Notsri

The so-called 2 Clement says sometime in the late 1st to early 2nd century, that the wicked are "being punished with dreadful torments in unquenchable fire" (17:7).

Justin Martyr writes in the 2nd century (1 Apology 52): "[God] shall raise the bodies of all men who have lived...and shall send those of the wicked, endued with eternal sensibility, into everlasting fire with the wicked devils...And in what kind of sensation and punishment the wicked are to be, he hear what was said...:'Their worm shall not rest, and their fire shall not be quenched'" (Isa. 66:24).

The same doctrine is also developed quite a bit (often with graphic detail) in 2nd/3rd century works, like the Apocalypse of Peter, the Apocalypse of Paul, and the Acts of Thomas.

That Mark was a Jew is mentioned in the Anti-Marcionite Prologues and/or the Monarchian Prologues to GMark, and in early commentaries on the gospel as well. So e.g. in an anonymous 7th-century commentary, it says in the Prologue: "Mark, the evangelist of God, the disciple of Peter, a Levite by birth and a priest, wrote this gospel in Italy."

By the way, Diogenes, I'm sorry I was unable to comment on your response to my post earlier in the thread. I think there's more to be discussed there, and there are definitely other pertinent sources I never mentioned (like e.g. 1QS from Qumran, which speaks of the fiery punishments and "eternal torment" of the wicked).

Regards,
Notsri

Toto

The Anti-Marcionite Prologue to gMark says:

I see nothing about Mark being a Jew, but there may be a part I am missing.

Diogenes the Cynic

2 Clement is mid 2nd century. It says the fire is "unquenchable," not that the torment is eternal.
Gehenna.
It wouldn't surprise me. I haven't studied the later apocryphals.
Do you have an online link to the Anti-Marcionite Prologue? Because I don't think you're correct. I believe it just reiterates the Papias chestnut about Mark being Peter's secretary. It's 4th century anyway and hardly a credible historical source.

You may be correct about other medievel commentators extropolating a Jewish Mark from the Papias tradition, but since that original tradition is manifestly bunk, then any commentary extropolated from it is of no probative consequence. It also wouldn't surpise me if some contemporary Christians believed in a Jewish Mark. No matter, it's all just extropolation based on folklore. It's no trick to demonstrate that Mark did not know Peter and was not a Jew. The text itself belies the tradition.
You have me at a disadvantage with the DSS. I've made only a couple of half-hearted efforts to delve into those things so I'm willing to read anything you have to offer. I understand that they contain some material that seems to diverge from the mainstream of the time.

I'd have to know more about the dating, context and language of this "eternal torment" phrase before I comment on it.

Chili

My gosh Sheshbazzar, that doesn't bode well for Catholics who are better Catholic when the know very little about that kind of stuff. Yet, from my observation in the real world it seems that they are the only religion that is envied by the rest of the world for their abundance of heavenly riches.

Sheshbazzar

Funny you should mention that at this time, as I am setting here with my Catholic (Douay version) Bible, checking its renderings of these verses.

Jagella

Maybe—maybe not. In any case, may I suggest that we suspend judgment regarding people’s motives unless we have more evidence to know what that person’s motives really are.

This is your rationale that the author of Mark didn’t know Peter? I would think that if he had such a low opinion of Peter, then it may very well be a result of knowing Peter and seeing his imperfections.

Eyewitnesses are not necessarily good historians.

Except of course for the scholarship of the “fundies� that you broad brush as all being wrong.

I would assume that the author lived at a time when the Jews that converted to Christianity were still in control of the church. As a result, they would have been more likely to commission a Jew to write a gospel than a gentile. Nevertheless, it’s very possible that a gentile wrote Mark. We’ll probably never know for sure.

Jagella

Diogenes the Cynic

Let's also not introduce their opinions as evidence if those opinions do not include explanations.
That coupled with the fact that the author des not CLAIM to know Peter.
It's a reflection of hostilty between Pauline, Gentile Christians and the vestiges of the Jerusalem cult.
Which misses the point that we have no reason whatever to suppose that Mark was a witness.
At the time Mark was written most Christians were converted Gentiles, including those in charge of individual churches. (There was no unified "Christian Church," though, just a bunch of individual, competing Christian communites and branches, some of them quite hostile to each other.

Notsri

Fair enough. The text is unclear as to the torment's duration.

Right; Justin was talking about his view of Gehenna: "[God] shall send those of the wicked, endued with eternal sensibility, into everlasting fire with the wicked devils." So then we have at least one early example for the belief in eternal torment in Gehenna - much earlier than Augustine, anyway.

Toto's given a link above for the Anti-Marcionite Prologue. Unfortunately I can't remember at this point which of my books has a complete English translation of the prologues. :huh: I'll try to go through some tonight to see if I can't find both versions, or at least the Monarchian one.

In any event, the footnote to the excerpt in my last post from the 7th-century Marcan commentary prologue, says, "Traditional Gospel prologue material is used here...Most ancient copies of the Gospel were prefaced by what came to be known as the Anti-Marcionite and the Monarchian prologues...elements of both are found in the present prologue."

In light of Toto's excerpt from the Anti-Marcionite Prologue, it would seem the Gospel commentator was drawing rather from the Monarchian version at that point (where he says "Mark was a Levite by birth and a priest").

I don't think the tradition was at any time derived from Papias: he doesn't say anything about Mark's ethnicity. I would imagine it come's rather from the traditional association of Mark with the John-Mark of the NT, himself a cousin of the Levite Barnabas (Col. 4:10; Acts 4:36).
This is irrelevant to the discussion at this point, I think. You had earlier denied the existence of a Jewish Mark tradition. My comments and the quote from the Marcan commentary were merely intended to show otherwise, that the tradition did exist (irregardless of it's reliability).

I would be very much interested to hear more from you on this subject, though I imagine it's more appropriate for a new thread. I'll leave it up to you, though.

To my knowledge, 1QS has been dated to sometime early in the 1st century BCE. Following Vermes' translation (and I don't have the Hebrew), I came across this in 1QS 2.5-10: "Be cursed [men of the lot of Belial] because of all your guilty wickedness! May he deliver you up for torture at the hands of the vengeful Avengers! May he visit you with destruction by the hand of all the Wreakers of Revenge! Be cursed without mercy because of the darkness of your deeds! Be damned in the shadowy place of everlasting fire!" Then, further on in 4.10-15: "And the visitation of all who walk in this spirit [of falsehood] shall be a multitude of plagues by the hand of all the destroying angels, everlasting damnation by the avenging wrath of the fury of God, eternal torment and endless disgrace together with shameful extinction in the fire of the dark regions."

Incidentally, I also happened upon this footnote in vol. 1 of Charlesworth's Pseudepigrapha, on p. 352: "The idea of a fiery hell seems to be a Jewish development. It is suggested by Isa. 66:24, but that passage does not imply that the wicked will be alive to feel the flames. The fallen 'Watchers' are consigned to a fiery abyss consistently in 1En. 10:13; 18:11, etc., and this punishment was extended to sinful humans (90:23f.; cf. 54:1f.). A place of fiery eternal punishment is presupposed in the Qumran scrolls (e.g. 1QS 2) and is ubiquitous in later apocalypses (e.g. Rev. 19:20; 20:14f.)."

Regards,
Notsri

Diogenes the Cynic

What I meant was that they extropolated Mark's Jewishness from his purported association with Peter, not that Papias had stated such a thing explicitly.
This is true and I stand corrected on that point. It appears that there was at least some medievel commentary on it that I was unaware of.
But again, this says the FIRE is "everlasting," not the torment.

Notsri

Should I assume that those endowed with "eternal sensibility" and dwelling in "everlasting fire" are somehow unaffected in any negative fashion - that they're not tormented??