs, abstains from his neighbour's wife and from his sister may hear clearly from the Lord, "But I say unto you, Thou shalt not lust." The addition of the word "I," however, shows the stricter force of the commandment, and that Carpocrates fights against God, and Epiphanes likewise. The latter in the same notorious book, I mean Concerning Righteousness, writes in one passage as follows: "Consequently one must understand the saying 'Thou shalt not covet' as if the lawgiver was making a jest, to which he added the even more comic words 'thy neighbour's goods'. For he himself who gave the desire to sustain the race orders that it is to be suppressed, though he removes it from no other animals. And by the words 'thy neighbour's wife' he says something even more ludicrous, since he forces what should be common property to be treated as a private possession."

Epiphanes is a Carpocratian. He argues that Jesus commands his hearers to go beyond the Law, to a righteousness based on ritual asceticism. How then can Clement then immediately claim that these same Carpocratians were licentious perverts? For he goes on to say:

These then are the doctrines of the excellent Carpocratians. These, so they say, and certain other enthusiasts for the same wickednesses, gather together for feasts (I would not call their meeting an Agape), men and women together. After they have sated their appetites (" on repletion Cypris, the goddess of love, enters," as it is said), then they overturn the lamps and so extinguish the light that the shame of their adulterous "righteousness" is hidden, and they have intercourse where they will and with whom they will.

I simply don`t believe that the Carpocratians were perverts. I think that Clement was just dishing out a popular claim about Christians in general (i.e. that they engaged in licentious love feasts). The bottom line is that the first half of the quote isn`t compatible with what follows and we are left wondering who or what the original Carpocratians really were.

If Clement isn`t telling us the whole truth about the Carpocratians in his accepted writings, how can we be so sure about what is real or illusory with respect to the Letter to Theodore?

More to follow ...

Vacation Notes

I promised myself I wouldn`t post anything while I am on holidays but I happened to have a few moments free.

On my flight down to Orlando I happened to bring Morton Smith`s 1973 book.  It is amazing to look at Agammenon Tselikas`s report and see how the same arguments are already anticipated in Smith`s Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark.  I used to wonder why Smith spent so much time developing this cumbersome book.  It is as if all of Tselikas`s objections are handled by Smith thirty years ago.  I will spend some time demonstrating this when I get home.  The amazing thing of course is that Tselikas never bothered to read Smith`s book.  In fact I don`t think Tselikas read anything that has ever been published on Mar Saba 65.  Very strange.

And as it is my vacation, I happened to have had a strange experience occur to me while standing at a water spraying station at Magic Kingdom.  I was standing at a water spraying station (you know one of those things which is designed to keep kids cool).  My son was running around pretending he was the Incredible Hulk when he started to play with a girl about the same age as him.  I looked up to see that her mother was something else.  So beautiful and my favorite type - black, about twenty five years old, a single mother who had the gait of an Amazon.

I have to tell you, while I was standing around thinking of ways not to start a conversation with her I had the deepest longing for her.  Seriously I haven`t felt like that since before I was married.  Nothing happened of course.  Her daughter eventually got tired of my son and they went away.  The point is that it was the furthest thing from being sordid.  I just happened to have lived in Florida for a brief while and I knew this girl who looked exactly like this woman with an identical profile (single mother etc.).

I can`t explain the feeling.  It might have something do with sexual longing.  Let me correct that - of course it did.  But I want to say at the same time that what I was feeling wasn`t limited to sexual desire.  There was a lot more going on my head.

The whole trip here brings back memories.  I can remember living in Orlando and wanting this woman to always be available for me.  I certainly would have thought that would have been the ultimate accomplishment to spend the rest of my life with her.

The point is that I couldn`t help but think that Clement of Alexandria attacks the Carpocratians in Book Three of the Stromateis for their interpretation of Jesus`s commandment `Thou shalt not lust`(likely from Secret Mark).  Clement didn`t want to define lust as meaning “sexual longing” per se. It would seem then that the Carpocratians did. My question of course is why is it that Christians as such see sexual longing as something bad.

At its most basic it would be impossible to make a child without having these sorts of feelings. I mean, I have been there before. I remember joking holding my son after he was born that I spent most of my life trying to avoid making exactly something like this. The truth was that I can remember how the thought of this woman getting pregnant was actually getting in the way of sex with her. I had to be in control of everything and there are simply some situations in which it is impossible to retain sufficient control to prevent an on foreseen circumstance.

In any event I have been seriously wondering ever since how it is that Christians can have such a harsh view of sexual longing. When it is said that Jesus attacked even lusting after a woman I really don`t understand what the crime is here. I can`t believe that someone who finds his wife attractive and wants to make babies with her could possibly claim not to find other women who look sort of similar to her.

I acknowledge of course that the early Alexandrian Church undoubtedly encouraged ritual celibacy and I can even see why it is that ritual celibacy might even be desirable in its own right (at least intellectually). The difficulty I have is how was the idea that `sexual longing` was evil ever justified? Moses might have abstained from sex to meet God on the mountain, but can anyone really make the leap of logic from this to the alleged position of the Carpocratians?

I can`t even imagine a world where sexual longing was finally eradicated. I don`t even see how this could have ever been seen as desirable or divine. And then we read in other of Clement`s statements about the Carpocratians that they were sexual libertines. Something just doesn`t add up here.  There is something inherently problematic about the Carpocratians being described as both libertines and ascetics.

In the end I want to say - the original historical justification for Christian asceticism has never been written.

Michael Kok PhD Student at the University of Sheffield Says It Best “I Very Cautiously Proceed that `Secret Mark` is Innocent Until Proven Guilty”

I couldn`t help but notice this post in the blogsphere this week hopefully signalling a change in the attitude toward Morton Smith`s important discovery in 1958:

Not sure if this is old news to bloggers or how many people have noticed (we may have been distracted by the May 21st impending apocalypse that has been indefinitely delayed ), but BAR has published the Handwriting Analysis Report by Agamemnon Tselikas, which comes to very different conclusions on the authenticity question than the other expert Venetia Anastasopoulou (via). I am perplexed by this whole issue and just cross my fingers for the manuscript to be re-discovered to solve this debate once and for all (preferably before I put anything to do with Secret Mark in my thesis). At this point, I think I very cautiously proceed that “Secret Mark” is innocent (authentic) until proven guilty, but I would not base elaborate constructions about the creation of Mark or conspiracy theories about the origins of Christianity on the basis of this text but simply conclude that the text is just evidence of one aspect of the reception history of Mark at a specific place (Alexandria) and time (late second/early third century CE). A parallel may be the “longer endings” of Mark after 16:8, both of which are interesting evidence of Mark’s later reception and attempts to fill in the gaps and enigmas in Mark’s text.

I noticed that Michael Kok is Canadian which isn`t really surprising given that a disproportionate number of scholars from the Great White North seem to accept the authenticity of the document (maybe we aren`t as cynical as our neighbors to the south). In any event I hope the article signals a fundamental change sweeping through (non-evangelical) scholars of early Christianity.

Siri Griffin on Morton Smith`s Religious Beliefs as a Young Man

I work for the Academy of the New Church in Bryn Athyn, and grand daughter, of American composer Richard Yardumian.  You requested to see what our files might have with respect to any ties between Morton Smith, a member of the Secondary Schools class of 1932, a Son’s of the Academy gold medal recipient, and an Oratorical prize winner.  I’m sorry to say that my office has little to no information about Morton Smith. The yearbook of the class of 1932 is not in our collection. We do have a card for Mr. Smith in our old card-catalogue system, but it contains no information that will be new to you. The lack of additional information can be attributed to the fact that Mr. Smith officially joined the church in 1937, and resigned in 1948.  I don’t know that Mr. Smith actually wrote a letter when he resigned, the records I have say that he “dropped from the roll”. Any correspondence, if kept, would likely be in the archives.

But to the point of your question, it is unusual. We have many members who lose interest but never actually resign. According to my record, Mr. Smith was baptized in 1926. Baptism does not equal membership, you become a member when you sign the roll as an adult, which Mr. Smith did in 1937. Not all baptized people become members, it just gives you the right to vote in various church matters. There’s no expectation on members, and once you become a member you are one for life or until you ask to be removed. I think in Mr. Smith’s time membership was more common. The date I have for his resignation is 3/12/1948, but I couldn’t say whether that is the date he requested to be dropped or the day they recorded it.

I did not see anything that would indicate a previous marriage, but that’s not surprising given the incomplete nature of his constituent record. Marrying at a young age was, of course, more common in his day, but particularly so here. The Academy is a boarding school, so people come from all over the world to attend. The long-standing half-joke is that you find your conjugial partner at the Academy. I told you already that many people wait to find the “right” person, but just as many have jumped headfirst into the wrong marriage upon graduation because they’re swept up by the romantic notion. This is not encouraged by the church, it just seems to happen. In the church, divorce is considered a “permission”. It is not ideal, but also not a reason for condemnation. We have divorced ministers and leaders. Swedenborg does give a few legitimate reasons for divorce, e.g. infidelity, but not everyone waits for a “legitimate” reason. There are varying viewpoints on the matter among church leaders and members, of course, but I doubt it’s something the church itself would have asked Mr. Smith to leave over.

I could go into more detail about the church, I’m sure it did impact Mr. Smith, particularly given the field he pursued. One thing that should be made clear: the New Church is to Christianity as the General Church of the New Jerusalem is to the Catholic Church. The New Church is a philosophy, a belief system. The General Church is an organization, which Mr. Smith belonged to for a part of his life. You do not have to belong to the General Church to be a New Churchman. Indeed, I think the more “New Church” one is, the less meaningful they may find membership in the organization.

The New Church was never really meant to be a church as we think of church today. Swedenborg emphasized a personal spiritual journey, informed and led by the Bible. His extensive writings were an effort to show how the Bible really is talking about each one of us as we strive to become more perfect people and, ultimately, angels. “Nunc Licet” means “Now it is permitted”, a quote that goes on to say “Now it is permitted to enter into the mysteries of faith with understanding”. His works attempt to make clear the enigma that is the Bible (funny, though, he wrote in Latin and his sentences sometimes run a whole half page without punctuation. Not really the “for Dummies” reference one would go to today). The New Church also does not condemn other faiths. The holy city New Jerusalem (from which the GC takes the latter half of its formal name) had twelve gates, which Swedenborg wrote means that there are many ways into the kingdom of heaven. It would not be a radical shift for Mr. Smith to consider another perspective on religion and faith. The most important thing is that one lives his beliefs with integrity, wisdom, charity (meaning kindness, sort of, not magnanimity), and usefulness.

One clarifying point on a piece of information you already have: the Sons of the Academy gold medal is awarded to the graduate who best displays not only academic excellence, but also exemplary moral character. From what I’ve read, it seems the Mar Saba hoax would have been drastically out of character.

Also, I noticed something in your article that I can offer a possible explanation for. Swedenborg wrote prolifically on the subject of marriage, and emphasized the concept of “conjugial” (a word I think he made up) partners, or soul mates. We in the New Church are encouraged to marry the right person. If we never meet the right person on Earth, many people believe we will meet them in heaven. If Mr. Smith never found his soul mate, it would not be unreasonable for him to never marry. Though, as you say, the man’s personal life should have nothing to do with it, that might help shed light on the situation.

(editor`s note: slightly condensed from original emails)

Charles W. Hedrick ponders the new information from Agamemnon Tselikas in BAR

In the recent posting of a group of files on the BAR website, Agamemnon Tselikas has given us a great deal of new information to ponder about Clement’s Letter to Theodore. I must say, however, that I looked in vain among the mass of raw data and his personal opinions for the string of a critical argument leading logically to a particular conclusion where all points have supporting documentation that can be verified. Here is one example. Professor Tselikas is clearly an experienced scholar in his field and I thank him for what he has given us. Nevertheless, he tells us in his “C. Palaeographic Observations” that “one observes some completely foreign or strange and irregular forms that do not belong to the generally traditional way and rule of Greek writing” (#4). For readers properly to evaluate his judgment his statement should be supported by a demonstration of exactly what the “traditional way and rule of Greek writing” are. That is to say: he should lay out for his reader the comparative data by which he arrives at such a conclusion. Without such evidence he is simply asking the reader to trust that he is correct. In any case, even if the scribe of the letter does deviate from customary practice here and there, it only demonstrates that this particular copyist was not as accomplished as what Tselikas is suggesting is the practice of most professional scribes; it does not demonstrate that the letter is a forgery.

What About Those Rumors that Morton Smith Burned His Papers Just Before He Died?

Many people find it suspicious that Smith instructed his executors to destroy his personal papers after his death. Smith was not particularly interested in personal history, and wanted to be remembered for his academic work. In fact, Smith likely got the idea from his friend and respected colleague, Elias Bickerman. Read the first paragraph of Smith's necrology of Bickerman—he seemed to have respected Bickerman’s decision. More than that, it was actually Smith who Bickerman instructed to go through his personal papers and destroy them. In addition to Bickerman, Smith’s other close friend and colleague Judah Goldin instructed his papers be handled the same way. What is interesting, is that all three men didn’t destroy their papers themselves, they left it to an executor to go through their papers and preserve anything that their executor believed should be preserved as historical. When Smith died, a team of three colleagues went through his academic and personal papers, preserving and archiving some, and destroying the rest.

Not quite so dramatic as it is usually presented by the conspiracy theorists

From Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 50 (1983), pp. xvxviii

ELIAS J. BICKERMAN

Elias J. Bickerman's death at the age of 85, in Jerusalem, on Aug. 31, 1981, deprived the Academy of one of its most widely learned and widely famous members, a great scholar who wished to be remembered only for his scholarship. He therefore directed that his private papers be burned without being read. Of the little information about his early life, the most reliable seems that from the brief autobiographies written by his father, Joseph, and his brother, Jacob, and published by the latter under the title Two Bikermans (Vantage Press, New York, 1975). These correct some details of the data in Who's Who, to which Elias Bickermann customarily referred those who asked about his career, and on which I therefore relied when writing the memorial notice for Gnomon (1982.223 f.).

The corrected account runs as follows:

He was born in Kishinev in the Ukraine on July 1, 1897, his mother's name being Sarah (nee Margulis). During the first year of his life the family moved to Odessa where, in October 98 (old style), his brother was born. His father, in his thirties, was a tutor and, later, gymnasium teacher, who not only supported his family, but also put himself through the university and became so well known for his political pamphlets that he was able in 1905 to go on to St. Petersburg and a brilliant career as a journalist. He became one of the leading writers for the newspaper Den ("The Day") and, briefly, its financial manager. Thus, he could send his sons to good private gymnasia (preparatory schools) from which Elias went on to the University of St. Petersburg in 1915 and there became a pupil of Rostovtzeff, later his friend and collaborator. He also entered the Russian army officers' training school at Peterhof, from which in 1917, shortly before the Bolshevik revolution, he was sent as officer to a regiment near the Persian frontier. When the regiment was disbanded he became involved in Tatar-Armenian fighting at Baku, was wounded and briefly hospitalized, but got home just in time to be drafted for the Red Army. Rescued by typhus, he was confined for some months to a hospital in Nikolaev (S. Ukraine) and thence transferred to St. Petersburg, where a job in a navy office enabled him to remain and complete his studies at the University by 1921. In that year his brother, too, was certified to have completed his university studies (in biology and chemistry) - degrees had been abolished as undemocratic. These certifications obtained, the family fled to Berlin; there, in 1922, Elias was accepted as a student at the University and Jacob found a place at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.

From this time on the career of Elias Bickerman is known chiefly from his publications (a bibliography in preparation already lists a dozen books and a hundred articles and reviews) and from his academic degrees, positions, and honors. His doctoral work was done under Wilcken, his Ph.D. thesis being Das Edikt des Kaisers Caracalla in P. Giss. 40 (1926); his Habilitationsschrift became "Beitrage zur Antiken Urkundengeschichte I-III", Archiv fur Papyrusforschung, VIII-IX.  These studies led to his classic article, "Chronologie", in the Gercke-Norden Einleitung in die Altertumswissenschaft 111.5,1933. Along with these appeared a series of distinguished articles on problems of Greco-Roman history (especially chronology) and religion. At the same time, however, he published another series of equally distinguished articles on the Judeo-Christian tradition, beginning with "Das Messiasgeheimnis und die Komposition des Markusevangeliums", ZntW 22,1923,122-40, and having as its climax during this Berlin period his Realencyclopadie article, "Makkabaerbiicher I-III" (XIV.1.779-800). The importance of his publications was
recognized by his appointment in 1929 as Privat-Dozent at the University, where he remained till 1933.

During this period, too, he and his father were active in White Russian circles, opposing the Bolsheviks. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 Bickerman went to France, where his reputation was such that he was at once appointed Charge de Cours at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, of which he became an Eleve diplome in 1938. In 1937 he became also Charge de recherches at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, a position he held until 1942. At the fall of Paris in 1940 he fled to Marseilles whence, shortly before or after the fall of the Vichy government, he escaped to New York. (His Who's Who summary reads "Came to the United States, 1942, naturalized, 1948", but B. Bar Kokhba, in Cathedra, 1981/2, says he stayed in Marseilles until 1943.) While in France, in spite of the turmoil around him, he continued to pour out articles of the highest quality twenty-five in ten years - and these in both of his chosen fields. Moreover, he produced in this period his two greatest books, the revolutionary Der Gott der Makkabder, Berlin, 1937, and the magisterial Institutions des Seleucides, Paris, 1938. (His German publications of this period are still signed "Bickermann", his French, "Bikerman"; his brother retained throughout life the spelling "Bikerman".)

Arriving in the United States, Bickerman (as he now became) was at first attached to the Ecole Libre in New York and the New School for Social Research, then, in 1946, became a research fellow at the Jewish Theological Seminary. A Guggenheim fellowship in 1950 and a short stay at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles were succeeded by his appointment in 1952 as Professor of Ancient History at Columbia. After his retirement in 1967 he became Professor Emeritus, spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study, and then resumed his research fellowship at the Jewish Theological Seminary where, except for a year at the Institute for Advanced Study of the Hebrew University, he remained until his death.

His American period saw no decline in the quality of his articles; indeed, he seems to have turned to these in preference to books, for his most important books in these years - From Ezra to the Last of the Maccabees, 1962, and Four Strange Books of the Bible, 1967 - were collections of papers. As retirement from Columbia approached, however, he began revisioh and collection of his earlier works. Chronology of the Ancient World appeared in 1968 (the Who's Who date, 1967, is incorrect) and has since gone through several translations and revisions; two volumes of his papers, also revised, appeared as Studies in Jewish and Christian History I and II (1976 and 1980), a third is now at the printer's; revision of Institutions des
Seleucides was under way.

The insecurity of his early and middle years was replaced by the tranquility of his long old age. His health was in general excellent and he retained not only his extraordinary range of knowledge, but also his gift for analysis, for detecting neglected problems and proposing original solutions, which made so many of his works turning points for the study of the topics they treated - witness his recent article, "Darius I, Pseudo-Smerdis, and the Magi", Athenaeum (Pavia), n.s. 56,1978,239-261, which puts the discussion of the magi on a new footing. His achievements were recognized by many prizes and honorary degrees, and by memberships in this Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the British Academy. Winters of research in New York were followed annually by summers in Europe and-the Near East to visit his many friends on both sides of the "iron curtain" and of the Arab-Israeli boundaries. The range of his friendships was no less amazing than that of his knowledge, for his kindness was no less amazing than his intelligence. Proverbs 10.7 can be revised: the remembrance of a wise man is a blessing.

Columbia University MORTON SMITH

Charles Hedrick's Take on the Agamemnon Tselikas's Report for the Biblical Archaeology Review and My Announcement of a Special Guest Blogger Coming Here Next Week

I am leaving on a jet airplane and handing over the keys to this blog to someone of far superior talent than myself. His name is Allan Pantuck and aside from being far more intelligent, successful and better looking than I am he is more importantly much better informed about all things related to the Mar Saba discovery. Indeed he is almost universally admired and respected. I don't know how many posts I can get him to write. Maybe it will be just one. Maybe there will be a series of posts. Who knows. But isn't that's the best part of life. You never know what is going to happen next.

You see I have become so addicted to posting articles at my blog that the people at my primal therapy class suggested I spend sometime reconnecting with my son. I decided to take him to Disneyworld. I hope you're as excited about the new changes at the blog for next week as I am, and to show how fair and impartial I am, when I start training for the 2012 Olympic games in October I plan to hand the blog over to Peter Jeffery.

All of which brings me to the point of this post, my good fortune at having got a sneak peak of part of Professor Charles Hedrick's paper from the recent Secret Mark conference in Toronto. What I saw takes a hard look at Tselikas's report given to BAR (better described as a very interesting collection of raw data). My feelings on that report are that there isn't a critical argument with support for all his positions.

Tselikas is a very nice man and obviously skilled in what he does. But that does not excuse him. He like the rest of us must present his argument with supporting documentation for the guild to see and evaluate.  Hedrick points out that Tselikas is basically saying "trust me with respect to the standard that I am using to evaluate the handwriting."  He must prove his point that his observations are correct—not just assert them.  Indeed as Hedrick notes in his paper:

It seems to me that in the absence of a formal critical argument by Tselikas that lays out the comparative handwriting evidence by which he judges that the Letter to Theodore “contains completely foreign or strange and irregular forms” that do not follow traditional forms and rules of writing Greek,[i] we have no option but to begin with the evidence on the table. That evidence points to the late 17th and early 18th centuries as a date for the inscription of the Letter to Theodore.

[1] See his Palaeographic Observations. But the most these features in themselves suggest is that the scribe was both unskilled and not formally trained

I really hope that I can Pantuck to publish more than one article here.  He knows so many interesting things.  I notice that the statistics for my blog at Alexa (see below) suggest that the vast majority of my readers are sixty year old males with a graduate degree surfing the web at home.  If Pantuck runs out of things to say about the Mar Saba discovery, perhaps next week would be a good time as any to give a presentation here at the blog to my readership on how to massage the prostate to check for prostate cancer.  I'm giving him free reign to do whatever he wants here.

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