Ken Olson wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2020 5:12 pm
John2 wrote:
Ken wrote:
the Carpocratians saw such a suggestion there, and most modern readers can see why they did.
It doesn't strike me that way, and if I only had what Clement cites from Secret Mark to go by I don't know if it would occur to me.
and
This is why Clement goes on to cite Secret Mark, to show that it did not describe homosexuality.
What I meant was that if I saw only what Clement cites from Secret Mark (without the context of knowing it was in his letter) I don't know if a suggestion of homosexuality would occur to me. But in the letter I can see that Clement cites Secret Mark to show that in his view it did not describe homosexuality.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
John2 wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2020 5:27 pm
What I meant was that if I saw only what Clement cites from Secret Mark (without the context of knowing it was in his letter) I don't know if a suggestion of homosexuality would occur to me. But in the letter I can see that Clement cites Secret Mark to show that in his view it did not describe homosexuality.
So ... you're saying that if it weren't for the Clement trying to show that the text did not describe homosexuality, the suggestion of homosexuality might never have occurred to you from just the Secret Mark passage.
John2 wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2020 5:27 pm
What I meant was that if I saw only what Clement cites from Secret Mark (without the context of knowing it was in his letter) I don't know if a suggestion of homosexuality would occur to me. But in the letter I can see that Clement cites Secret Mark to show that in his view it did not describe homosexuality.
So ... you're saying that if it weren't for the Clement trying to show that the text did not describe homosexuality, the suggestion of homosexuality might never have occurred to you from just the Secret Mark passage.
I think you may be on to something.
I don't know how to take your remark, but all I'm saying is that I imagine that if I saw what I gather is thought to be the suggestive part of Secret Mark in isolation from Clement's letter and without any awareness of what anyone else thought about it I don't know if it would strike me as describing homosexuality.
Being that I am aware that it is in Clement's letter and of what others think about it and am thus in a "don't think of an elephant" situation, when I consider the broader context of Secret Mark being otherwise the same as Mark as we know it (at least to judge from Clement) and Jesus being (by my reading) pro-Torah in Mark, I don't think it would make sense for it to be describing homosexuality.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
It's the same with to Theodore. From Theodore makes To Theodore look ordinary and expected. Those who doubt the text's authenticity have more either active imaginations than I do or special powers which enables them to transcend what the actual evidence tells us. I don't profess to have the ability to read minds like they do. Pity. That would be an amazing skill to have. Some guys have all the luck ...
“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
This is not to say that there was never such a thing as a same-sex unions or that the word brother was never used for people in such a union. John Boswell's Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe (1981) makes a number of controversial claims, but his claim that the Christian church performed rituals recognizing same-sex unions is based on the fact that he has a number of texts of such rituals from the sixth to eighteenth centuries centuries that actually say this. Several contain the word ADELFOPOIA (“brother making”). One may consider Boswell's interpretation of the texts as to the nature of such brotherhood to be speculative, but he's not just speculating that texts exist of brother-making rituals exist.
It is a fascinating discussion of this whole subject. Among other things it shows that the brother-making rituals found in later texts are unlikely to have an origin before the Diocletian persecution.
At the same time one must imagine that certain aspects of the original mystery cult would be difficult to communicate and unlikely to be recorded in the kinds of documents that survive before the start of the Coptic calendar. This has nothing to do with the question of homoeroticism. The Coptic Church begins at this time because before the Anno Martyrum little is known about the actual Alexandrian mysteries outside of the kinds of documents which circulated publicly. None of them have as their explicit purpose the revelation of the secret initiations of the community.
On an intellectual level though the concept of 'adoption' is at the heart of Pauline baptism. Being adopted as a son of 'the Father' necessarily makes one the brother of 'the Son.' The use of 'brother' in Paul suggests it was a term used by the community to designate one who completed the initiation process. The fact that beginning in the fourth century an assault was made on the 'sonship' as it were of the Son (i.e. that being a Son made him distinct from the Father) one can see that this would indirectly have also watered-down the degree to which initiates were Christ's brother (as the Son was increasingly indistinguishable from the Father).
No it can't be proved that there was a 'brother-making' ritual in one sense. But intellectually at least it is impossible to believe that baptism wasn't originally conceived as a 'brother-making' sacrament especially considering the degree to which the community 'communed' with one another (either owing to their equality or with respect to them being all 'remade' after the same image). The real question then is how early baptism COULDN'T have been conceived as a 'brother-making' ritual given the post-sacramental relationship between the catechumen and the Son in light of being adopted by the heavenly Father.
“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
I haven't had time to read Claudia Rapp yet (but thanks for the recommendation, Andrew), but Boswell is careful to distinguish the same-sex unions/brother-making rituals he is discussing form the more general sense of brotherhood:
the ancient ceremony unmistakably commemorated and established something personal and specific between two persons only--a couple of some sort--and was not the invocation of the much more general type of human relationship denoted by English "brotherhood," which can and most often does comprise more than two. (Same-Sex Unions, 38).
One could call Pauline baptism a "brother-making ritual" in the sense that the recipients become ADELFOI (brothers and sisters) in Christ, but this is distinct from the two-person rituals Boswell discusses.
John2 wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2020 6:30 pm
if I saw what I gather is thought to be the suggestive part of Secret Mark in isolation from Clement's letter and without any awareness of what anyone else thought about it I don't know if it would strike me as describing homosexuality.
when I consider the broader context of Secret Mark being otherwise the same as Mark as we know it (at least to judge from Clement) ... I don't think it would make sense for it to be describing homosexuality.
If we had a fragment of Secret Mark independently from the Letter, or if we had access to the broader context of Secret Mark independently from Clement, then the evidence would be very different from what it is and we would probably come to different conclusions. But we don't have any access to Secret Mark other than through the Letter to Theodore and what it suggests to us.
One could call Pauline baptism a "brother-making ritual" in the sense that the recipients become ADELFOI (brothers and sisters) in Christ, but this is distinct from the two-person rituals Boswell discusses.
I am just saying that INTELLECTUALLY at least one can see how baptism could be made a brother-making ritual. If the author I cited is correct, Theodore (Gregory) seems to have had a mystical or spiritual 'homoerotic' relationship with Origen at least initially which makes sense insofar as one would imagine the 'earthly father' (= the priest) would represent the heavenly Father and Theodore became his 'son' effectively. This is different from the surviving ἀδελφοποίησις rites certainly. But if we look at Secret Mark there is only Jesus and the youth. Yes to be certain there are no brothers getting married in either in the material referenced in to Theodore or from Theodore. But in the end Theodore ends up with a 'brother' just as Gregory and Basil taken on 'brotherlike' characteristics in their relationship. At the very least two brothers initiated and adopted by the same 'father' taken on the same value and thus are 'equal' - i.e. they are 'equal' insofar as they have had the same masculine image 'seared' on to their naked bodies like a branding iron. They are spiritual twins too. We should remember the silly story in the Clementines were Faustus's father had Simon's image seared onto his person and thus took on the person of Simon. When the Romans soldiers come to take Faustus's father away to die, Clement or Peter (I forget which) trick Simon and he is taken away instead. Also the notion of Simon taking Jesus's place at the crucifixion assumes a ritual of this sort (viz. Jesus searing 'his' image viz. the Father on to Simon). The implications for the Patripassians should also be considered. Plato's notions of 'form' likely also plays a role.
I accept that what ἀδελφοποίησις became was distinct from whatever type of ἀδελφοποίησις existed in Christianity before the Age of Martyrs. My point was just that such a ritual must have existed from the time of Paul or at least baptism must have been conceived as 'brother making' even if the term wasn't exactly employed (although I think a related term was employed rather early, have to remember).
“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
One other observation. As we all know the Secret Mark passage appears before the question of the rich guy in Mark chapter 10 where Jesus concludes his message to Peter by saying "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall leave what is his own, parents, and brethren, and possessions, for My sake and the Gospel's, shall receive an hundred-fold now in this world, lands, and possessions, and house, and brethren, with persecutions; and in the world to come is life everlasting." Clement understands this as meaning the Christian mysteries will among other things 'make brothers' for the initiate:
But Christ is the fulfilment of the law for righteousness to every one that believes; and not as a slave making slaves, but sons, and brethren, and fellow-heirs, who perform the Father's will (οὐχὶ δὲ δού λους ποιῶν ὡς δοῦλος, ἀλλὰ καὶ υἱοὺς καὶ ἀδελφοὺς καὶ συγκληρονό μους τοὺς ἐπιτελοῦντας τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πατρός).
“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
