Greek Monks Who Thought the Letter to Theodore was in the Mar Saba Monastery Before Morton Smith Arrives

[Peter Kirby]

And maybe because I said Marcionite studies is bullshit.

Yeah I think I have been modest in trying to re-evaluate Tertullian, but the reception would be icy especially among those who have studied the Marcionite stuff the most. It's the single largest source of 'material'. Having full value as a mine of information is hard not to want to be true.

Most people who would be happy with re-evaluating Against Marcion book 4 would probably also see it as a victory lap (after making the text posterior to Luke and thus not of much value in recovering in the first place).

[Secret Alias]

They're all such fucking piece of shit. I mean I am loser. But I choose to be a loser. I could make twice the amount of money I do if I just had discipline and not waste my time researching this stuff. But these guys. They're like serious losers. Like who fucking cares about half this shit. So let's get this right. Irenaeus can be trusted about his enemies the Marcionites? If not it's bullshit. Maybe not all bullshit but mostly bullshit.

[Secret Alias]

Smith and Landau add something to the story:

Flusser remembers that they did encounter one bump in the road. When the team of scholars attempted to leave with the book, “Abbot Seraphim,” an old friend of Smith who presided over Mar Saba, “raised hell,” demanding that “they would have to request it, and he would send it.”5 But the abbot’s request stemmed less from a desire to prevent the team from taking the book than from a concern for due process—because in the end, Flusser recalls, they requested the book and he allowed them to take it.6 Stroumsa and the others did discuss the possibility of subjecting the manuscript to scientific analysis—the kinds of tests that can help determine the age of a manuscript (that is, the age of the writing surface and its ink)—but Father Meliton did not want the manuscript to leave the Patriarchal Library and enter into the custody of the Israeli police. Soon after the manuscript arrived in Jerusalem, sometime in 1976, Kallistos Dourvas, librarian at the Patriarchal Library from 1975 to 1990, received the new volume and added it to the collection of manuscripts from Mar Saba. A receipt from the transfer, signed by Dourvas among others, has recently surfaced.7 The paleographer Agamemnon Tselikas discovered it in the archives of the Patriarchal Library in Jerusalem. The document describes the letter of Clement as “unpublished and without any doubts about its authenticity.” It remains unclear whether “authenticity” means that they regarded it as a genuine letter of Clement or that they did not believe it to be a modern forgery. (p. 132) https://books.google.com/books?id=G06qE ... 22&f=false

I think that show you why you should read the published literature before you start writing. In the end, I have proved the document was regarded as authentic by the monks. Told yah.

[Peter Kirby]

A receipt from the transfer, signed by Dourvas among others, has recently surfaced. The paleographer Agamemnon Tselikas discovered it in the archives of the Patriarchal Library in Jerusalem. The document describes the letter of Clement as “unpublished and without any doubts about its authenticity.”

IMO, this is consistent with some kind of pre-1976 monastic publication being out there, possibly unread by most Secret Mark experts.

[StephenGoranson]

If a pre-1976 monastic publication has that, by 2024, would not someone by now have found it?

Tselikas surely thought the hand (ductus) was modern, given his comments.

A particular alternate explanation is quite unlikely:
If some monk copied the text in circa 18th century, then why would he try to imitate an unfamiliar style?
Plus, on Smith's scenario, the putative older-than-18th-century ms copy would not have had that 18th-century style anyway for anyone to imitate!

[Peter Kirby]

If a pre-1976 monastic publication has that, by 2024, would not someone by now have found it?

So why would I ask these questions? Because I am dishonest and refuse to admit the obvious that it must not exist?

[Secret Alias]

Let's imagine this. My Greek friend Harry Tzalas told me he can't read the letter of authentication because it is a style of writing that isn't taught any more in Greece. I will cite the email. Let's give authenticity a chance. Let's suppose that there was a fragment of Clement lying around in the monastery and someone wanted to preserve it and because of a scarcity of paper took the blank pages of a book to inscribe the contents into them.

With me so far.

Let's say it is 1935. Let's say it is Seraphim who found the fragment. Let's see he had the task of copying out the manuscript. What would be the appropriate way of memorializing the manuscript. Would it be appropriate to write out the contents in any other manner than "ecclesiastical Greek handwriting."

If it was someone other than Morton Smith what would be the right way for that monk to memorialize that fragment.

[StephenGoranson]

I am merely giving my opinion, Peter, that, given the huge publicity about this, that some reader would have found it, were it extant.
That is apparently different than your opinion.
OK, two opinions, then.
I am not accusing you of dishonesty, and I hope the same applies to me.

[StephenGoranson]

SA, you missed the point that the supposed earlier fragment would have been earlier writing.
Smith mentioned an earlier fire for his scenario.

[Peter Kirby]

I am merely giving my opinion, Peter, that, given the huge publicity about this, that some reader would have found it, were it extant.
That is apparently different than your opinion.
OK, two opinions, then.
I am not accusing you of dishonesty, and I hope the same applies to me.

Thanks. I appreciate this comment. And, yes, likewise.