Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Roger,

Yes, I think it's possible that the “secret” material was written by the same _community_ that wrote the Gospel of Mark. But probably later along the timeline.

If Mk was written in 5 stages, then IMO SecMk would be Stage 4 (canonical Mk being Stage 5).

Yes, this makes sense.

Probably not "right from the start".

IMO Stage 1 of Mk was the original proto-gospel, quite short, and stylistically similar to Lk (so one can also describe that original proto-gospel as 'proto-Lk').

Then came further expansions and re-editings.

All the best,

Yuri.

Roger Viklund

Hi Yuri!

My simple summary does not deal with possible forerunners of the Gospel of Mark. Of course there could be more proto-like Gospels on which GMark was built and expanded. I agree that Secret Mark could be Stage 4 if canonical Mark was stage 5. And I find it illogical to think that SecMk was an expansion of GMk unless it was a forgery and think it needs to be a modern one in such case (although I still doubt it). Apart from the intercalations and the framing stories, Secret Mark also “fixes” the clumsy expression in Mark 10:46 where Jesus arrives to Jericho and immediately leaves. It is much easier to imagine how the part with Jesus not receiving the women was removed and thereby the “clumsy” sentence (and the only real clumsy construction made by the author that I can find, when Jesus or someone else are said to arrive somewhere) arose, than to accept that “Mark” made this “miss” in the beginning. It is much easier to see how the framing story and the intercalation was planned and performed when the text was composed than to imagine that someone would be able to construct these features afterwards, having to deal with the existing text and not being able adjust it to make the insertions fit.

It could also explain why the fleeing naked young man in Mark 14:51–52 could appear without any previous or later explanation. That was part of the text in SecMk that was removed, as perhaps was the ending.

Kindly, Roger

DCHindley

Roger (and whoever else ares to comment),

Assuming for the moment that SM is authentic (i.e., from a real lost ancient gospel related to canonical Mark), what do you think of Smith's suggestion that Secret Mark is also related to a source used by the author(s) of the canonical gospel of John to provide a rough historical skeleton for his(their) extensive narrative additions?

DCH

Roger Viklund

Hi David!

It is obvious that story of the raising of the youth in SecMk is the same story as the raising of Lazarus in GJohn. Either “John” relied on SecMk, or SecMk relied on “John” or they both relied on a common written source, or they drew from oral tradition. The fact that the miracle in both versions takes place in Bethany, but in two different Bethanys, is of course important. This in my opinion tends to make it less likely that SecMk was a later (modern or antique) invention based on GJohn, since there would then be no good reason to change the place. How would the author come up with this? If, on the other hand, John would rely on SecMk, there would also be no strong reason to change the locality. One could however imagine that the author of GJohn, who knew that there were two different Bethanys (he mentions two), could have taken the story from SecMk but changed the locality of Bethany to the one he thought it would be. I therefore consider John borrowing from SecMk as a more likely possibility than the other way round. But this circumstance makes it most likely that SecMk and GJohn either relied on a common source or oral tradition.

Then there is the fact that GJohn most likely (at least in the Passion) relied on “Mark” but still very loosely as if he had a manuscript with partly the same material but still different. Now this could of course be what Yuri suggests as the proto-Gospel of SecMk, a written source which both the author of SecMk (and Mark) and GJohn utilized. “John” would then have used a forerunner to SecMk and GMk and not GMk. So, why not?

I would like to add that there are more and subtle reasons to argue for a relationship between SecMk and GJohn.

Kindly, Roger

the_cave

Yes, Smith is right in that the author of John used a Mark-like source, though as Roger notes it's also possible that the author of John was working from an even earlier level of redaction, pre-dating SecMk. Yuri's theory of 5 layers to Mark is a little ambitious, but it's not impossible, and I think there must have been at least three, even without the SecMk evidence.

One connection that I do wonder about a little is the relationship between the nighttime meeting of Jesus and the disciple, and the foot-washing tradition found in John 13. Note that this does not have to be a baptismal tradition, though I do wonder how it was seen at the time of Clement. In John, Jesus seems to explicitly make it into a ceremony separate from and following baptism.

Was this foot-washing ceremony a part of the mystery of the kingdom of God? Was John simply making explicit what the author of SecMk kept hidden?

(I would like to add here something I've wanted to say--that I don't think we can trust Clement to be providing complete details about the contents of SecMk. This is not because he's trying to hide something--but rather, it's because he doesn't remember what they are! We can use the letter's own evidence--Clement is not writing from Alexandria, and that's where the secret gospel is kept. So he isn't in fact working from a copy of SecMk at all. All he has in front of him is...the Carpocratian passages that Theodore sent him! So he's telling Theodore what's authentic in them, and what isn't, working from memory. But we need not assume therefore that his memory is perfectly accurate--he probably remembers most of it and can recognize what's more or less authentic in what Theodore sent him, so I think we can assume that it's close, and that he's remembering most of it--but the Jericho pericope in SecMk is very short, for example, and one wonders if there were more to it than that. Clement simply doesn't say. All he's telling Theodore is, this verse is authentic. Perhaps the same is even true of the other passage--was there more to it in authentic SecMk? We simply don't know, because Clement doesn't tell us. This seems to me to be a widespread misunderstanding about the content of Clement's letter.)

Roger Viklund

This is an unproven assumption. We do not know whether or not he was in Alexandria, although he expresses himself in such a way that one could suspect he was not. And we do not know if he had a copy in front of him or not, although his “quote” seems to be precise and he states that it is a “word for word” reproduction of what the gospel says.

Kindly, Roger

the_cave

Indeed, as Andrew has pointed out.

He does say that, though if he is not in Alexandria one wonders how he can be certain that he's got it right. (Also, can anyone confirm that kata lexin is really best translated as "word for word"?) And even so, this claim only applies to the first pericope, about the young man raised from the dead.

I am mostly thinking of his claim that (acc. to the Smith translation)

But "adds only"...from what? This is ambiguous, and I don't see that Clement is necessarily saying that it is the only thing that SecMk adds to canonical Mark--he seems to be saying instead that SecMk adds only that line (the one about Salome) from the Carpocratian passage that Theodore has presented to him--it is only that line that is added in SecMk, compared to canonical Mk. The rest of it (from the Carpocratian passage) is not added. But Clement seems to be silent on anything else that could have happened in Jericho in SecMk.

Roger Viklund

My Greek is poor but I have worked extensively on this particular document and I would say that ”word for word” or ”literal” is a literal translation.

Further, a literal translation would be:

Note that Clement says that "he", i.e. Jesus, comes into Jericho, while our text of GMk says that "they", i.e. Jesus and his disciples, comes into Jericho. Also note that the expression "whom Jesus loved him" is foreign to Greek, but common in Semitic languages (Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic) and also in Coptic. I refer to the repeating of a pronoun in a relative clause. And finally it is impossible to be sure of which mother the text refers to. Is it the mother of the youth or the mother of Jesus? The most obvious way of interpreting the Greek would be the mother of the youth, but in the context of GMk it would be the mother of Jesus.
The Greek does not say "adds only" and definitely not "the secret Gospel adds only". It only says "merely follows" or "just follows" or "only follows". I find nothing odd with this.

Kindly, Roger

the_cave

Yes, but "merely" with respect to what? With respect to the text of canonical Mark, or with respect to the text of the Carpocratian pericope that Theodore has sent?

The fact that Smith appears to have added the false clarification that "the secret Gospel adds only" strengthens my suspicions that this line has been misread.

Roger Viklund

I find nothing strange at all with the text. After Clement has quoted the longer passage from SecMk he refers to what follows in SecMk (which of course includes what’s in GMk). In my clumsy (but hopefully literally) translation into English it would read:

It is clear that Clement just wants to tell Theodoros how the mysterious gospel differs from the Gospel of Mark which Theodoros was familiar with. And Clement simply refers to that gospel and adds the material which only is to be found in the mysterious gospel. He refers to the context of GMk by telling him about the section of Jacob and Johannes, and that after "And he comes into Jericho”, merely follows (then in the mysterious gospel) “And there were the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved …"

Kindly, Roger