Thoughts on Secret Mark by Smith and Landau

[Secret Alias]

It feels so refreshing to write this banal posts in a topic I am expected to contribute something worthwhile. Sort of like my marriage.

[lclapshaw]

Gullotta didn't get a free copy either.

Did any of the 100 guys you mentioned in the other thread get one?

[lclapshaw]

Couldn't resist

[andrewcriddle]

Andrew, some first thoughts on your first thoughts.

(E.G. I didn't previously know Morton Smith was brought up Swedenborgian and I couldn't help imagining parallels between the sexual mysticism and esoteric symbolism of Swedenborgianism and that of Secret Mark.)

To be fair, it was Stephan Huller who illuminated the details of MS's Swedenborgian background a few years back on his blog. And it was a constant : Swedenborg is cited five times in MS's late (1980), strange book, Hope and History. There can be no doubt that this inspired his fascination with accounts of heavenly ascents in antiquity.

However, this sentence of yours seems to confuse (an interpretation of) MS's interpretation of 'Secret Mark' with the text itself, which can be seen as being stubbornly unsuited to the use made of it. In the long run, MS made a huge mistake in attempting to crowbar the Letter to Theodore into his (emerging) theory of Christian origins. If he had simply established the likelihood of Clement's authorship, with the quotations from 'Secret Mark' we would have been left with additional evidence of canonical gospels circulating with additional passages, not unlike the Pericope Adulterae in John, and, by this point in time, it would count as interesting but not important.

What is often overlooked is how conservative an NT scholar MS was in many ways. He accepted the conventional early dating of the canonical gospels, and placed a high evidential value on their content as regards the 'historical Jesus'. (It's just his viewing of the data through the prism of the PGM which led to 'unedifying' results). So in his monograph he does his best to push 'Secret Mark' back to the C1; and when his analysis suggests that it is 'too Markan to be Mark', posits an Aramaic original to keep it as evidence.

Again, a reminder of how tenuous the link is to his origins theory. Using conventional scholarship (Jeremias) which separates Mk.4.11 from the following verses, he shows that μυστηριον 'can' refer to a rite, identifies the rite here as baptism, and interprets baptism as a magical/quasi-Pauline spiritual union which leads to heavenly ascent. This has to be read into 'Secret Mark'; which is, to put it politely, quite a stretch. It's not unlike the great Richard Reitzenstein getting 'lost in the sands of the Iranian desert', with his grand theory of the Persian origins of Greek philosophy depending on (his interpretation of) a single treatise in the Hippocratic corpus which he (eccentrically) dated early.

In short, the 'Secret Mark' quotations, essentially innocuous, should not be seen through MS's presentation/eisegesis.

■■■■■

If by Secret Mark you mean the quotations allegedly from a version of Mark quoted in the Mar Saba letter, then I agree about their innocuous nature. However the context provided by the comments allegedly by Clement in the letter seem to change things. I am not saying that these comments would (if authentic) justify Morton Smith's idiosyncratic view of Christian origins, but they would imply a rather startling (and IMO improbable) view of 2nd century Alexandrian Christianity. The Clementine material provides at least a flimsy bridge between Secret Mark itself and Morton Smith's interpretation thereof.

Andrew Criddle

[Secret Alias]

I'm not so sure it's Clement's comments are about the gospel. It is quite literally Clement's paraphrase or citation of things said or done by the Carpocratians in relation to the gospel. Hardly shocking. Tertullian similarly treats the Valentinian agape. Clement also with respect to gospel sayings. Language is inherently ambiguous. This a hostile remark made of an ALLEGED interpretation or an alleged ritualistic act or action carried out in relation to a text his interlocutor knows something of the ALLEGED interpretation or an alleged ritualistic act or action but not the text. Very complex stuff. If you walked into the middle of this conversation you'd have to do a double take. "Now wait a minute, you're saying ..."

[Secret Alias]

The mirror in mirror quality is astounding.

Our discussion of Smith and Landau's reworking of Huller and Gullotta's article on the subject of notes of Quesnell's eyewitness of a fragment of an 18th century copy of an earlier exemplar of a letter written by Clement in response to an interlocutor asking about alleged acts or comments made by Carpocratians in relation to a gospel Clement says was written by Mark.

Fucking dense. This is six times more dense than any polysillabic German word ever invented.

[StephenGoranson]

A relevant article in Novum Testamentum 64 (2022) 364–384:
What Are the Odds?
Serapion, Eusebius, and Secret Mark
Grant Adamson
University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Abstract
"This article critiques prior epistolary analysis of the Mar Saba Clementine done by Jeff
Jay in comparison with a variety of other Greek and Latin epistles. As a closer match,
it brings forward Serapion’s letter on the Gospel of Peter apud Eusebius. Due to a pair
of formal and conceptual parallels, combined in the Historia ecclesiastica, the article
hypothesizes that Morton Smith’s discovery is a modern forgery, which he based upon
Eusebius’s excerpt of Serapion in Hist. eccl. 6.12 and upon Eusebius’s paraphrase of the
authentic Clement in Hist. eccl. 6.14"

and Adamson's note 4 credits J. Munck for making earlier relevant comments, as conveyed in M. Smith, Clement, 1973.
"..... J. Munck began this line of research when he gave Smith advanced feedback in the 1960s. See Smith, Clement
of Alexandria, 22, 27, 33, 47, 67, 287. ...."
(The G. Smith/B. Landau 2023 book does not mention Munck.)

[Secret Alias]

1. I am not sure that it is an especially damaging criticism to accuse SL of lacking prescience at the time they completed their original manuscript. I don't believe in prophesy/prophets/soothsayers. Maybe you do and make it an expected characteristic of scholars and scholarship. I don't.
2. I have thought about the parallels between Serapion's testimony and Secret Mark as an argument for authenticity. Will have to read the article.

[StephenGoranson]

1. I did not blame them for not knowing more recent publications--as I already stated in this forum. But M. Smith's repeated 1973 published references to Munck is another matter, some might think.
2. To read Adamson's article--good plan.

[Secret Alias]

I will. But still. I'd like to recognize the argument cuts both ways. If, let's say he makes a good case, it confirms that there is a connection between the letter and the report in Eusebius. Unless he produces some smoking gun that connects Morton Smith to the passage in Eusebius the connection between the letter and Eusebius's report it could also be an argument for authenticity. I've brought up the passage. I've brought up Tertullian, Irenaeus etc etc. In each case you and other detractors (it doesn't matter who right now) have said "no connection." If you accept his arguments as persuasive AND he provides no direct evidence for Morton Smith's use of the passage you should also your neck on the chopping block.

Do YOU find the argument persuasive? My guess is that you'd accept a ham sandwich as evidence for forgery if enough people thought a ham sandwich was sufficient evidence. You only want to convict Morton Smith. But again, not having read the argument, a connection between Serapion and Secret Mark likely cuts both ways. When I bring up such argumentation. Unconvincing. Merely because I am saying it is a testimony to Secret Mark. According to SL's theory you have Eusebius citing the material and someone like Eusebius possibly writing Secret Mark. Again if there is some smoking gun connecting Morton Smith to Serapion I would be intrigued to read that.

But you can't only accept evidence from antiquity UNDER THE CONDITION THAT IT PROVES INAUTHENTICITY. You're opinion doesn't count then.