the_cave

Yes, I realized that, and also suspected that Smith himself was the one who selected them. But I couldn't recall offhand.

I agree that Philo makes a certain amount of sense as a control. Though one might also expect Clement to show an equal amount of dissimilarity with Philo and Athanasius, falling chronologically between them.

I agree if their suitability undermines your analysis, it undermines Smith's analysis equally. But then I am suspicious of Smith for different reasons--I don't think he's a hoaxer, I just think his conclusions were wrong, thus possibly throwing doubt on his methodology.

the_cave

FWIW, Brown advises that “most carefully guarded” (asfalws eu mala tHreitai) means little more than it was “handled with care”—or perhaps simply kept away from disreputable characters. Imagine, perhaps, a treasured volume or edition, whose contents are not really remarkable, but which was only available to trusted members of the church.

There is still the matter of Carpocrates’ supposed theft of its contents, but Brown says this may just have been hearsay by a paranoid Clement. Clement thought that all pagan parallels to biblical stories were theft, whether by angels or men. So he may have viewed Carpocrates’ use of Secret Mark as theft, even if Carpocrates had simply copied down its contents legitimately.

Though he has no reason to mistrust Clement's word.

It places the church at a rhetorical disadvantage with the heretics. It gives the Carpocratians the opportunity to obfuscate and claim "See? The church admits that Mark is the author of our gospel!" Clement just doesn't want to deal with it.

See above--he doesn't want to give an inch to the heretics.

Yes, but surely Demetrius' authority didn't appear out of nowhere.

FWIW Brown also argues that it was indeed the Alexandrian church at large to whom it was given, but also says it was a common understanding that it was only for full-fledged members of the church, or possibly just advanced students. Imagine that it was the simply the Alexandrian church’s equivalent of Tillich, and this may make sense.

You ask, legitimately, why the pericopes in secret Mark were not re-used in other writings. But, of course, they were—by the Carpocratians! You’re really asking “If they were considered safe for proto-orthodoxy, why weren’t they used elsewhere by the proto-orthodox?” For one thing, the Carpocratians may have ruined it—subsequent editors and censors would have viewed Secret Mark as quasi-Carpocratian perhaps. For another thing, how do we know that Secret Mark wasn’t used elsewhere? All we know is, parts of the two pericopes mentioned by Clement were not used in other proto-orthodox writing. But other parts were—in canonical Mark, that is! And for all we know, other Secret Mark pericopes are present in other writings—we just don’t know what they are. Why wasn’t the Didache preserved in its entirety? Only fragments were here and there. Yet it was not rejected by all the church fathers, even when considered deuterocanonical. The Alexandrian church might have regarded Secret Mark as canonical—but other churches may have disagreed (especially in light of the Carpocratian teachings).

In short, “Secret Mark” was not so secret, and its non-canonical contents were not considered secrets of the faith; they were merely interpretive lessons for advanced believers. Think of the personal library of the average pastor or priest; s/he probably has all kinds of aids for exegesis and hermeneutics that are not by and large handled by the public. They are by no means secrets; they are simply not promoted among the membership of the church in general—they are “for” the pastor. Take the Interpreter’s Bible—how many members of the average church have read it, let alone own it? But the chances are much higher that the church leader/s own it, and have at least read it in part. And the chances are also higher that the members of a study group, say, or the non-ordained ministry, have read it, or have had opportunity to have access to it (especially in a society where written documents, and literacy itself, were rare and precious objects).

Brown also draws an excellent and very instructive parallel between Strom. I.1.14.3 and Letter to Theodore I.17-II.2.

DCHindley

My understanding is that the later the writer is in time, the more the Greek deviates from classic form (all I can remember now is that participles began to replace standard verbs, but there were other characteristics as well). Philo would be closer to classical Greek and Athanasius closer to that bowlderized Greek. Maybe he felt that this would give a reasonable cross section of the types of Greek one might find in the range 1st to 4th century CE.

DCH

Ben C Smith

The KJV uses vail (A) in the story of Moses where the LXX has καλυμμα and (B) in the passage by Paul (2 Corinthians 3) derived from that same story, and the 1901 ASV (along with a host of other translations, both contemporary and more modern) uses veiled at 2 Corinthians 4.3 to translate κεκαλυμμενον, which is the same participle being discussed in the Clementine letter (κεκαλυμμενης).

Ben.

the_cave

Yes, but I think the participle highlights the metaphorical meaning. A "truth hidden by seven veils" does not quite say the same thing as "sevenfold-veiled truth", even if in the first case the veils are metaphorical. The fact that both phrases might accurately describe the same thing is not entirely relevant.

A "truth hidden by seven veils" (or even a "seven-veiled truth") requires a metaphorical reading to make sense in this context. Whereas a "sevenfold-veiled truth" does not; the metaphor is built into the participle already. We naturally mean "hidden" when we say "veiled" (and not "covered by a veil"), whereas when we say "veil" we naturally mean the physical object, and not the metaphor. It's a subtle distinction, but a real one.

One example of the difference would be between an object covered by seven veils, and an object that has been hidden (and uncovered) seven separate times. This is kind of a trivial case, but it illustrates the different ranges of meaning that each phrase possesses.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Andrew,

I don't keep track of all recent Clementine scholarship, so I'll have take your word for it that Clementine scholars are not using Mar Saba letter in their research as much as they could have. But so what?

We have names of Clementine scholars who publicly supported the authenticity of Mar Saba letter, and we have the names of a few who didn't. The supporters do outweigh the doubters. Shouldn't this be enough to conclude that most Clementine scholars do support the letter?

So why do we need to engage in speculation in this regard?

What you said was incorrect, so why don't you simply admit it?

But if you wish me to engage in speculation, then I'll suggest that some Clementine scholars may be intimidated by all this atmosphere of calumny and vituperation that surrounds the letter, due to the efforts of certain individuals. Does this sound reasonable?

Yours as always,

Yuri.

Ben C Smith

I think the difference between those two phrases is negligible for the purposes of this thread.

That is not true. The participle does not have a metaphor built into it; it is still context that determines whether or not we have a metaphor. Here is the last sentence of book 1 of the Oddyssey, for example (S. Butler translation):

But Telemachus as he lay covered [κεκαλυμμενος] with a woollen fleece kept thinking all night through of his intended voyage of the counsel that Minerva had given him.

Ben.

andrewcriddle

Hi Yuri

If you like I'll restate what I said as Although most Clementine scholars have, at least tentatively, accepted the letter as probably authentic, there have historically been more reservations about authenticity among Clementine scholars than among NT scholars. (Historically means, as before, that we are talking about scholarship before the last few years.)

Andrew Criddle

Yuri Kuchinsky

Can you prove it, Andrew? This doesn't seem self-evident to me...

Yours,

Yuri.

the_cave

But then we see that the participle is not identical with English "veiled"--it is covered (in a different sense!) by both English "covered" and "veiled". I agree that in SecMark "veiled" is a good rendering, but then so is "hidden".

If Smith were trying to translate "the truth hidden by seven veils" into Greek, would he have written eptakis kekalummenon aletheias? Indeed, "that truth hidden by seven veils" is arguably a poor rendering, since it is redundant (and also arguably wrong, since it turns an adverb into an adjective). How could Smith mistranslate his own work?