This account makes it unlikely that he informed the monks at Mar Saba of his discovery of an alternative version of Mark.
Why is there always this parsing of words? You both do this. You're telling me that YOU KNOW that while in isolation is some fucking horrible monastery Morton Smith didn't turn around to his "old friend" Seraphim and say "hey I found something cool." You know that? I will tell you why you know that. You have this image of Morton Smith the Antichrist slithering in the monastery. That's why. Because you're not even trying to consider the implication of ANYTHING I bring up here. You already know the truth and the facts are just arranged around that truth like ornaments on a Xmas tree. You didn't know the Greek Patriarchate accepted the document as authentic. I didn't know know that. But I found out. You still are trying to find a way to ignore any new information about the situation. Just beat the same fucking drum.
99% of the conversations at the forum are just recycling of familiar information. I bring up original stuff. This is original.
Last edited by Secret Alias on Tue Apr 16, 2024 9:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
What I mean by "no such thing" is the lack of any cited published mention of a 16th- or 17th-century witness* to the "Letter to Theodore" and/or "Secret Mark."
The context is heretics at Mar Saba. Kallistos is saying. The letter is ancient. The handwriting is from the 18th century. It was copied from an earlier period. But it was not Clement of Alexandria. This comes from the conversation between Quesnell and Kallistos Dourvas as witnessed by two different witnesses, Quesnell in his notes (which would have disappeared if it wasn't for me) and George Dragas who was a witness to the conversation (and which I saved because of my detective work). The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate until 1990 accepted the text as authentic until the text became all about about assfucking and blowjobs. And Stephen and Andrew and everyone associated with them wants this to be just about homosexuality.
I am not shutting down the question, Peter.
Look for such a mention. Feel free. By all means.
What I did write was that in my opinion finding such is unlikely because many people for many years have looked for it, didn't find that, and that such likely-suspect publications are limited.
The publication remembered, instead of being only putative, may have instead been 19th or 20th century. It's described as a monastic publication. If someone has been searching these monastic publications, then that could be something "more on this point" to mention. I haven't seen anything that specific from anyone yet. I don't know if we've tracked down the origin yet here.
My opinion. Western scholarship never even considered these people as people. They look at them like stupid peasants who lack the sophistication to contribute to meaningful conversation. That's why Tselikas was ignored for the last fifteen years. Just WASPs are invited to the table. Seriously. When I say Tselikas is the expert on reading of manuscripts from this period it's like IGNORE Tselikas except to tell me "you have to accept he says its a forgery." But Tselikas says elsewhere (and I quoted it) paleographers have no authority to detect forgeries. He says its not what they are trained to do. But he knows how to read a document. That he does. But they won't listen. Why. Because they think Greeks are unworthy of participation (unless they agree with something said by a WASP).
The idea that we should listen only to WASP scholars who speculate that Morton Smith planted the document and ignore the guy who ran the Mar Saba monastery when Morton Smith discovered the document when he assumed the document was always a part of the monastic library is the height of racism. If this were a WASP library and the librarian said or acted in a way which assumed the book was a part of the collection this would be evidence for authenticity. But if its an African library or a Greek library or Jewish library or whatever library - one of the inferior races - then its not evidence. Then it can be ignored. Then its not a real testimony because "what do they know." Only trust white people. That's the message. This is a debate for and by WASPs. It's not just Stephen. When Tony Burke was organizing the Secret Conference I said the same thing. Why do you English speaking scholars not pay for Agamemnon Tselikas to bring new evidence to discuss? When you look at how stupid these papers were. Pulp fiction novels. Aleister Crowley. Complete garbage. Forgettable worthless garbage. And not to fly the guy who could find the manuscript. Scandalous.
Last edited by Secret Alias on Tue Apr 16, 2024 10:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
Peter, I already mentioned the publication of such a memory--if it existed--could have been of any date previous to his vaguely-stated remark.
You can say not yet "tracked down the origin." I can say maybe his memory was faulty.
I welcome you or any other yet-additional people search for such. Go for it, if you wish.
Kindly let me know if you find such.
I do tend to think that no (yet) known evidence for the Letter or Secret before Tselikas-declared anachronistic handwriting in Voss is, at least, so far, notable.
