andrewcriddle

This post is partly a response to Vorkosigan's claim that if discovered by archaeologists today in a world without Christianity Mark would be seen as an example of the Greek novel. However, I thought it worth a new thread.

I'm not considering here the historical accuracy of Mark and the other Gospels. Mark may well be based to a substantial extent on evidence (the Septuagint early Christian prophetic revelations etc) which most of us would probably not accept as good historical evidence.

What I'm considering is the narrow question of whether Mark etc fits in the genre of the Ancient novel ie works such as Xenophon's 'Ephesian Tale' Chariton's 'Chaereas and Callirhoe' etc.

One major difference is that the classical Greek novels either use a background of real historical figures from long ago - Chariton etc or are set in contemporary times but avoid any mention of named historical characters or specific dates eg Xenophon.

However, in Mark historical figures - Pilate Herod John the Baptist, of known dates from relatively recent times are used. for which there does not seem a good parallel among the ancient novels.

One possible exception is Petronius' Satyricon which is clearly set in the time of Nero, when it was written, and in which real named figures from Nero's time play (very minor) roles.

However the Satyricon taken as a whole does not seem to have been basically a novel. Rather it is a work of Menippean satire with alternating prose and verse parts and not really a parallel to the Gospels. (The fact that among the fragments surviving of the Satyricon the largest is the excellent Trimalchio's Feast episode, in which the alternation of verse and prose somewhat breaks down, can lead to a mistaken perception of the Satyricon as closer in genre to the novel than in fact it originally was.)

One could probably avoid the force of this argument by placing the composition of the Gospels well into the 2nd century long after the deaths of Pilate etc. However, this solution has IMO its own major problems.

Andrew Criddle

Ben C Smith

I would add that the main characters in Mark, where it is possible to directly check him, also appear to be historical (or at least not Marcan inventions as we might expect in a fiction): Jesus himself, Peter (Cephas), John, James, the twelve; John the baptist would probably also qualify.

We might expect some secondary characters in a fiction to be historical (like a fictional sitcom character meeting a real and current NBA star in the setting of an onscreen episode); but if even the primary characters are historical then I think my default position would have to be that the author was at least attempting to write history.

Ben.

Chris Weimer

The Feast of Trimalchio was prose for a reason: he was drunk and thus could not even get the grammar right!

jjramsey

If I read Vork right, a couple of his justifications for classifying Mark as a novel are

• that there is a tight narrative structure in Mark, and
• that certain narrative elements in the Gospels echo story elements in the novels. For example, the crucifixion of Jesus echoes the scenes in the Greek novels where the hero almost gets crucified, and the death-and-resurrection is a variant on the scheintod motif. There may be other elements that Vork sees, but those are the examples that came up in recent discussion.

I wonder if you are interested in commenting on how valid these considerations are.

andrewcriddle

IMHO a tight narrative structure is not in itself a reason for regarding a work as a novel.

My problem with the scheintod motif is that I am unable to decide how early it occurs in the Ancient novel and hence what the direction of influence (if any) is.

Xenophon is IMO probably 2nd century CE and hence probably later than Mark. Most scholars would date Chariton in the late 1st century BCE and hence prior to any possible Christian influence. However I have recently been reading a new book 'The Myths of Fiction' (or via: amazon.co.uk) by EP Cueva, which argues from themes found in Plutarch's 'Life of Theseus' and Chariton that Chariton is later than Plutarch.

Bowersock previously argued in 'Fiction as History (or via: amazon.co.uk)' that the classic Greek Novel shows signs of Christian influence but not many have agreed with him.

Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle

From google cache of

www.yobserver.com/news_6700.php