Why Mark had to be sent ''secretly''

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Giuseppe
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Why Mark had to be sent ''secretly''

Post by Giuseppe »

Chapter XVII. First the Worse, Then the Better
In like manner, the combination with respect to Elias, which behooved to have come, has been willingly put off to another time, having determined to enjoy it conveniently hereafter. Wherefore, also, he who was among those born of woman came first; then he who was among the sons of men came second. It were possible, following this order, to perceive to what series Simon belongs, who came before me to the Gentiles, and to which I belong who have come after him, and have come in upon him as light upon darkness, as knowledge upon ignorance, as healing upon disease. And thus, as the true Prophet has told us, a false prophet must first come from some deceiver; and then, in like manner, after the removal of the holy place, the true Gospel must be secretly sent abroad for the rectification of the heresies that shall be. After this, also, towards the end, Antichrist must first come, and then our Jesus must be revealed to be indeed the Christ; and after this, the eternal light having sprung up, all the things of darkness must disappear.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/080802.htm

''secretly'' is the apologetical term used to explain the absence of that First Gospel in a time where there were not yet written gospels.

Someway, this is equivalent to a confession, by the author, that the heresies linked to the name of ''Simon'' (Paul?) came first than the orthodoxy.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
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Re: Why Mark had to be sent ''secretly''

Post by Secret Alias »

No the "secret gospel" is a concept referenced in Prescript of Irenaeus/Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. He mentions heretics who

for the purpose of scoffing at some ignorance in the Apostles, bring forward the point that Peter and his companions were blamed by Paul. "Something therefore," say they, "was lacking in them." They say this in order to build up that other contention of theirs, that a fuller knowledge might afterwards have come to them, such as came to Paul who blamed his predecessors.

Now here I may say to those who reject the Acts of the Apostles.
The first thing for you to do is to shew who this Paul was—both what he was before he was an Apostle, and how he became an Apostle (emphasis mine) since at other times they make very great use of him in disputed matters. For though he himself declares that from a persecutor he became an Apostle, that statement is not sufficient for one who yields credence only after proof. For not even the Lord Himself bore witness concerning Himself. But let them believe without the Scriptures that they may believe against the Scriptures. Yet they must shew from the instance adduced of Peter being blamed by Paul that another form of Gospel was introduced by Paul beside that which Peter and the rest had previously put forth.[Prescript 23]

Indeed Tertullian goes on

Whereas the fact is, (according to the Acts of the Apostles) when changed from a persecutor into a preacher, he is led in to the brethren by brethren as one of themselves, and presented to them by those who had clothed themselves with faith at the Apostles' hands. Afterwards, as he himself relates, he "went up to Jerusalem to see Peter," because of his office, and by right of course of an identical faith and preaching. For they would not have wondered at his having become a preacher from a persecutor if he had preached anything contrary to their teaching; nor would they have "glorified the Lord" if Paul had presented himself as His adversary. Accordingly they "gave him the right hand," the sign of concord and agreement, and arranged among themselves a distribution of office, not a division of the Gospel (non separationem euangelii), namely, that each should preach a different message, but the same message to different persons, Peter to the Circumcision, Paul to the Gentiles. But if Peter was blamed because, after he had lived with Gentiles he separated himself from their companionship out of respect of persons, that surely was a fault of behaviour, not of preaching. For no question was therein involved of any other God than the Creator nor of any other Christ than He Who came from Mary, nor of any other hope than the resurrection.

I am not good man enough, or rather I am not bad man enough, to pit Apostle against Apostle. But since these most perverse persons thrust forward that rebuke (= 'I condemned him to his face') for the purpose of throwing suspicion upon the earlier teaching (of Peter) I will reply, as it were, for Peter ... Now, although Paul was carried away even to the third heaven, and was caught up to paradise, and heard certain revelations there, yet these cannot possibly seem to have qualified him for another doctrine, seeing that their very nature was such as to render them communicable to no human being. If, however, that unspeakable mystery did leak out, and become known to any man, and if any heresy affirms that it does itself follow the same, (then) either Paul must be charged with having betrayed the secret, or some other man must actually be shown to have been afterwards "caught up into paradise," who had permission to speak out plainly what Paul was not allowed (even) to mutter

He continues:

But here is, as we have said, the same madness, in their allowing indeed that the apostles were ignorant of nothing, and preached not any (gospels) which contradicted one another, but at the same time insisting that they did not reveal all to all men, for that they proclaimed some openly and to all the world, whilst they disclosed others (only) in secret and to a few, because Paul addressed even this expression to Timothy: "O Timothy, guard that which is entrusted to thee;" and again: "That good thing which was committed unto thee keep." What is this deposit? Is it so secret as to be supposed to characterize a new doctrine? ... what is (this) commandment and what is (this) charge? From the preceding and the succeeding contexts, it will be manifest that there is no mysterious hint darkly suggested in this expression about (some) far-fetched doctrine, but that a warning is rather given against receiving any other (doctrine) than that which Timothy had heard from himself, as I take it publicly: "Before many witnesses" is his phrase.

Now, if they refuse to allow that the church is meant by these "many witnesses," it matters nothing, since nothing could have been secret which was produced "before many witnesses." Nor, again, must the circumstance of his having wished him to "commit these things to faithful men, who should be able to teach others also," be construed into a proof of there being some secret gospel (id quoque ad argumentum occulti alicuius euangelii interpretandum est). For, when he says "these things," he refers to the things of which he is writing at the moment. In reference, however, to occult subjects, he would have called them, as being absent, those things, not these things, to one who had a joint knowledge of them with himself.

So Tertullian continues in what immediately follows:

Besides which, it must have followed, that, for the man to whom he committed the ministration of the gospel, he would add the injunction that it be not ministered in all places, and without respect to persons, in accordance with the Lord's saying, "Not to cast one's pearls before swine, nor that which is holy unto dogs." Openly did the Lord speak, without any intimation of a hidden mystery. He had Himself commanded that, "whatsoever they had heard in darkness" and in secret, they should "declare in the light and on the house-tops." He had Himself fore-shown, by means of a parable, that they should not keep back in secret, fruitless of interest, a single pound, that is, one word of His. He used Himself to tell them that a candle was not usually "pushed away under a bushel, but placed on a candlestick," in order to "give light to all who are in the house." These things the apostles either neglected, or failed to understand, if they fulfilled them not, by concealing any portion of the light, that is, of the word of God and the mystery of Christ.

Of no man, I am quite sure, were they afraid,—neither of Jews nor of Gentiles in their violence; with all the greater freedom, then, would they certainly preach in the church, who held not their tongue in synagogues and public places. Indeed they would have found it impossible either to convert Jews or to bring in Gentiles, unless they "set forth in order" that which they would have them believe. Much less, when churches were advanced in the faith, would they have withdrawn from them anything for the purpose of committing it separately to some few others. Although, even supposing that among intimate friends, so to speak, they did hold certain discussions, yet it is incredible that these could have been such as to bring in some other rule of faith, differing from and contrary to that which they were proclaiming through the Catholic churches, —as if they spoke of one God in the Church, (and) another at home, and described one substance of Christ, publicly, (and) another secretly, and announced one hope of the resurrection before all men, (and) another before the few; although they themselves, in their epistles, besought men that they would all speak one and the same thing, and that there should be no divisions and dissensions in the church, seeing that they, whether Paul or others, preached the same things. Moreover, they remembered (the words): "Let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil;" so that they were not to act as if there were different gospels (ne euangelium in diuersitate tractarent).
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Giuseppe
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Re: Why Mark had to be sent ''secretly''

Post by Giuseppe »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Mar 09, 2018 4:22 am No the "secret gospel" is a concept referenced in Prescript of Irenaeus/Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. He mentions heretics who

for the purpose of scoffing at some ignorance in the Apostles, bring forward the point that Peter and his companions were blamed by Paul. "Something therefore," say they, "was lacking in them."
you quotes are simply confirming my point.

The proto-Catholic Fathers claimed that their "Apostles" knew well - and even better - what the Gnostics claimed that Paul already knew. And to explain apologetically the silence of the same their apostles on that matter (a historical Jesus?) they invented the concept of a secret gospel.

Only, the author of the Clementines recognized candidly that this "secret" gospel was sent abroad after the gospel of the anti-Christ Simon (Paul).

So the better explanation of both 1 and 2:

1) the Gnostics recognized that the Jewish apostles came before Paul.

2) the proto-catholics recognized that Paul came before their "secret" Jewish Gospel

...is that the apostles didn't know nothing, zero, nada, nicht, niente about that "secret" gospel. In other terms, they were entirely unaware about a historical Jesus.

That is my same reconstruction of the events:


The Jesus Myth was a jewish thing.

But the Jesus Legend was originally a Gnostic Gentile Marcionite anti-Jewish thing.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
FransJVermeiren
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Re: Why Mark had to be sent ''secretly''

Post by FransJVermeiren »

Thank you Giuseppe for offering this exciting fragment.

Before I discuss this text, I want to draw attention to a translation error in the OP. The phrase ‘a false prophet must come from some deceiver’ should read ‘a false gospel must come from some deceiver’ (my underlining). The author wants to show the opposition between a false gospel (ψευδὲς … εὐαγγέλιον) and the true gospel (εὐαγγέλιον ἀληθὲς).

XVII. ʽΟμοίως ἡ γὰρ πρὸς τὸν Ἠλίαν συζυγία ὀφείλουσα ἐλθεῖν ἑκοῦσα ἀπελείφθη εἰς ἕτερον καιρόν ἄλλοτε εὐκαίρως αὑτὴν ἀπολαβεῖν βουλευσαμένη. Διὸ καὶ ὁ ἐν γεννητοῖς γυναικῶν πρῶτος ἦλθεν, εἶτα ὁ ἐν υἱοῖς ἀνθρώπων δεύτερος ἐπῆλθεν. Ταύτῃ τῇ τάξει ἀκολουθοῦντα δυνατὸν ἦν νοεῖν τίνος ἐστὶ Σίμων, ὁ πρὸ ἐμοῦ εἰς τὰ ἔθνη πρῶτος ἐλθών, καὶ τίνος ὢν τυγχάνω, ὁ μετ’ ἐκεῖνον ἐληλυθὼς, καὶ ἐπελθὼν ὡς σκότῳ φῶς, ὡς ἀγνοίᾳ γνῶσις, ὡς νόσῳ ἴασις. Οὕτω δή, ὡς ὁ ἀληθὴς ἡμῖν προφήτης εἴρηκεν, πρῶτον ψευδὲς δεῖ ἐλθεῖν εὐαγγέλιον ὑπὸ πλάνου τινὸς, καὶ εἶθ’ οὕτως μετὰ καθαίρεσιν τοῦ ἁγίου τόπου εὐαγγέλιον ἀληθὲς κρύφα διαπεμφθῆναι εἰς ἐπανόρθωσιν τῶν ἐσομένων αἱρέσεων· καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα πρὸς τῷ τέλει πάλιν πρῶτον ἀντίχριστον ἐλθεῖν δεῖ, καὶ τότε τὸν ὄντως Χριστὸν ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν ἀναφανῆναι, καὶ μετὰ τοῦτον, αἰωνίου φωτὸς ἀνατείλαντος, πάντα τὰ τοῦ σκότους ἀφανῆ γενέσθαι.

It is clear that the author of this homily has chronological intentions. The chronological sequences in the first part, John the Baptist (ὁ ἐν γεννητοῖς γυναικῶν) followed by Jesus (ὁ ἐν υἱοῖς ἀνθρώπων) and Simon followed by ‘Clement’, pre-mirror the chronological exposition in the second, central part of this chapter. In this second part, two chronologically connected oppositions are presented: the opposition between a ‘false gospel’ first and the ‘true gospel’ afterwards, and between two messiahs, a ‘false Christ’ (ἀντίχριστον) who is replaced by Jesus, the true Christ (τὸν ὄντως Χριστὸν ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν).

The event marking the transition from the false gospel to the true gospel is the destruction of the Temple (μετὰ καθαίρεσιν τοῦ ἁγίου τόπου). The false gospel, ruling in the period before the destruction of the Temple, is spread by a deceiver (ὑπὸ πλάνου τινὸς), which in my opinion points to the Roman emperor (cf. the κοσμοπλανὴς of Didache XVI:4). That the ‘false gospel’ and the ‘deceiver’ would point to an intra-Christian conflict is improbable in the light of the Antichrist/Jesus Christ opposition that follows. The content of this false Roman imperial gospel was the proclamation that the emperor bestowed all kinds of blessings and prosperity on his subjects, in other words that he was their savior. The propagation of the true Jewish messianic gospel started after the destruction of the Temple. (This corresponds with the widespread view that the first Christian gospel was written shortly after 70 CE).

In the next sentence a second transition is described, the substitution of the Antichrist by Jesus the Christ. Here also is told when precisely this happened: ‘nearby the end’ (πρὸς τῷ τέλει – circa finem in Latin translation (Migne 1886)). It is not difficult to discern which ‘end’ is meant in connection with but after the destruction of the Temple. It is the fall of Jerusalem, which marked the end of the Jewish nation in Antiquity. This means that around the fall of Jerusalem the Antichrist (Titus) has been replaced by Jesus the Christ. This text seems to say that only at that moment Jesus changed into the Christ, in other words that Jesus became the Christ at that very moment because of his exceptional fate at this pivotal point of time in Jewish history. With Jesus showing himself as the messiah, the messianic era, the era of light, began (cf. 4Q462: The [per]iod of darkness [passed away] and the period of light came and they were to rule for ever.)

This locating of the birth of Christianity at the end of the war against the Romans is not unique. Important Christian apocalyptic texts (Synoptic Apocalypse, Revelation chapter 11, Didache XVI) tell the same story. The unique merit of this text is that it tells that the true gospel had to be propagated secretly. It may be clear how this secret propagation has worked out concretely. ‘Mark’, the author of the first gospel, has antedated the crucial events of the end of the war to a less confrontational period, thereby almost completely wiping out the war circumstances and showing the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate in an unrealistically favorable light.

And who could be the true prophet, who told that first a false gospel had to be propagated by some imposter? Maybe the answer to that question lays in the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. In this writing Paul, after mentioning ‘the present evil age’ (of Roman rule), opposes the gospel of Christ to a different gospel which he abhors. In verse 10 ‘God’ and ‘Christ’ are opposed to ‘men’ (plural). These men (subsequent Roman emperors) could well be the imposter(s) of the text under consideration. Paul was a true prophet because his announcement of the future Christ became reality some years later.

Finally, it is intriguing to find the phrase ‘has been willingly put off to another time’ (ἑκοῦσα ἀπελείφθη εἰς ἕτερον καιρόν) in this paragraph, even when this phrase (and the first sentence in its entirety) is not well connected to the rest of this chapter.
Last edited by FransJVermeiren on Fri Mar 23, 2018 11:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Giuseppe
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Re: Why Mark had to be sent ''secretly''

Post by Giuseppe »

The unique merit of this text is that it tells that the true gospel had to be propagated secretly. It may be clear how this secret propagation has worked out concretely. ‘Mark’ the author of the first gospel, has antedated the crucial events of the end of the war to a less confrontational period, thereby almost completely wiping out the war circumstances and showing the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate in an unrealistically favorable light.
In my view, it is curious how both you and Secret Alias (two teorists of the post-70 birth of the Christianity, even if from different angles) don't see the "unique merit of this text" (i.e. the presumed "secrecy" of the true Gospel) in the his being a mere apology to mask and exorcize the hard reality: that the gospel of a rival tradition (surely: not a Jewish-Christian Gospel, but a dangerously pauline -mythicist? - gospel) preceded the Jewish Christian (Written) Gospels.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
FransJVermeiren
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Re: Why Mark had to be sent ''secretly''

Post by FransJVermeiren »

Giuseppe, who then, in your view, is the Antichrist who was replaced by Jesus the Christ at the very end of the war against the Romans?
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The practical modes of concealment are limited only by the imaginative capacity of subordinates. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance.
Giuseppe
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Re: Why Mark had to be sent ''secretly''

Post by Giuseppe »

FransJVermeiren wrote: Sat Mar 24, 2018 12:01 am Giuseppe, who then, in your view, is the Antichrist who was replaced by Jesus the Christ at the very end of the war against the Romans?
In the immediate context of the work, the Antichrist would be ''Simon Magus'', an allusion to Paul the Apostle.
But as you observe rightly, it is a ''Gospel'' ' that preceded the ''true Gospel'' more than a precise person.

The ''true Gospel'' is surely a Jewish-Christian Gospel (for example, the Gospel of the Hebrews or Matthew, or the Gospel of Peter).

Therefore the previous Gospel was a gentile Christian Gospel: for example proto-Mark, or Mcn.

In my view, who started the Jesus Legend (after the 70 CE) was probably a gentile Christian.

So we have a strange situation: Jewish Apostles of the ''historical'' Christ were silent about a Gospel (historical fact) since their Gospel was ''secret'' (apology). While only the gentile Apostles knew perfectly a Gospel an publicized it.

The best explanation of all this is that there was never a historical Jesus.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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