sotto voce

One can convince oneself of anything, like that.

DCHindley

I thought that they both derived their first principals from Philo's reworking of Plato.

DCH

stephan huller

But maybe mark just stands between philo and clement in the chain. Usually it is understood that there is Plato then the Middle and Neo-Platonic interpretations of Homer and Philo is an extension of that tradition. http://books.google.com/books?id=x41...0homer&f=false. I wonder whether Mark as author of 'secret Mark' is a further extension - a conscious development of a primitive gospel embedded with the Platonic material and symbols into the text used for allegorization. This would distinguish the gospel from let's say Homer and the Pentateuch. The interpretation is actually intended. There is only so much you can Platonize Homer and Moses. Perhaps this is why Clement was so devoted a Christian. Let's consider the attraction of Ammonius Sacca too.

Littlejohn

"...who think that the Jesus Wife Gospel is a forgery not only think Secret Mark is a fake but for the same (silly) reasons..."


Completely I agree!...


"...I don't believe that Jesus was married...."


Depending on which element? ... If we admit (for me a thing ABSOLUTELY OBVIOUS!) that Jesus was a real historical figure, which elements would exclude both the marital status that the offspring?...


Littlejohn S

.

stephan huller

We should also remember a few other things:

1) when Hippolytus was developing the Philosophumena he had to assign each heresy to a single Greek philosopher. As such, Marcion was not assigned Plato because either he appeared more Empedoclean or someone else appeared more Platonic.
2) neo-Platonism is a modern terminology. In reality Plato and Empedocles and many others were developments of Pythagoreanism. Many neo-Platonists could just as well be described as neo-Pythagoreans. This is particularly significant as the Marcosians are identified as neo-Pythagoreans in the writings of the Church Fathers and I have always connected the Marcosians with St Mark in Alexandria

Littlejohn

It is true ... It only remains to establish a 'small' detail: who was, in historical reality, Mark of Alexandria?.....

Although not stated explicitly, Irenaeus seems to accredit a 'Marcus', the eponymous founder of the sect of Marcosians, as a living in his day or just before ... But things were really so? ... I doubt it ...


Litlejohn S

.

stephan huller

I've always been of the opinion that the Church Fathers invented these 'heretical boogeymen.' For instance Hermogenes is (a) alive at the time of Paul (c. 50 - 70 CE?) (b) still alive at the time of Theophilus of Antioch (160 CE) and then (c) still alive at the time of Tertullian (220 CE). One can argue that there were two Hermogenes or that Tertullian has copied out and adapted information from an original treatise by Theophilus (as he has with Book Two of Against Marcion). Yet I am still not convinced that (a) and (b) are separate people. Marcion is a similar problem. It just so happens that Justin (or Irenaeus editing Justin) has added information about Marcion being alive c. 150 CE. The same additional 'contemporary' reference appears in Hegesippus's reference to Marcellina being alive at both the time of Anicetus and down to our age (I think?). This is a habit also followed by Irenaeus where he describes the Valentinians as 'foxes' (even their gospel as forming a mosaic in the form of a fox rather than a king) and then ends Book One with a reference to the book serving as an aid to hunting down and killing foxes.

An interesting side note is that - and again which goes off topic - is that I was speaking to a modern Greek person and he dropped a reference to the term syntagma (the term used to describe Justin's original heretical treatise) meaning 'constitution' in modern Greek. I wonder if this shade of meaning is present in the original terminology.

stephan huller

Yes apparently according to Liddell it does having this meaning even in ancient Greek - the constitution of a state, ς. πολιτείας a form of constitution, Isoc.7.28, 12.151; τὸ Λακωνικὸν κατάστημα καὶ ς. Plb. 6.50.2; ς. τῆς πολιτείας τρία three classes or orders of men in the state, D.S.1.74.

Could it be proof that these 'arrangements' against the heresies formed the original 'constitution' of the Catholic tradition? Notice at once how the creeds are negative formulations of identity. Could it be that Catholicism was formed as an entirely reactionary self-identity?

stephan huller

Many of the earliest anti-heretical treatises were called syntagmas. So Hippolytus against Noetus - ην δε το συνταγμα κατα αιρεσεων λβ’ απχην ποιουμενον Δοσιθεανους, και μεχρι Νοητου και Νοητιανων διαλαμβανομενον.

But perhaps more significant is Clement's reference to a 'spiritual syntagma' - Do we not all, then, follow after life? What sayest thou? How hast thou believed? How, pray, dost thou love God and thy neighbour, if thou dost not philosophize? And how dost thou love thyself, if thou dost not love life? It is said, I have not learned letters; but if thou hast not learned to read, thou canst not excuse thyself in the case of hearing, for it is not taught. And faith is the possession not of the wise according to the world, but of those according to God; and it is taught without letters; and its handbook, at once rude and divine, is called love--a spiritual book (σύνταγμα πνευματικόν). It is in your power to listen to divine wisdom, ay, and to frame your life in accordance with it. Nay, you are not prohibited from conducting affairs in the world decorously according to God. Let not him who sells or buys aught name two prices for what he buys or sells; but stating the net price, and studying to speak the truth, if he get not his price, he gets the truth, and is rich in the possession of rectitude. But, above all, let an oath on account of what is sold be far from you; and let swearing, too, on account of other things be banished.[Paed 3:11]

Isn't this reminiscent of Clement's reference to secret Mark in the letter to Theodore?

stephan huller

The point again - getting back to the original point - is that scholars have tended to view the Platonic Christianity of the Alexandrian tradition as something which was artificially 'latched onto' our existing gospels. The existence of 'secret Mark' challenges that notion.