I am going to leave aside the argument connecting LGM 1 with the Marcionite baptism ritual (something I have been doing over the last week). I could tell from my conversation with Marvin Meyer that people's eyebrows raise too high when you mention 'castration' as a possibility to explain the context of Secret Mark (I think they even prefer thinking in terms of Carlson's 'homosexual code words).
Indeed with my mother staying over for the week all this talk about castration was seeming a little too Freudian for my taste ...
So let's get back to the original purpose of this line of reasoning. What I was trying to do was to figure out the logic behind Irenaeus' report that 'those of Mark' modeled a 'redemption ritual' out of the material in the Gospel of Mark chapter 10.
They maintain that those who have attained to perfect knowledge must of necessity be regenerated into that power which is above all. For it is otherwise impossible to find admittance within the Pleroma, since this [regeneration] it is which leads them down into the depths of Bythus. For the baptism instituted by the visible Jesus was for the remission of sins, but the redemption brought in by that Christ who descended upon Him, was for perfection; and they allege that the former is animal, but the latter spiritual. And the baptism of John was proclaimed with a view to repentance, but the redemption by Christ was brought in for the sake of perfection. And to this He refers when He says, "And I have another baptism to be baptized with, and I hasten eagerly towards it." Moreover, they affirm that the Lord added this redemption to the sons of Zebedee, when their mother asked that they might sit, the one on His right hand, and the other on His left, in His kingdom, saying, "Can ye be baptized with the baptism which I shall be baptized with" Paul, too, they declare, has often set forth, in express terms, the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; and this was the same which is handed down by them in so varied and discordant forms. [AH i.21.2]
Here's what I have figured out so far.
The Diatessaron placed "And I have a baptism to be baptized with, and greatly am I straitened till it be accomplished" long before Mark x.35. If we think in terms of the fifty sections of the Arabic Diatessaron we read:
And I have a baptism to be baptized with, and greatly am I straitened till it be accomplished. See that ye despise not one of these little ones that believe in me. Verily I say unto you, Their angels at all times see the face of my Father which is in heaven. The Son of man came to save the thing which was lost.
in section 27 and then in Ephrem's gospel there is no "Can ye be baptized with the baptism which I shall be baptized with" in the equivalent to Mark chapter 10 which read instead:
[the] two sons, came forward, and said unto him, Teacher, we would that all that we ask thou wouldest do unto us. He said unto them, What would ye that I should do unto you? They said unto him, Grant us that we may sit, the one on thy right, and the other So on thy left, in thy kingdom and thy glory. And Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I am to drink? And they said unto him, We are able. Jesus said unto them, The cup that I drink ye shall drink but that ye should sit on my right and on my left is not mine to give; but it is for him for whom my Father hath prepared it. [section 30]
The point then is that IF the parallels we have already identified between Secret Mark and the Diatessaron stretched to Mark x.38 - 44 THEN we can begin to argue that LGM 1 was a depiction of the Redemption ritual referenced by Irenaeus in Book 1 of Against the Heresies and 'improved' by his student Hippolytus in Book Six of his text of the same name.
I will strengthen the argument for identifying Secret Mark as related to the Diatessaron once my mother goes home. This is a complicated argument and it requires my wife participating in occupying my mother while I write this all down. My wife however is notoriously anti-social so this won't happen.
In brief however I can say that Irenaeus speaks of a community of Mark which can be connected with Clement of Alexandria's Markan See which happened to use a 'gospel harmony' with a 'infinite number of bastard additions' etc. (AH i.19)
The question that has been occupying me all day is why the latter part of Mark chapter 10 would be connected with a baptism ritual WITHOUT THE PRESENCE OF LGM 1. Just think about it. There is just a request from John Mark and his brother to sit in the throne of God. There is absolutely no reason why this part of the gospel would serve as the paradigm for a ritual linked with water immersion without LGM 1.
So as this is NOT a scholarly paper and this blog is indeed properly defined as 'observations' which derive from my own imagination let me introduce what I think this part of Secret Mark looked like:
And they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightaway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb, they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do, and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan.
Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask." "What do you want me to do for you?" he asked. They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory." "You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink?" "We can," they answered. Jesus said to them, "You will drink the cup I drink but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared."
When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
I'd like to have people acknowledge the possibility that LGM 1 is indeed the basis to the Redemption ritual of 'those of Mark.' If you don't accept that thesis then let's ask the logical question which necessarily follows - why the hell did 'those of Mark' develop a ritual in association with water immersion based on Mark x.35 - 44?
The closest I could ever get to solving the employment of apolytrosis with this material is that it somehow had to with the 'ransom' reference in Mark x.44:
the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many
The problem however is that if you accept the canonical text of Mark and the assumptions of the orthodox then Jesus is 'the Son of Man' and this 'baptism' is a reference to his Passion. Yet this is absurd and is only saved by the fact that Irenaeus makes it seem as if the Markan 'apolytrosis' ritual didn't need to use water. However, as I have already shown Hippolytus makes clear that his master was incorrect on this point - apolytrosis was a ritual done in addition to water immersion. Water immersion was always employed by the heretics.
My best guess is that under the heretical scenario 'the Son of Man' is Jesus' assistant - the neaniskos being baptized in LGM 1 - who has already underwent the apolytrosis ritual and who is expected to outlive Jesus (who is ready to die on the cross) and serve as a 'ransom' after the Resurrection.
Again, I ask the reader to at least consider this possibility.
The point of this post however is to consider why Mark x.38 - 45 was ever understood to serve as the basis to an apolytrosis ritual. To this end I turn to Abbott's the Fourfold Gospel in order to get some perspective on how the term 'redemption' might have been used by 'those of Mark.'
Abbott begins by looking back at Mark viii. 34 - 37:
If anyone would come after me, he must deny his soul ... [f]or whoever wants to save his soul will lose it, but whoever loses his soul for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
Of course I am assuming a Semiticism beneath Mark x.34's 'deny himself' (i.e. that 'self' here was nefesh). Yet Abbott's interest is only to show that the concept of ransom was behind this conception:
The Markan word for 'a thing given in exchange' is used by Euripides 'the crowd is an absurd substitute for the sterling friend,' and Ben Sira (LXX), 'there is no substitute for a disciplined soul.' It is the 'equivalent' in money or kind given in exchange for anything. "If a man lost his soul has he another soul to give to the captor as an equivalent to buy it back again?" - the question Chrysostom finds in Matthew and answers with a negative. Origen puts the case rather differently, "But having once for all lost his own soul ... a man will not be able to give an equivalent for the soul that is perishing (lit. in the condition of being lost). For the [soul] fashioned according to the image of God is more precious than all things. There is only One who has been able to give an equivalent for our formerly perishing soul - He that bought us with his own precious blood." [Origen Exhort Martyr. 12] This gives to Mark's word a meaning that approaches "ransom" and a form of the word is used as a parallel to 'ransom' in the Epistle of Diognetus.
Now I hope the reader can see where I am naturally going with this. Even though Abbott lived long before the discovery of To Theodore his suggestions provide an interesting context for what MUST HAVE BEEN UNDERSTOOD TO HAVE TAKEN PLACE DURING THAT REDEMPTION RITUAL IN LGM 1.
Just think of it - the neaniskos has just been resurrected from the dead. It would not be far fetched to assume that his body was 'restood' but his soul was still in Gehenna (indeed in a future post I will prove this to be so with the context of this section in the Diatessaron). There had to be a reason why the original author of Secret Mark wanted to have this 'raising from the dead' narrative precede the apolytrosis - in my estimation again it had something to do with the ritual identified as a 'baptism on behalf of the dead' (oops! I said no mention of Marcionitism in this post ...).
In any event if we can look to Mark's explanation of LGM 1 in what follows (Mark x.38 - 44) it stands to reason that the neaniskos was being 'prepared' to sit on the throne with Jesus by having his soul 'exchanged' with Jesus' in the apolytrosis ritual in LGM 1 (cf. "to sit at my right ... belong to those for who have been prepared" Mark x. 40).
So it is that Abbott actually takes a look at the context of the lutron reference in Mark x.45 as a parallel to his discussion cited above of Mark viii.36. Abbott notes that in the Judaism of the period one could redeem ones soul by offering money to God:
The first Biblical mention of "ransoming" the "soul" occurs in connection with the numbering of the Israelites. They are to give "every man a ransom for his soul." [Ex 30.12] The Law proceeds "this shall they give ... half a shekel." The Jerusalem Targum explains 'this' by adding "this valuation was shewn to Moses in the mountain as with a denarius of fire." In one of the many forms in which this tradition repeated, it is said that God's words so terrified Moses that he replied, "Who can give a ransom for his soul?" It was then (said R. Meir) that God shewed Moses a coin of fire and said "This shalt thou give."
It doesn't take a genius to see that Christianity is founded on the rejection of this principle. We needn't only think in terms of the 'mammon of unrighteousness.' If we look at the Diatessaron of Ephrem the Syrian the story of the rich man and Lazarus is actually squeezed right in front of LGM 1 and right behind the story of rich youth (Mark x:17 - 31). Petersen has actually demonstrated that Origen and a number of other authors had a version of the gospel which blended together these three narratives as a seamless transition featuring one character who has a discussion with Jesus about riches and then 'dies' goes into the underworld, sees that money does not 'redeem' one's soul and then is ultimately resurrected.
I will develop all of this at greater length in a future post but again I need only say that I think that LGM 1 fits PERFECTLY within this original Diatessaron tradition ...
The problem with most New Testament scholars is that they don't have a #$$#%^ clue about what Judaism is or the heretical forms of Christianity which stood much closer to Judaism than the bastard tradition which survived. As such they develop their ideas about what 'redemption' is in Christianity without having any proper context to make reasonable judgments about these things.
The Jews were commanded by God to use money to redeem their souls. Along comes Mark and the gospel he wrote from instruction at the hands of Jesus who said that 'redemption' was something else.
I am trying to work out in my own head what this apolytrosis is based on the evidence of Mark x.38 - 45 and the only answer I can come with is that a 'gnostic' form of baptism was being promoted which had the initiate ritually 'die' and exchange his soul for the Christ-soul from heaven.
Is there anyone out there that can come up with a better answer?
If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here
If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here
