Yuri Kuchinsky

Greetings, friends,

I've been rereading Talley's book recently, and then I realised than none of this material has made it to the Web as yet... I'm planning to add this article to my Secret Mark webpage soon.

Best,

Y.
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THOMAS TALLEY IN SUPPORT OF SECRET MARK

by Yuri Kuchinsky


Thomas Talley, THE ORIGINS OF THE LITURGICAL YEAR. Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press, 1991.

Dr. Thomas Talley is one of the greatest modern scholars of early Christian liturgy. His book THE ORIGINS OF THE LITURGICAL YEAR (1991) is a model of scholarship.

In this study, among other things, he analyses early Christian baptismal traditions, and their historical development. And this seems to provide some very important background for the Secret Gospel of Mark.

It is important to note that the incident in SecMk1 (the first SecMk fragment, as supplied for us by Clement of Alexandria) has numerous connections with baptism. Morton Smith already dealt with this matter in considerable detail in his book CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, 1973, and supplied many particulars from various sources, such as patristic and textual, as well as the linguistic analysis. For example, the cloth (sindwn) that the young man wears over his naked body has clear baptismal connections (since early Christian baptism was customarily performed in the nude). Clearly, the intent of this whole SecMk narrative was to illustrate a _baptism of initiation_ that Jesus administered to this young man.

Also, the Raising of Lazarus scene in John's gospel -- clearly a parallel narrative to SecMk1 -- has numerous connections with baptism as well, in its own right. This is very well attested in the historical sources, and Smith likewise noted these connections.

But what about the timing of these two scenes, as well as their place within the narrative structures of both Mk and Jn?

Both their timing within the story of Jesus' life and deeds, as well as their structural placement within these two gospels are the matters of key importance. All these things are obviously interconnected in some way.

In fact, we see substantial structural parallelism here between Jn and Mk.

It is important to keep in mind that these gospel passages were customarily read during Church services -- they were, and still are, part and parcel of the liturgical year of the Church.

The chronological sequence that we see both in Mk and Jn is,

The Raising of the Young Man -- > The Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem (the start of Passover)

But this is also the time when the baptisms of initiates were performed!

In fact, the Eastern Orthodox Church still celebrates what is known as the 'Lazarus Saturday', a pre-paschal celebration which falls on the Saturday just preceding the Palm Sunday. So this still remains as the day on which to administer the baptism of initiation in the Eastern Church. The Orthodox historical tradition obviously sees this as a very special day, since it is the only time in the entire Church Year that the resurrectional service of Sunday is celebrated on another day.

In the West, on the other hand, this custom has been lost some time during the middle ages.

One glaring omission in Smith's CA book is that he completely neglects this whole 'Lazarus Saturday' ritual, and its importance. But Talley, for his own part, certainly fills in this gap, being a liturgical specialist that he is.

In fact, much of Talley's study deals precisely with the ancient liturgical and baptismal traditions of Alexandria and Egypt, as preserved in various old manuscripts and patristic accounts. And, as we shall soon see, this is where he was able to find some very important new material to support further the authenticity of the SecMk.


JESUS THE BAPTIST?

Yet another key matter in all this is the relationship between Jesus and baptism... This is perhaps one of the most hotly disputed matters in early Christian history. We all know about John the Baptist... But was Jesus, himself, also a Baptist perhaps? Seems like a natural assumption, since, as almost everyone accepts, Jesus was originally a follower of John (assuming there was a Historical Jesus, of course).

So did Jesus, himself, baptise some of his disciples? While NT scholars may still be arguing about this, myself, I don't think that there's really so much doubt about it. It is quite clear to me that, in the earliest Christian tradition, Jesus did baptise.

Two passages in John (Jn 4:2 and 3:22) do provide some good supporting evidence here, although they seem to me like just the remnants of the earlier tradition that was even more specific in this regard.

[more about Jn 4:2, including what ancient Aramaic Jn says here,

Jesus the Baptist (John 4:2) - Apr 2004
http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=...consulting.net ]

So this is what Talley has been able to discover -- some supporting evidence for Jesus' baptising activities in little known Egyptian patristic accounts. The evidence that Smith was obviously unaware of.

And, it just so happens that what these patristic accounts indicate is that the _timing_ of these baptisms that Jesus performed falls exactly within the time frame that is also presupposed by the SecMk! (As well as by Jn, to some extent, except that, of course, there's no baptism, as such, mentioned in the Raising of Lazarus scene in Jn.)

Here is what Talley found. His two sources are a 14th century Coptic writer Abu-'l-Barakat, as well as Macarius, a 10th century Christian bishop of Memphis.

Both of them agree independently that Jesus was believed to have _baptised his disciples_ during the week that precedes the Palm Sunday, i.e. just before his Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem. So these are the testimonies that Talley provides in his book.

The 14th century Coptic writer Abu-'l-Barakat, speaking about the week that precedes the Palm Sunday,

"It is said that the baptism of the apostles took place then". (Talley, ORIGINS, p. 204)

Macarius, bishop of Memphis in the 10th century (speaking of the Friday during this same week),

"It has been told that this is the day on which the Lord Christ baptized his disciples." (Talley, ORIGINS, p. 204)

And Talley then comments,

"If both writers seem somewhat diffident about this testimony, it is not surprising. None of the gospels provides an account of Jesus' baptism of the inner circle of his followers..."

(To be sure, Talley also adds, Jn 4:2 and 3:22 do provide some sort of a support here.)

But this is also where the first SMk fragment was located within the Gospel of Mark, according to Clement's letter. And this fragment does describe the baptism of a disciple by Jesus.

So then what do we have here? We have the testimonies, coming from medieval Egypt, that are extremely important in two respects. First, they provide further support to the idea that Jesus was in fact a Baptist. (In itself, this is already quite a discovery!)

And second, they place this baptism that Jesus was believed to have performed precisely in the time frame that is also presupposed by SecMk!

So this seems to me like one more very good argument for the authenticity of our Mar Saba manuscript. Here we have some quite rare and unusual testimonies from medieval Egyptian Christian sources, that Smith could hardly have been expected to be familiar with. And yet these testimonies just happen to agree fully with the idea that Jesus did baptise his disciples, while also doing it just during the time frame that SecMk also indicates.

As a result, according to Talley, the raising of the young man in SecMk really seems like the original basis of these two Egyptian patristic sources!

So here's what Talley says,

"[W]e must propose this Mar Saba fragment as the otherwise unknown source of the Coptic tradition associating the traditional baptismal day with the day on which Jesus baptized." (Talley, ORIGINS, p. 209)

I have to agree with Talley in this case. To me, these two Egyptian patristic accounts really seem like some distant reflections -- coming through many centuries of historical censorship and oblivion as they are -- of early 2nd century rituals as practised in the Alexandrian Church. The Church that seems to have celebrated baptism during the week before Jesus' Entry into Jerusalem as a special occasion on which Jesus, himself, performed a private baptism of initiation for the benefit of one of his chosen disciples.

What happened then, in my opinion, is that (1) this whole scene was deleted from the Markan tradition, (2) its baptismal significance was disguised somewhat, and (3) it was added to Jn in a rewritten and expanded form as the Raising of Lazarus.

And yet, the baptismal significance of this scene is still well remembered in the Christian tradition (hence the survival of the 'Lazarus Saturday' ritual in the Eastern Churches). Not only does this story of Lazarus still carry some baptismal implications in general, but the whole Eastern tradition of 'Lazarus Saturday' also seems to preserve -- in a somewhat disguised form, perhaps -- the _timing_ of Jesus' own baptism of at least one of his chosen disciples. But the same thing still happens to be preserved a lot more clearly in SecMk.

(In his book, Talley suggests plausibly enough that this Eastern tradition of 'Lazarus Saturday' ultimately derived from Alexandria -- via Constantinople, and that this may have happened around the time of the Council of Nicea. But this is a highly complex subject in its own right, that cannot be covered here.)

So how could have any 20th century forger known about any of these highly obscure and complex developments -- and about these very rare Egyptian sources, that even an average liturgical scholar probably has never heard about, prior to Talley's study?

It sure seems to me like all this constitutes yet more support for authenticity of the Mar Saba manuscript -- in addition to all the other material that I have already itemised in my previous studies.

Indeed, it is very difficult to see how anyone could have forged such a text in the 20th century without being a liturgical scholar of the first rank -- highly conversant with very obscure ancient traditions, liturgies, and lectionaries. Morton Smith was certainly not a liturgical scholar of any sort, so it is rather difficult to credit him with this type of very specialised knowledge.

All the best,

Yuri.

andrewcriddle

Hi Yuri

In a very general way 'Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark' is aware of the connection of the Lazarus story both to baptism and Holy Week (Smith had consulted the liturgical scholar Richardson on these matters) see pps 167sqq in CA.

Talley's version of these ideas is later than Smith's work and very interesting, (I referred to it in a previous thread). It is IMO much more plausible than Richardson's version. However I do have reservations, mainly about how far we can combine Byzantine liturgical evidence dating at the earliest from the very late 4th century (and probably rather later) with very late Coptic evidence and make valid deductions about Egyptian practice around 200 CE.

This is particularly a problem when it leads to a more elaborate liturgical year in 200 CE Egypt than more contemporary evidence would suggest.

Andrew Criddle

Yuri Kuchinsky

Yes, Andrew, this is what I was referring to in my post.

Yet, still, Richardson somehow failed even to mention those very special Lazarus Saturday observances of the Eastern Churches...

Yes, and this gave me the idea to take a look at Talley's book again... I guess I've been meaning for a long time to write some sort of a summary of Talley's findings, and now I finally got around to doing it.

I think so too.

First of all, Talley does try to investigate the origins of this 4th century Byzantine liturgical tradition (i.e. Lazarus Saturday), and IMHO he quite convincingly links it with the earlier Alexandrian practices.

Second, he doesn't really try to "combine" these things together, but rather he sets them out as separate pieces of evidence that tend to reinforce each other.

To me, this almost seems like a jigsaw puzzle where various separate pieces of evidence tend to fall nicely into their places, and as a result produce a coherent picture.

This whole thing is much bigger than just SMk, of course. We're talking about a very fundamental question, Was Jesus a Baptist?

What do you mean by "a more elaborate liturgical year in 200 CE Egypt"? More elaborate than what?

To me, all these liturgical matters are pretty elaborate any way you look at them... Just try to disentangle all those various forms of Quartodecimanism, and to figure out how they might all be fitting together. Talley tries, but I don't think he really succeeds in clarifying these things all that much. He should have read Loisy, but I guess he didn't!

All the best,

Yuri

andrewcriddle

Hi Yuri

(I'm referring to Talley from memory so I may be innaccurate)

Talley quotes Abu-'l-Barakat, as well as Macarius in support of an ancient baptismal ceremony. These writers are referring to baptism towards the end of the Forty Days fast, which the West calls Lent.

However we know from the Paschal letters of Athanasius that in the early 4th century the Forty Days Fast ending at Easter was a recent innovation which Athanasius had to try hard to persuade the Egyptians to observe. Hence Lent in this form does not go back to Egypt around 200 (and IMO does not in that form go back anywhere as early as that. )

However there is a very late tradition that the Forty Days Fast originally started in Egypt after Epiphany (January 6) in commemoration of Jesus fasting forty days after his baptism (which Epiphany commemorates).

Talley argues from this very late evidence that Lent in that form (after Epiphany) is very early in Egypt and the innovations in Athanasius's time involve a Fast before Easter rather than after Epiphany.

However we have no evidence that the orthodox Egyptian church in Clement of Alexandria's time commemorated Epiphany at all (although Stromateis book 1 tells us that the Basilideans did).

IMHO the absence of any mention of Epiphany when Origen in Contra Celsum discusses Christian holy days makes it improbable that Epiphany was observed by orthodox Christians in Egypt before the middle 3rd century.
If the church did not observe Epiphany it certainly did not observe a post-Epiphany fast.

Andrew Criddle

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Andrew,

But also we should keep in mind that January 6 also had some significance other than its connection with Jesus' baptism. This was also taken by some commentators as Jesus' birthday. Also, January 6 is seen as the beginning of the liturgical year.

And also let's not forget that they didn't yet have Christmas in those days either. Hence, the increased significance for January 6.

Lent in that form (i.e. after January 6) indeed seems to have been very early in Egypt.

ISTM the question of whether or not the orthodox Egyptian church in Clement of Alexandria's time commemorated Epiphany on January 6 is rather secondary here. The important part is that the date of January 6 did have some significance in Egypt -- regardless of its connection with Epiphany.

Your conclusion seems wrong here. The Alexandrian church could certainly have observed a post-January 6th fast, regardless of when exactly the Epiphany was fixed on January 6th.

Please keep in mind that both Mk and Jn start with Jesus' baptism (although, just as in Lk, in Jn this seems to have been tactfully edited down later to omit the actual baptism by John). So since January 6th was the beginning of the liturgical year in Alexandria, then it would have started with reading Mark's gospel, i.e. the baptism of Jesus by John.

In any case, the way you present things, it seems like the Holy Feast of the Epiphany started out originally as a heretical observance by the followers of Basilides... Interesting.

All the best,

Yuri