DCHindley

One thing about the author of the Mystery of Mar Saba is that Hunter's full name is James Hogg Hunter. Hogg is obviously a family name, likely of his mother. I sometimes wonder whether Hunter has family connections to the family of John Hogg DD, yes the late 19th century Scottish Presbyterian missionary to Egypt made famous by Kenneth Baily.

John Hogg had 12 children with spouse Bessie (Kay) Hogg: Oldest was Hope Waddell Hogg PhD (1863-1912, translated the Arabic Diatessaron for the supplemental ANF volume #10 published 1895/96). Alfred George Hogg (1875-1954) became a noted missionary in India. Laurence Alexander Hogg also became a missionary in India. William Richie Hogg (worked in IndoChina/Indonesia). Quintin Hogg. Peier Hogg. Johannes Baptist Hogg. Rena L Hogg (daughter, took furlough from Egyptian mission in 1906, wrote her father's biography, pub. 1914). Jessie Hogg (daughter, joined mission in 1887, married W L McClenahan in 1902, died 3/4/1905). Bessie Hogg (daughter, active in Calcutta, India in 1906). Mary Lizzie (daughter, died at age 4). An unnamed son died an infant.

Regardless, James H Hunter has written a number of books, fiction, non-fiction, storybook & biography, all of which have an evangelical Christian orientation.

The Mystery Of Mar Saba [f|1940] Mystery set partly at Mar Saba
The Great Deception [n|1945] Religious edification
Banners Of Blood [f|1947] Adventure story set in Jerusalem
The Bow In The Cloud [n|1948] Religious edification
Thine Is The Kingdom [n|1951] Religious edification
Uncle Jim's Stories From Nature's Wonderland [s|1953] Children's stories
How Sleep The Brave! [f|1955] A novel of 17th century Scotland
A Flame Of Fire: the Life and Work of R V Bingham [missionary with the Sudan Interior Mission] [b|1961]

According to the dust cover of one of his fictional books, Mr. Hunter was a longtime journalist, and the editor of a well known religious magazine "The Evangelical Christian,” and for a time worked as a guide for a travel company in the Middle East.

Seems someone like that, with an interest in the middle east and missions to Sudan (= Upper Egypt), just might have chosen Mar Saba because of its imposing reputation, which he was undoubtedly familiar with as an organizer of tours in the region.

While it would be a stretch, maybe Hunter heard a rumor about weird notes in a book in the library, wove it into his fiction, and M Smith just happened to come across the real thing. Is that any crazier than supposing a conspiracy to destroy Christianity by means of homosexual innuendo?

DCH

stephan huller

DCH

I hate demonstrating partisanship but I agree with both of your posts. The first is obviously instructive in terms of demonstrating a pattern of reusing books in the library at Mar Saba. The second point, insofar as the Morton Smith conspiracy theory isn't the only explanation of the phenomena at hand.

To be honest, the various hoax hypotheses have actually freed me up from an inherent Canadian caution and reserve with regards to putting forward unprovable theses. I mean if they can put forward highly dubious theorems as 'proofs' for the forgery proposition why not just develop an equal number of arguments for authenticity?

In the end, I think that a healthy suspicion is always the right path. Nevertheless when you stand back at over twenty years of attempts to prove that Morton Smith manufactured the document on his own, the arguments don't hold much water.

I am surprised at the calibre of people promoting the ideas but then again these same people are usually associated with a partisan effort to 'uphold traditional orthodoxy.' I am not hostile to people defending a belief or inherited presupposition. I think in some sense we are all like that in one way or another.

I just feel it is unfortunate that so many capable and intelligent men pretend that the evidence stacks up IN FAVOR of forgery. They might not like what THEY THINK are the implications of the Mar Saba document. They might not have liked what Morton Smith 'stood for' (or again - what they think he stood for). But the Mar Saba document really is a microcosm of all the ideas in the Stromateis and the Instructor. It is wholly compatable with the rest of the accepted Clementine literature.

It is in a way very unfortunate that we discovered a Church Father speaking 'frankly' - a private letter as opposed to the formalized mumbo jumbo we are used to reading. As someone who read a lot of Philo of Alexandria over the years I always wondered what it would be like to stumble across a laundry list or a legal document from this master of saying things in ten pages that someone else would express in a paragraph.

The Mar Saba letter is wholly Clementine. That is the last word on the issue as I see it given that we are likely never to retrive the original document.

avi

In an earlier post on this thread, you correctly summarized the deep suspicion this topic would arouse in a genuinely, evidence oriented, "scientific" forum.

Yet, here you are, writing "wholly Clementine", as if you were in possession of an accurate, thorough, honest, unadulterated text written by Clement of Alexandria, two thousand years ago.

As was mentioned, what, a week or two ago, the last time we had this same topic on the forum, the only extant copy of Clement of Alexandria's book on this subject, written in the eleventh century, is mutilated, redacted, interpolated, and essentially USELESS as a primary source. For all we know, someone in the eleventh century rewrote the whole of Clement's treatise, infiltrating it with scatalogical references, in order to DISCREDIT Clement of Alexandria's opinions.

Let's see, we have Crusades, Muslim wars for three centuries, and Eastern versus Western splits/purges of Christian's of all stripes, in the 1000 years between original composition, and copying the only extant manuscript available today. There are any number of folks, who could have malevolently introduced topics, mentioned not even once, by the genuine Clement in his original book, a thousand years before the manuscript was created.

Philosopher Jay is the EXPERT at introducing contemporary illustrations representing conduct similar to practices from ancient times, I will not attempt to offer anything nearly as robust as Jay's brilliant summaries, but, just for sake of discussion, consider, for a moment, this famous painting of Lisa del Giocondo. Then glance at this infamous painting, L.H.O.O.Q. by Marcel Duchamp.

In a certain fashion, notwithstanding the obvious forgery, Duchamp is demonstrating reverence for the original author. However, if we knew nothing of his work, other than Duchamp's parody of it, could we appreciate the amazing, original reproduction of Lisa herself? Do you not agree with me, that Duchamp's modifications to the original work, render, if we look ONLY at Duchamp's version, a sense of contempt, or at least, disinterest, in viewing the actual image of Ms. Giocondo? Could we examine Duchamp, to comprehend Leonardo Da Vinci? Could we successfully PREDICT what Leonardo's painting must have looked like, given ONLY Duchamp's parody of it?

I think that the letter, written, I claim, by the Harvard professor, (not Clement) is a fraud, I write this simply because genuine discoveries are photographed, even in the 1950's, so the idea that now the letter is gone, so we will never know its contents, strikes me as just a tad too convenient.

Whether the letter is genuine or fake, either way, we know nothing of Clement. It is not just a problem for this thread (and the precedent a week or two ago,) it is a problem of the mentality which asserts in absolute terms, facts not yet in evidence.


avi

stephan huller

Well I am sure that those who promote the hoax hypothesis will be gladdened to hear that someone who flirts with the possibilities of a Nicene conspiracy accepts their arguments about Morton Smith as the author of the Mar Saba document. Perhaps if they work hard enough they could attract the Capricorn One crowd.

The letter is wholly Clementine. Every idea that appears in the letter can be found in some form in another part of the Clementine literature. But more than that I was always attracted to the text because of my work on the throne of St. Mark. The Letter to Theodore seems to me at least to confirm the role that the throne played in the mysteries of the tradition and more importantly, Morton Smith's translation of κεκαλυμμένης as designating the curtains which separated the inner sanctum, in my mind demonstrates that he was not the author of the letter.

I know that Jeffrey disagrees with me and the problem was addressed by Itter in a recent book on the subject, however I am confident the role of the throne in the inner sanctum confirms that it was the object described as 'truth' in the Letter to Theodore and Paed 2.9. Morton Smith wouldn't have identified κεκαλυμμένης with curtains when even he recognizes in his 1973 book (p. 40 - 41) that this term was used of the outer covering. In Philo another term was reserved for the curtains of the inner sanctuary.

The reason he gave into the temptation is that he lacked the understanding and imagination to identify what κεκαλυμμένης was related to.

In any event here is something I wrote yesterday about the subject for those who are interested:

http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/20...-in-inner.html

What I find particularly annoying about most of those promoting the hoax hypothesis is that there is a bizarre kind of vanity at the heart of their arguments to the effect that if 'we' can't figure out what a certain word, phrase or passage means it proves the text is a forgery. We are human beings for crying out loud. They act as if they are gods. Based on what is left of the evidence there is not enough to claim that the case for forgery is proven. It is fair to say that 'I believe' or 'I suspect' that this is the case based on a personal faith or intuition. Fair enough. But there is no smoking gun.

I chose to argue instead that the parallels with the writings of Clement and the customs of the Alexandrian Church should be taken at face value. The text claims to be written by Clement and I can't see any compelling piece of evidence which argues to the contrary. Indeed nothing argues for it being an authentic Clementine composition than my theory of κεκαλυμμένης being applied to the episcopal throne in a ritual setting, for as noted Clementine authority Bogdan Bucur writes in a recent article - the 'vision of the throne' was at the heart of Clement's theology.