Re: A Suggestion for Revising the Early Writings' Entry for Secret Mark
Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 6:22 pm
Thanks for your replies.
Investigating the roots of western civilization (ye olde BC&H forum of IIDB lives on...)
https://earlywritings.com/forum/
I don't have access to Price's article. It seems weird that Smith would sign an ancient text that he found - usually if archaeologists or historians find priceless or very valuable works of art or writing they don't sign it. He conceivable could have done so in order to show that he was the one who discovered it and can vouch for it, but it's still weird. Typically when you sign a book it means that someone gave it to you. Composers of art and book authors also sign their own masterpieces.The closest any scholars came to [giving evidence for forgery] were in arguments presented by Andrew Criddle, Ernest Best, and Philip Jenkins. In 1995 Criddle performed a statistical analysis of the Letter to Theodore purporting to show the letter “contains too high a ratio of Clementine to non-Clementine traits to be authentic and should be regarded as a deliberate imitation of Clement’s style.”22
[Price] saw also something suspicious in Smith writing his name on the manuscript. “If Smith had forged the text,” he wrote, this and other items “would make additional sense . . . Was he signing his own work?”26
25. Price, “Second Thoughts on the Secret Gospel,” 131.
Peter Jeffery’s paper constructs from Clement’s writings a multi-stage scheme of Christian initiation. This he compares with the letter to determine what kind of initiation or ritual it is describing and if it is consistent with the mystery cult vocabulary used by Clement. Among the disagreements he finds between the letter and Clement’s undisputed writings are the appeal to written rather than oral hidden truths and a special initiation ceremony for those being perfected separating them from the merely baptized. Thus, Jeffery characterizes the letter as a collection of ritual terms from Clement “indiscriminately mashed together” (p. 230).
The same method, he says, is observable in Smith’s academic works. During his presentation, Jeffery encouraged the graduate students in the room to observe for themselves Smith’s “‘scattered indications’ technique of reassembling words and phrases from ancient writings” (p. 246) by taking what he called the Jeffery Challenge: “Go to the library, check out [Smith’s Clement of Alexandria], take any random page, and check his sources. Frequently the source does not support what Smith is saying, it is distorted, taken out of context. If you can do that for ten hours and not figure out that you are being conned, then I will write you a glowing letter of recommendation on Princeton stationery to the business school of your choice.”
Because Smith’s writing is “extremely deceptive, distorted, untrustworthy,” Jeffery said, “[Smith] is not a man whose announcement of a discovery is entitled to the benefit of the doubt.”
That's stupid.Secret Alias wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:54 pm No wonder you like him. https://www.thedp.com/article/1999/03/a ... aring_loss Suing a rock band for playing too loud is like complaining about nudity in a strip club.
Some of them are like that. But that can't apply to Robert Price and Ben Smith.It's like complaining about MSG in a Chinese restaurant in Des Moines. The question with these folks is always are they trying to find fault because they don't like being blindsided by new ways of thinking.
Isn't Jerusalem the Canaanite city of Salem under King Melchizedek who met Abraham with presents?From my POV it's like the Samaritans. The Torah was written with the Samaritans in mind. But ... we have this whole system where a city which is unmentioned in the Torah is the Holy City.
We have records of the early Church teaching that those who become Christian get communion, but we don't have any records of them having more secretive or occultic rituals.3. You hated the people who once lived in your holy land because of the evil deeds they were doing. 4. They were casting spells and using drugs, and performed unholy rites. 5. They murdered their own children without pity! Those who were initiated into their secret rituals feasted on human flesh and blood.
Christian art depicted baptism of the naked body.
Melito of Sardis emphasized that Christ died naked on the cross:And they crucified Him. They also divided His garments by casting lots to decide what each of them would take.
Paul makes the connection between a believer's baptism and the death of Christ (Romans 6:3):It was He because of whom the earth quaked. He that hung up the earth in space was Himself hanged up; He that fixed the heavens was fixed with nails; He that bore up the earth was borne up on a tree; the Lord of all was subjected to ignominy in a naked body-God put to death! the King of Israel slain with Israel's right hand! Alas for the new wickedness of the new murder! The Lord was exposed with naked body: He was not deemed worthy even of covering; and, in order that He might not be seen, the luminaries turned away, and the day became darkened because they slew God, who hung naked on the tree.
So does the Gospel of Mark (Mark 10:39):Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
So, did catechumens get baptized naked? To save time, I'll quote an answer. Yes, at least sometimes.The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized
St. Cyril of Jerusalem (4th Century)A comparison of all the evidence leads to the conclusion that the catechumens entered the font in a state of absolute nakedness. See particularly St Cyril, Hieros. Myst. Catech. ii ad init; St Ambrose, Serm. xx (Opp. t.v. p. 153, Paris 1642)and Enarrat. in Ps lxi 32 (BB t.i.p. 966); St Chrysostom, ad Illum. Cat. i (Migne, tom. ii. p 268). Possibly a cincture of some kind (quo pudori consuleretur) may have been worn, as indicated in some medieval works of art.
Bishop Hippolytus of Rome:Therefore, I shall necessarily lay before you the sequel of yesterday's Lecture, that ye may learn of what those things, which were done by you in the inner chamber(2), were symbolical. 2. As soon, then, as ye entered, ye put off your tunic; and this was an image of putting off the old man with his deeds(3). Having stripped yourselves, ye were naked; in this also imitating Christ, who was stripped naked on the Cross, and by His nakedness put off from Himself the principalities and powers, and openly triumphed over them on the tree(4). For since the adverse powers made their lair in your members, ye may no longer wear that old garment; I do not at all mean this visible one, but the old man, which waxeth corrupt in the lusts of deceit(5). May the soul which has once put him off, never again put him on, but say with the Spouse of Christ in the Song of Songs, I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on(6)? O wondrous thing! ye were naked in the sight of all, and were not ashamed(7); for truly ye bore the likeness of the first-formed Adam, who was naked in the garden, and was not ashamed. 3. Then, when ye were stripped, ye were anointed with exorcised oil(8), from the very hairs of your head to your feet, and were made partakers of the good olive-tree, Jesus Christ. For ye were cut off from the wild olive-tree(9), and grafted into the good one, and were made to share the fatness of the true olive-tree.
Getting naked was an important part of the ancient Christian ritual of baptism.21 1 At the hour in which the cock crows, they shall first pray over the water. 2 When they come to the water, the water shall be pure and flowing, that is, the water of a spring or a flowing body of water. 3 Then they shall take off all their clothes.The children shall be baptized first. All of the children who can answer for themselves, let them answer. If there are any children who cannot answer for themselves, let their parents answer for them, or someone else from their family. 5 After this, the men will be baptized. Finally, the women, after they have unbound their hair, and removed their jewelry. No one shall take any foreign object with themselves down into the water. ...
9 When the elder takes hold of each of them who are to receive baptism, he shall tell each of them to renounce, saying, "I renounce you Satan, all your service, and all your works." 10 After he has said this, he shall anoint each with the Oil of Exorcism, saying, "Let every evil spirit depart from you." 11 Then, after these things, the bishop passes each of them on nude to the elder who stands at the water. They shall stand in the water naked. A deacon, likewise, will go down with them into the water. (Hippolytus. "Apostolic Traditions" of Hippolytus, 21:1-11. Translated by Edgecomb, Kevin P. Derived from Bernard Botte (La Tradition Apostolique. Sources Chretiennes, 11 bis. Paris, Editions du Cerf, 1984) and of Gregory Dix (The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus of Rome, Bishop and Martyr. London: Alban Press, 1992)
That's a lot of quotes, Peter. You do a good job with researching topics that way. I remember the nakedness in baptism coming up in Cyril of Jerusalem. People used to often swim naked until what, the 20th century? In the EO church, there is a practice of having a special baptismal robe that people wear. In early tu imrs maybe they also had that before or after the naked baptism.Peter Kirby wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 12:33 pmChristian art depicted baptism of the naked body.
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Getting naked was an important part of the ancient Christian ritual of baptism.
rakovsky wrote: ↑Sun Jan 13, 2019 7:16 pm A) An alleged early Christian ritual practice - private gnostic-style instruction involving possibly disrobing and in my reading of the passage, homosexual activity - that was unknown or very rarely known until M. Smith's 20th c. discovery, was related in ...
So on one hand we have evidence of baptism while naked like you quoted, and on the other we don't have evidence of catechetical instruction while naked or of homosexual activity or of more secretive rituals. People get catechism instructions of preaching that explain the teachings, but they don't do that naked and they aren't sex teachings like Smith was trying to analogize to certain Jewish sex occult rites that Scholem described.We have records of the early Church teaching that those who become Christian get communion, but we don't have any records of them having more secretive or occultic rituals.