Marqe and Secret Mark

[Secret Alias]

The Tosefta is a late second century compilation of older material. The Mekhilta of R Ishmael is a compilation which ultimately dates back to the time of this Sadducee (late first/early second century). I think Marqe must come from a similar period.

[Peter Kirby]

Can you summarize what you're saying here?

[Secret Alias]

Yes I am sorry. I was broadsided by the Serah discovery. Hmmm. Here is my best shot at it.

It would appear that ALL the earliest sources Jewish AND Samaritan know a preposterous story about a four hundred year daughter of Asher, the son of Jacob the Patriarch who instructed Moses to go back and get the bones of Joseph because of a promise that was made to him by Israel at the beginning of their time in Egypt.

This story appears in the oldest commentaries on Exodus in a manner which would suggest that the story was authoritative at a very, very early period - IMO it was preserved in a document which circulated before the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem.

This document might well have been a second Torah or at least a second book of Exodus. We know that 'another version' of Exodus existed from fragments at Qumran which show even more variation from the Masoretic and LXX than the Samaritan edition of Exodus. The Samaritan version of Exodus stands midway between the Qumran text of Exodus and the Masoretic and LXX. The Samaritan text 'adds' material from Deuteronomy and material from other parts of Exodus. The Qumran texts adds more material not found in the Samaritan text.

My supposition is that Marqe is citing from a Dosithean (i.e. those of Dositheus or those of 'the friend' if 'Dositheus' was really a Persian name as per Bowman and others viz. dusa) variant text of Exodus which explicitly connects the leaving of the bones of Joseph behind in Egypt with the plunder of Egypt which was condemned (or at least not sanctioned by the God of Israel in the variant text) and which was used by Marqe and Marcion (or 'the Marcionites) to condemn Israel.

This variant edition of Exodus went something like this. The Egyptians allow the Israelites to leave Israel after the plagues and - wrongly - decide to plunder the Egyptians of their booty. By the time they reach Sukkoth the fire and the cloud physically prevent the Israelites from going any further. A four hundred year old woman explains why the powers won't let them leave Egypt and so Moses goes back gets the bones. This entire Sukkoth episode - referenced obliquely in Numbers recap of Exodus - was entirely taken out of our text of Exodus. They are replaced instead by references to animal sacrifice and sacred bread which I don't believe were there originally.

We know that the Dositheans had a different text of the Pentateuch because in the narrative of slaughter of Levi in Abul Fath, the high priest's son is recognized to be a follower of Dositheus because of his reading of a variant edition of the text.

The question then is whether all Israelite groups used the same edition of the Pentateuch and whether this helps explain the perplexing repeated mention of the Marcionites making reference to the core idea found in the variant text of Exodus used by Marqe and coming to the same conclusion as Marqe - namely that the Israelites were condemned for their indiscretion.

Were the Marcionites and the early Christians using a different edition of the Pentateuch? Philo using the LXX firmly believes that the Israelites were justified in taking the gold of the Egyptians because they were commanded to do by God. We will come back to Philo later when we take up Clement of Alexandria. The next figure is Irenaeus who clearly uses the LXX and agrees with our traditional understanding too - viz. God commanded the Israelites:

We are proved to be righteous by whatsoever else we do well, redeeming, as it were, our property from strange hands. But thus do I say, from strange hands, not as if the world were not God's possession, but that we have gifts of this sort, and receive them from others, in the same way as these men had them from the Egyptians who knew not God; and by means of these same do we erect in ourselves the tabernacle of God: for God dwells in those who act uprightly, as the Lord says: Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that they, when you shall be put to flight, may receive you into eternal tabernacles (Luke 16:9). For whatsoever we acquired from unrighteousness when we were heathen, we are proved righteous, when we have become believers, by applying it to the Lord's advantage. [Adv Haer 4]

Tertullian - drawing from the tradition of Irenaeus - makes clear that it was the Marcionites who condemned the Israelites and he defends them. In Book Two (which may well derive from material taken from Theophilus of Antioch) we read:

Now these cuttlefish—it was for a type of these people that the law excluded that sort of fish-meat, among others, from the (permitted) foods—as soon as they become aware of this exposure of themselves, proceed to belch out darkness mixed up with blasphemy, and thus distract the immediate attention of this man and that by the assertion and reiteration of statements which cast a cloud over the Creator's goodness, though this is bright and clear. But I shall pursue their malice even through this blackness, dragging out into daylight those devices of darkness which cast up against the Creator, among much else, that damage, robbery of gold and silver, which he enjoined upon the Hebrews against the Egyptians.1 Come now, unhappy heretic, I challenge you in person to be arbitrator: first take cognizance of the claims against the two nations, and then you may pass judgement against the Author of that command. The Egyptians demand of the Hebrews the return of their vessels of gold and silver: the Hebrews put forward a contrary plea, alleging, in the name of those same ancestors, and with that same scripture for documentary evidence, that wages ought to be paid to them for that slave-labour, the drawing of the brick-kilns and the building of towns and country houses. What award are you to make, you that have found for yourself a god supremely good? That the Hebrews ought to admit the damage done, or the Egyptians the compensation due? For they report that the case was so stated by agents from the two sides, the Egyptians claiming the return of their vessels, and the Jews demanding the wages of their work: yet that there the Egyptians with justice renounced their claim to the vessels. Today, in spite of the Marcionites, the Hebrews put forward a further claim. They say that however large the amount of that gold and silver, it is not adequate for compensation, if the labour of six hundred thousand men through all those years is priced at a penny a day each. Again, which are the larger number, those who demand the return of their vessels, or those who dwell in the countryhouses and cities? In that case which is the greater, the loss the Egyptians complain of, or the favour the Hebrews enjoyed? If the Hebrews were in return to bring against the Egyptians no more than an action for personal injuries, (they were) free men reduced to slavery. If their legal representatives were to display in court no more than their shoulders scarred with the abusive outrage of whippings, (any judge) would have agreed that the Hebrews must receive in recompense not just a few dishes and flagons—for in any case the rich are always the fewer in number— but the whole of those rich men's property, along with the contributions of the populace besides. So then, if the Hebrews have a good case, the case, which means the commandment, of the Creator is equally good: he made the Egyptians favourable, though they were unaware of it, and at the time of their exodus he provisioned his own people with some slight indemnification, a payment of damages not described as such. And clearly he told them to exact too little: the Egyptians ought to have given back to the Hebrews their male children as well. [Adv Marc 2.20]

If you go through the action content of the long diatribe - there isn't much there other than the Marcionites condemned the Israelites for plundering the Egyptians. The next mention comes in at the end of the same book:

Our God recommended theft—but of gold and silver. But by how much a man is of greater value than gold and silver, by so much is your god more of a thief, stealing man away from his Owner and Maker.

But did the Marcionites condemn the text of Exodus used by the Jews or their god? It is difficult to know what was originally said. One could just as easily imagine that the original argument was rhetorical - i.e. if your text says that your god recommends theft and the orthodox really did believe God said that.

The next reference to this controversy appears in Book 4:

When the children of Israel set out from Egypt the Creator brought them forth laden with those spoils of gold and silver vessels and clothing, as well as the dough in their kneading-troughs, whereas Christ told his disciples to carry not even a staff for their journey.b It was because the former were
being moved out into the wilderness, but the latter were being sent into cities. Consider the purposes in hand, and you will perceive that there was one and the same authority, who arranged the provisioning of his people differently according to poverty or plenty, cutting it down when there would be abundance in the cities, precisely as he gave full supply when there was to be scarcity in the wilderness. The former he forbade even to carry shoes: for he it was under whom not even in the wilderness during all those years did the Israelites wear out their shoes.

Again, was the objection that the Marcionites thought the god of the Pentateuch was evil or that the text which said God commanded them to plunder the Egyptians was wrong? Take a look at what follows and the answer is obvious:

But the labourer is worthy of his hire: who has better right to say this than God the Judge? For this very act is an exercise of judgement, to pronounce
the labourer worthy of his hire. Every grant of reward is based upon some exercise of judgement. So here too the Creator's law receives attestation, when he judges that even working oxen are labourers worthy of reward: Thou shalt not, he says, muzzle the ox when it is threshing. Who is this so bountiful towards men? He Surely who is also bountiful towards cattle. And as Christ also declares that labourers are worthy of their hire, he sets in a good light that injunction of the Creator about taking away the Egyptians' vessels of gold and silver. For those who had built for the Egyptians houses and cities were certainly labourers worthy of their hire, and the instruction given them was not for robbery but for recovering the equivalent of their wages, which they could not exact in any other way from those who were lords over them.

The criticism here is well known among the Marcionites. It is a textual criticism arguing that God would never have made commandments about animals because he only cared about humans. Notice also that in what follows doubts are raised as to whether 'the injunction' was really made by god to plunder the Egyptians just as we saw Marqe do. Marqe does not think that god told the Israelites to plunder the Egyptians. The words must not have been in his edition of Exodus. So too we must suppose that the Marcionites had the same text or perhaps that Marci-on is a Greek formula meaning 'those of Marqe' - i.e. the specifically Aramaic form of the Roman given name Marcus.

Here is a list of Christian discussion of this idea - now embracing the plunder of the Israelites in an allegorical manner http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/calho ... anGold.pdf

[Secret Alias]

The bottom line is that if Marqe was able to argue that the Israelites did the plundering on their own without divine commandment another version of Exodus existed (as we know from Qumran) and so the Marcionite critique was textual criticism rather than insulting the Jewish godhead.

[Peter Kirby]

Thank you!

[Secret Alias]

From Ben Hiyyim's translation of the Memar:

Serah the daughter of Asher went hurrying out to them. "There is nothing evil in your midst. Behold, I will reveal to you what this secret is." At once they surrounded her and brought her to the great prophet Moses and she stood before him . . . [saying] "Hear from me this thing that you seek: Praise to those who remembered my beloved [Joseph], though you have forgotten him. For had not the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire stood still, you would have departed and he would have been left in Egypt. I remember the day that he died and he caused the whole people to swear that they would bring his bones up from here with them." The great prophet Moses said to her, "Worthy are you Serah, wisest of women. From this day on will your greatness be told"... Serah went with all the tribe of Ephraim around her, and Moses and Aaron went after them, until she came to the place where he was hidden.

[Secret Alias]

Does Philo know the same tradition as Marqe? Note the involvement of the Divine Word even though nothing of this sort appears in the Exodus narrative:

So the Holy Word, deeming it unfitting that pure things should have impure things associated with them, provides for the safe-keeping of Joseph's bones, by which I mean the only relics of such a soul as were left behind untouched by corruption and worthy of perpetual memory (Gen. 1. 25).

[rakovsky]

But doesn't all of this disjointed comings and goings in Exodus remind you of the same situation in the gospel of Mark. Remember chapter 10 where Secret Mark added some new details apparently?

They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. verse 32

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, verse 46

In both Exodus and the gospel of Mark there is this tendency of Mark to 'fix' things which have fallen out of the text.

Where do you think in the verses above there is an appearance where something looks missing?
Verse 32 says they were on their way to Jerusalem and the followers were astonished or scared, which is smoothly explained by vs.33-34 where he says that he is going to get killed and resurrect there.

Later on in verses 46, 47, etc., he says they came to Jericho on their way to Jerusalem and as they were leaving Jericho they met the blind mind, and then Mark tells the story of the blind man. From the reader's POV, something could have happened there that Mark left out or deleted, or else Mark didn't find anything worthwhile to mention in the first place so that nothing is missing. It's just that Jesus stopped there on the way to Jerusalem and met the beggar. Mark seems to like to have a short style in his gospel, going from one place to the next, many scholars have noted, and so the quickness isn't necessarily out of place for Mark here.

That is, I can see how something could be missing in verse 46, but not necessarily so.
And for what it's worth, I don't think that Secret Mark successfully fills that gap. It just says that Jesus didn't welcome the women. I see no point in Mark even mentioning that rejection, other than to imply that he rejected the women for being women. This would be in keeping with some kind of agenda painting Jesus in Mark as anti-woman, which might be in keeping with portraying him as just focused on males (as part of a gay portrayal maybe), but not in keeping with what we know of Mark's own authentic portrayal of Jesus in the canonical gospels regarding women.

[rakovsky]

Or is it Mark somehow knows the ur-text?

Please expand on this.
Are you saying that Mark maybe knew an Ur-text of the gospels in which the women and the robed youth(s) had fuller roles and were better described?
I don't know how one would be able to find that out, since it's nowhere mentioned that there was such an Ur-text. Typically the idea is that Mark made his gospel in accordance with (and in my reading of Papias, concurrent with) Peter's preaching.