The 'Living Voice' of St. Mark and the Alexandrian Gospel According to Mark

I think everyone who reads this post regularly knows that I am not completely sure that when Clement references the account of 'the Lord's doings' [Theod I.16] written in Peter's name that he means our canonical Gospel of Mark. Yes, there is Occam's Razor but many times people misinterpret that principle. It is not 'chose the most convenient possibility' but that 'entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.'

There is no convincing reason to think that Clement in To Theodore is talking about two ACCEPTED texts entitled 'the Gospel of Mark.' We have to remember that there is a text which was being passed around in the late second century called 'according to Mark' which he denied as a false, Carpocratian creation. As such we would then have to argue that Clement is claiming that THREE texts claiming to be gospel's of Mark had to be circulating at the time of To Theodore.

It is this argument, my friends, which actually QUITE LITERALLY contradict's Occam's Razor (i.e. multiplying entities beyond necessity') rather than my reading of the text.

But I also have been reading Osborn's recent book on Clement as well as Clement's and Irenaeus's disagreement on the role of 'the living voice' within Christianity.

Clement of Alexandria says that "writing and living voice are only different ways of preaching the Word." [Stromata i.11] While Irenaeus writes that "when, however, they [the heretics] are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but living voice: wherefore also Paul declared, "But we speak wisdom among those that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world." [AH iii.2]

I cannot help but be struck by the manner in which this scenario again reflects what is written in To Theodore with regards to the composition of the Alexandrian Gospel according to Mark. The problem again is that scholars want to think about what is written there in terms of two texts entitled the 'Gospel of Mark' with one long and one short. They are also preconditioned by other statements made by other Church Fathers that our canonical Gospel of Mark was the written for Peter by Mark the Evangelist.

I also don't accept the claim of Eusebius that the Hypotyposes were written by Clement. There are explicit and irreconcilable contradictions between what is written in that work and what Clement says elsewhere in his writings. It is also a fact that the school of Photius (not just Photius) of Byzantium rejected the text as spurious.

So when you think about matters 'outside of the box' as it were - all the traditions outside of Clement argue that the 'preaching the word' was associated with Peter BEFORE Mark wrote the canonical gospel called 'according to Mark' on his behalf. In this way Peter is 'preaching' with literally 'a living voice' and Mark is associated with the act of literally taking hand to paper and writing out what Peter said by voice down on paper.

With me so far?

Irenaeus wouldn't be against this formulation. He explicitly frames the relationship between Mark and Peter in very similar terms - "after their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter." [AH iii.1.1 et al] I would even argue that Irenaeus DELIBERATELY frames the relationship that way to obscure what he already knew was being promulgated in Alexandria (either directly or indirectly) from letters like that To Theodore.

Indeed Irenaeus knew also of Papias' use of the term 'living voice' to designate something again 'superior to the written teachings of the disciples.'

Irenaeus was in effect the editor of the collection of Papias' writings that got passed down to later times (he made subtle and not so subtle changes which are documented at this blog). But Clement's Letter to Theodore while not EXPLICITLY referencing the concept of 'living voice' can be read to preserve a very different formulation of the relationship between Mark and Peter and in turn the roles of 'written' and 'oral tradition' within the Church.

Look again at what is said in to Theodore about the way the two written texts are developed. First there is a WRITTEN TEXT associated with Peter with no reference to 'preaching' or 'oral teaching' of any kind:

As for Mark, then, during Peter's stay in Rome he wrote an account of the Lord's doings, not, however, declaring all of them, nor yet hinting at the secret ones, but selecting what he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed.

Then interesting it is Mark who is connected with additional 'sayings' (logia) [Theod I.25] added to the established written word associated with Peter.

First it is said that:

when Peter died a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria, bringing both his own and those of Peter, from which he transferred to his former book the things suitable to whatever makes for progress toward knowledge.

What exactly is meant here is unclear and has been translated in different ways by different people. Bernhard translates it, best I think as:

Then, when Peter was martyred, Mark went to Alexandria, bringing both his knowledge and the things he remembered hearing from Peter.

The point is that the concept here is very closely related to what Irenaeus rails against when he writes that when the heretics are "confuted from the [Catholic] Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but living voice." Mark's living voice is what has been added to the 'account of the Lord's doing' to make it take the shape of the Alexandrian Gospel According to Mark.

That is why Clement continues to say that:

Thus he [Mark] composed a more spiritual Gospel for the use of those who were being perfected. Nevertheless, he yet did not divulge the things not to be uttered, nor did he write down the hierophantic teaching of the Lord, but to the stories already written he added yet others and, moreover, brought in certain sayings of which he knew the interpretation would, as a mystagogue, lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils. Thus, in sum, he prepared matters, neither grudgingly nor incautiously, in my opinion, and, dying, he left his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.

I think again that Mark's 'living voice' is what has been added to the 'account of the Lord's doing' written for Peter to make the 'the Gospel According to Mark' guarded by the Alexandrian community.

Yet another argument for the authenticity of the Mar Saba document - viz. the second of two very powerful proofs that Irenaeus knew AND DESPISED the development of the gospel(s) formulated by Clement in that text.