It has long been noted that there seem to be two Passover chronologies in the gospels which can't easily be reconciled with one another. Apollinaris of Hierapolis, Hippolytus of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, whose texts are preserved in the Chronicon Paschale, the author of the Chronicon himself, Tertullian, Julius Africanus, Lactantius, Pope Peter of Alexandria, Ambrosiaster, and the author of a discourse falsely attributed to John Chrysostom: all these say expressly that Jesus was crucified on the 14th of Nisan at the time when the Jews were slaying the lamb, and that in that year he did not celebrate the Passover because he was himself the true Passover. It is claimed that these sources relied upon the gospel narrative of John to establish their formulation which affirmed that Jesus died on the evening of the 14th of Nisan, and at that time they were accustomed to break their fast and to inaugurate the Easter festival.
The Greek Church, which uses leavened bread in the Eucharist, evidently follows this opinion, which cannot be denied to have real extrinsic probability; but it is not immediately clear how it can be reconciled with the Synoptics. This opinion made the Last Supper an ordinary meal, celebrated on the 13th of Nisan. Yet it is important to note that the earliest Alexandrian witnesses denied that Jesus suffered on the Cross. This is usually taken to mean that the Jews seized a phantasmic being whom they thought to be of 'flesh and blood' and convinced the Romans to crucify that angelic hypostasis. Yet it is clear from the reports associated with Basilides and possibly 'those who prefered the Gospel according to Mark' (Irenaeus AH 3.11.7) that the Alexandrians at least assumed that someone other than Jesus was crucified on the Cross.
What was the ultimate source of this belief that someone else was crucified on the cross? The obvious answer of course is a heretical gospel. Unfortunately none of these texts have survived. However Photius reports (Bibliotheca 114) that a very early witness to this tradition did survive in a document called 'the Travels of the Apostles' which he notes was comprised of
the Acts of Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas, and Paul, the author being one Lucius Charinus, as the work itself shows. The style is altogether uneven and strange; the words and constructions, if sometimes free from carelessness, are for the most part common and hackneyed; there is no trace of the smooth and spontaneous expression, which is the essential characteristic of the language of the Gospels and Apostles, or of the consequent natural grace. The contents also is very silly and self-contradictory. The author asserts that the God of the Jews, whom he calls evil, whose servant Simon Magus was, is one God, and Christ, whom he calls good, another. Mingling and confounding all together, he calls the same both Father and Son. He asserts that He never was really made man, but only in appearance; that He appeared at different times in different form to His disciples, now as a young, now as an old man, and then again as a boy, now taller, now shorter, now very tall, so that His head reached nearly to heaven. He also invents much idle and absurd nonsense about the Cross, saying that Christ was not crucified, but some one in His stead, and that therefore He could laugh at those who imagined they had crucified Him. He declares lawful marriages to be illegal and that all procreation of children is evil and the work of the evil one. He talks foolishly about the creator of demons. He tells monstrous tales of silly and childish resurrections of dead men and oxen and cattle. In the Acts of St. John he seems to support the opponents of images in attacking their use. In a word, the book contains a vast amount of childish, incredible, ill-devised, lying, silly, self-contradictory, impious, and ungodly statements, so that one would not be far wrong in calling it the source and mother of all heresy.
The text Photius is referencing here is clearly the so-called 'round dance' narrative from the Acts of John. So it is that already in the second century there was a tradition where Jesus only seems to be crucified, but that someone else was really being fixed to the Cross. Now, I am the first one to admit that the Acts of John is likely not the original 'Marcionite' docetic understanding but one which emerged within Catholic circles and its earliest canonical texts. Nevertheless it is fascinating to see that there is the idea at least that Jesus could be reported with John in a cave on a mountain while the crucifixion which was in reality 'of someone else' was going on in Jerusalem below.
The Acts of John represents Jesus's revelation to John as follows. Before Jesus's arrest the Last Supper culminates with a round dance. John apparently stayed with Jesus until his crucifixion before 'fleeing' to the mountanous cave which is narrated as follows in the Acts of John:
Thus, my beloved, having danced with us the Lord went forth. And we as men gone astray or dazed with sleep fled this way and that. I, then, when I saw him suffer, did not even abide by his suffering, but fled unto the Mount of Olives, weeping at that which had befallen. And when he was crucified on the Friday, at the sixth hour of the day, darkness came upon all the earth. And my Lord standing in the midst of the cave and enlightening it, said: John, unto the multitude below in Jerusalem I am being crucified and pierced with lances and reeds, and gall and vinegar is given me to drink. But unto thee I speak, and what I speak hear thou. I put it into thy mind to come up into this mountain, that thou mightest hear those things which it behoveth a disciple to learn from his teacher and a man from his God.
Jesus himself reveals to John the following explanation of the gospel and clearly a 'mystical' truth which was contained in some other text or tradition not known:
Thou hearest that I suffered, yet did I not suffer; that I suffered not, yet did I suffer; that I was pierced, yet I was not smitten; hanged, and I was not hanged; that blood flowed from me, and it flowed not; and, in a word, what they say of me, that befell me not, but what they say not, that did I suffer. Now what those things are I signify unto thee, for I know that thou wilt understand. Perceive thou therefore in me the praising (al. slaying al. rest) of the (or a) Word (Logos), the piercing of the Word, the blood of the Word, the wound of the Word, the hanging up of the Word, the suffering of the Word, the nailing (fixing) of the Word, the death of the Word. And so speak I, separating off the manhood. Perceive thou therefore in the first place of the Word; then shalt thou perceive the Lord, and in the third place the man, and what he hath suffered.
When he had spoken unto me these things, and others which I know not how to say as he would have me, he was taken up, no one of the multitudes having beheld him. And when I went down I laughed them all to scorn, inasmuch as he had told me the things which they have said concerning him; holding fast this one thing in myself, that the Lord contrived all things symbolically and by a dispensation toward men, for their conversion and salvation.
It is simply scandalous that scholars typically refuse to budge from framing any early conception they come across in terms of the canonical gospels. But here is the amazing thing that was first noted by Richard Hugh (R H) Connolly - the Acts of John does not use the canonical gospel of John but a diatessaronic gospel of unknown provenance.
Why does this matter? Well, if a text as obviously connected to 'St. John' as the Acts of John didn't use or know of our canonical text attributed to 'John' then the Paschal chronology of Clement of Alexandria (and possibly other of the aforementioned witnesses) might likewise have been based on a similar text. Indeed let's point to the crucial part of the narrative just cited:
And when he was crucified on the Friday, at the sixth hour of the day, darkness came upon all the earth
This narrative cannot be from canonical John because it says explicitly that Jesus was not yet crucified by the sixth hour:
It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour. "Here is your king," Pilate said to the Jews. But they shouted, "Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!" "Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked. "We have no king but Caesar," the chief priests answered. Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. (John 19:14-16)
Yet as I said earlier, we can't just fall back on the idea that the author of the Acts of John 'must have been' influenced by Matthew and Luke here. Connolly has already proven that we are dealing with some secret unknown 'diatessaronic' gospel and so the question must be raised - does the same have to be true with Clement?
The reason I say this of course is that Clement somehow can intimate the primacy of Mark in Quis Dives Salvetur but then strangely revert to - what appears to ignorant scholars to be - a Paschal chronology based on 'canonical John.' It is simply the inflexibility of traditional scholars which stands in the way of understanding that Clement must have possesed a different gospel text - not 'synoptic' and not exactly 'Johannine' - which accounts for his ability to 'harmonize' a Paschal chronology similar to that of the Acts of John and other ancient sources.
Indeed it might be useful to remind ourselves of what Casey demonstrated in his study of the existence of a Marcionite 'diatessaronic' gospel. He first cited Eznik's report on the Armenian Marcionites where it said that Jesus:
did all manner of good works, healing the sick and raising the dead, and in this way roused the envy of the Lord of Creation who crucified him. After death he passed into hell and rescued those who were there, because hell was not accustomed to receive the living, and the death of the good god's son was simulated, not real, so that he could break down hell's gates and lead the imprisoned souls to his father in the third heaven. This angered the Lord of Creation greatly and he rent his garment and tore the veil of his temple and darkened his sun and clothed his world in darkness and sat in mourning. Then Jesus descended again, but this time in the form of his divinity, and accused the Lord of Creation of his death.
While all previous scholarship remains steadfast in its zealous devotion to Irenaeus's claims about a Marcionite 'curtailment' of a gospel of Luke, Casey rightly notes that this doesn't make sense here:
In Eznik's account when the creator becomes angry at man's defection to idolatry he tears his garment and the veil of his temple, darkens his sun and cloaks his world with darkness. All these gestures contain patent references to the Passion narrative. In Luke, however, the high priest does not tear his garment nor is the Temple veil rent, but the eclipse of the sun is peculiar to Luke. All these features, however, occur in the Diatessaron. The quotations must belong to Eznik's source for their exegesis is quite peculiar to its system. We must, therefore, reckon in the East with a form of Marcionism which found the popularity of Tatian's harmony too great to be set aside.
While Eznik does not mentioned it, the Marcionite gospel clearly also made reference to the darkness manifesting itself in the 'sixth hour' as it was found in Luke and Matthew. All of which leads us back to the question of Clement's relationship with the Marcosians, a point first noted by Philip Schaff and repeated in a number of other contemporary studies.
Irenaeus points out that the heretical followers of a certain Mark used a gospel derived from an 'unspeakable' revelation made to their leader. Mark is said to have been "possessed of the greatest knowledge and perfection, and who has received the highest power from the invisible and ineffable regions above" (AH 1.13.1) and again declares "that he alone was the matrix and receptacle of the Sige of all four (gospels), inasmuch as he was only-begotten ... he declares that the infinitely exalted (Pythagorean) Tetrad descended upon him from the invisible and indescribable places in the form of a woman." (AH 1.14.1)
The Marcionites, the Marcosians and the Alexandrians of Clement's time (assuming of course the three sects weren't one and the same tradition) can all be intimated to have used the same gospel - or at the very least very similar gospels with identical exegeses of this commonly held text. Gregory Nazianzus and - even Epiphanius also to a lesser degree - fixes Irenaeus's report on the 'followers of Mark' with the Marcionites. The Philosophumena explicitly connects a form of the Gospel of Mark with the Marcionite gospel, something implicit also in Irenaeus's justification of the fourfold gospel (cf. AH 3.11)
For the moment let's leave the Marcionites aside and establish what Schaff and other have already noted - namely that Clement and the Marcosians were connected as one tradition:
Irenaeus gives an account of Marcus and the Marcosians in 1.13 - 21 ... Hippolytus and Epiphanius (Haer 34) copy their accounts from Irenaeus, and probably had no direct knowledge of the works of Marcus or of his sect. Clement of Alexandria, however, knew and used his writings.[Philip Schaff note on Eusebius Church History iv.11.4]
... for on comparison of the sections just cited from Clement and from Irenaeus [regarding the Marcosians] the coincidences are found to be such as to put it beyond doubt that Clement in his account of the number six makes an unacknowledged use of the same [Marcosian] writing as were employed by Irenaeus.[William Smith A Dictionary of Christian Biography p. 161]
Clement of Alexandria, himself infected with Gnosticism, actually uses Marcus number system though without acknowledgement (Strom, VI, xvi). [Arendzen JP. Marcus. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX]
The idea that Clement had some relationship with the Marcosians is so utterly irrefutable. All it requires is that we compare the common Pythagorean interest in numbers and in particular the crucifixion at the 'sixth hour':
He [Mark] asserts that the fruit of this arrangement and analogy has been manifested in the likeness of an image, namely, Him who, after six days, ascended into the mountain along with three others, and then became one of six (the sixth), in which character He descended and was contained in the Hebdomad, since He was the illustrious Ogdoad, and contained in Himself the entire number of the elements, which the descent of the dove (who is Alpha and Omega) made clearly manifest, when He came to be baptized; for the number of the dove is eight hundred and one. And for this reason did Moses declare that man was formed on the sixth day; and then, again, according to arrangement, it was on the sixth day, which is the preparation, that the last man appeared, for the regeneration of the first, Of this arrangement, both the beginning and the end were formed at that sixth hour, at which He was nailed to the tree. For that perfect being Nous, knowing that the number six had the power both of formation and regeneration, declared to the children of light, that regeneration which has been wrought out by Him who appeared as the Episemon in regard to that number. [Irenaeus AH 1.16.2]
And they [the Pythagorewans] called the ogdoad a cube [ὀγδοάδα κύβον καλοῦσι], counting the fixed sphere along with the seven revolving ones, by which is produced "the great year," as a kind of period of recompense of what has been promised. Thus the Lord, who ascended the mountain, the fourth [τέταρτος], becomes the sixth, and is illuminated all round with spiritual light [τὸ ὄρος ἕκτος γίνεται καὶ φωτὶ περιλάμπεται πνευματικῷ], by laying bare the power [τὴν δύναμιν] proceeding from Him, as far as those selected to see were able to behold it, by the Seventh, the Voice, proclaimed to be the Son of God [δι´ ἑβδόμης ἀνακηρυσσόμενος τῆς φωνῆς υἱὸς εἶναι θεοῦ]; in order that they, persuaded respecting Him, might have rest [ἵνα δὴ οἳ μὲν ἀναπαύσωνται πεισθέντες περὶ αὐτοῦ]; while He by His birth, which was indicated by the sixth [ἐπίσημος] conspicuously marked, becoming the eighth [ὀγδοὰς], might appear to be God in a body of flesh by displaying His power [θεὸς ἐν σαρκίῳ τὴν δύναμιν ἐνδεικνύμενος], being numbered indeed as a man, but being concealed as to who He was [ἀριθμούμενος μὲν ὡς ἄνθρωπος, κρυπτόμενος δὲ ὃς ἦν]. For six is reckoned in the order of numbers [τῇ μὲν γὰρ τάξει τῶν ἀριθμῶν συγκαταλέγεται καὶ ὁ ἕξ], but the succession of the letters acknowledges the character which is not written [ἡ δὲ τῶν στοιχείων ἀκολουθία ἐπίσημον γνωρίζει τὸ μὴ γραφόμενον]. In this case, in the numbers themselves [Ἐνταῦθα κατὰ μὲν τοὺς ἀριθμοὺς], each unit is preserved in its order up to seven and eight [αὐτοὺς σῴζεται τῇ τάξει ἑκάστη μονὰς εἰς ἑβδομάδα τε καὶ ὀγδοάδα]. But in the number of the characters, Zeta becomes six and Eta seven [κατὰ δὲ τὸν τῶν στοιχείων ἀριθμὸν ἕκτον γίνεται τὸ ζῆτα, καὶ ἕβδομον τὸ <η>].
And the character having somehow slipped into writing [Εἰσκλαπέντος δ´ οὐκ οἶδ´ ὅπως τοῦ ἐπισήμου εἰς τὴν γραφήν], should we follow it out thus, the seven became six, and the eight seven [ἐὰν οὕτως ἑπώμεθα, ἕκτη μὲν γίνεται ἡ ἑβδομάς, ἑβδόμη δὲ ἡ ὀγδοάς]. Wherefore also man is said to have been made on the sixth day [διὸ καὶ ἐν τῇ ἕκτῃ ὁ ἄνθρωπος λέγεται πεποιῆσθαι], who became faithful to Him who is the sign, so as straightway to receive the rest of the Lord's inheritance [ὁ τῷ ἐπισήμῳ πιστὸς γενόμενος ὡς εὐθέως κυριακῆς κληρονομίας ἀνάπαυσιν ἀπολαβεῖν]. Some such thing also is indicated by the sixth hour in the scheme of salvation [Τοιοῦτόν τι καὶ ἡ ἕκτη ὥρα τῆς σωτηρίου οἰκονομίας ἐμφαίνει], in which man was perfected [καθ´ ἣν ἐτελειώθη ὁ ἄνθρωπος]. Further, of the eight, the intermediates are seven [Ναὶ μὴν τῶν μὲν ὀκτὼ αἱ μεσότητες γίνονται ἑπτά]; and of the seven, the intervals are shown to be six [τῶν δὲ ἑπτὰ φαίνονται εἶναι τὰ διαστήματα ἕξ]. For that is another ground, in which seven glorifies eight, and "the heavens declare to the heavens the glory of God." [Ἄλλος γὰρ ἐκεῖνος λόγος, ἐπὰν ἑβδομὰς δοξάζῃ τὴν ὀγδοάδα καὶ «Οἱ οὐρανοὶ τοῖς οὐρανοῖς διηγοῦνται δόξαν θεοῦ»](Clement Strom. 6.16)
It seems utterly incredible to me that there is any debate about the authenticity of the Letter to Theodore when we have this parallel testimony in the same period about the same 'mystical understanding' in the writings of Irenaeus and Clement. As the saying goes, evil men will perpetuate evil deeds.
Both Irenaeus and Clement are clearly referencing parallel events happening on 'the sixth day' - viz. the date of the original creation of man - all of which underscore that the numbers 'six,' 'seven' and 'eight' are clearly related. Origen similarly reconciles the seemingly contradictory identification of the date of the Transfiguration (viz. 'after six days' Mk 9:2, Mt 17:1 and 'about eight days' Lk 9:2). But the clear point of contact is what is reported of the re-creation of the resurrected neaniskos in 'Secret Mark' - i.e. where Jesus initiates the youth 'after six days' which is clearly an allusion to a seventh day that overlaps to 'the eight' i.e. with the sunrise.
There can be no doubt that Clement and the followers of Mark (viz. the Marcosians) applied the same logic to the crucifixion which occurred in the 'sixth hour' with the confusion over the 'after three days' reference in Mark and the sign 'on the third day' as well the ultimate revelation of the resurrection 'after six days' (Friday = end of Passover) in a year where - according to the original Qumran exegesis of Lev. 23 - the following Sabbath (seventh day) determined the Festival of First Fruits would fall on the Sunday (i.e. eighth day). The Gospel according to Peter and the Manichaean diatessaron as we shall demonstrate shortly clustered the ultimate witness of Jesus's resurrection not on the 'third day' but in this cluster of 'sixth,' 'seventh' and 'eighth' days at the end of this most unusual of possibilities for the Jewish festival.
The point of this discussion is that when you look at the evidence from the earliest witnesses to the Diatessaron, there seems to be all the building blocks in place for an understanding that the Last Supper was indeed a Paschal meal but one which took place in a docetic gospel tradition where Jesus was not on the cross but sharing a meal with the disciples on Nisan 14 while his 'replacement' was being crucified. The strongest supporting evidence for this assertion is Ephrem's insistance that Jesus 'died' at the very moment Jesus and the disciples were breaking bread. My suggestion now is that - like the gospel of the Acts of John - the Marcionites and other employers of the Diatessaron might well have understood that Jesus was at two places at the same time.
Indeed we should note that Eznik actually reports an understanding from the Armenian Marcionites that there were two descents of Jesus into the underworld - the first when the 'the guy on the cross' dies and then a second descent by Jesus shortly thereafter. So we read that Jesus:
After death passed into hell and rescued those who were there, because hell was not accustomed to receive the living, and the death of the good god's son was simulated, not real, so that he could break down hell's gates and lead the imprisoned souls to his father in the third heaven. This angered the Lord of Creation greatly and he rent his garment and tore the veil of his temple and darkened his sun and clothed his world in darkness and sat in mourning.
Then the Marcionites report that after this event:
Jesus descended again, but this time in the form of his divinity, and accused the Lord of Creation of his death.
This seems to accord perfectly with Irenaeus's typically garbled report (cf. the Marcosian report above vs. Clement's original testimony) of two figures - Jesus crucified and an impassable Christ - at the Passion no less than Ephrem strange notion of Christ dying at the very moment Jesus broke the bread of the Eucharist.
The underlying point that with all arguments related to Secret Mark, we needn't have to 'prove' that we understand everything. It is not our responsibility to 'replace' the certainty of the false faith originally promoted by Irenaeus and his adherents. Our only duty is to draw attention to the fact that Clement's strange ability to harmonize the so-called 'Johannine chronology' with a typical preference otherwise for synoptic material (and Mark in particular in Quis Dives Salvetur) had to have been developed through an otherwise unknown gospel text related to 'the Diatessaron' and undoubtedly also already in the hands of the heretical followers of Mark witnessed by Irenaeus.
To argue against this reconstruction shows an incredible amount of intellectual immaturity on the part of New Testament and Patristic scholars. They resemble children who discover that their mommy wasn't necessarily the good girl she portrayed herself to be. Someone has to end up having a whore for a mother. It's just the law of probability. We should all just chip in and these each of these big babies a pacifier ...
