Where
Are We Now? (Scholarly Interest from 1982 to the present)
For scholars the problem remains unsettled. While even the most
acid of reviews often ended with a statement to wit that a real
conclusion would require an in-depth treatment of Smith's books,
none came. In 1982 Smith commented wryly on the rhetoric of
the reviews which made work on the Secret Mark problem almost
impossible in the 1970s:
For
example, Achtemeier's review, of which the predendedly factual
statements are often grossly inaccurate. Though worthless as
criticism, it cannot confidently be described as "useless."
It probably pleased Fitzmyer, who was then editor of The Journal
of Biblical Literature, and thus may have helped Achtemeier
get the secretaryship of the Society of Biblical Literature.
That both names rhyme with "liar" is a curious coincidence.[66]
Some important Catholic scholars, including Achtemeier, Fitzmyer,
Quesnell, Skehan and Brown, have tended to ignore Secret Mark
or dismiss it as worthless. C.S. Mann's Anchor Bible commentary
on Mark, published in 1986, represents the whole controversy
as finished, a matter of "mere curiosity."[67] With
the blessing of the Imprimatur behind him, John P. Meier advised
in 1991 that Secret Mark, the Gospels of Thomas and Peter, the
Egerton Gospel and all other non-canonical Jesus material were
worthless and might simply be thrown "back into the sea."[68]
At
the same time, there has been an increase in the number of scholars
producing Secret Mark studies since 1982. That "Morton
Smith seems quite alone in his view that the fragment is a piece
of genuine Gospel material," as claimed in 1983 by Beskow
is manifestly false.[69] Smith's work in the early 70s was greeted
with more-or-less positive reviews by a small number of important
scholars including Helmut Koester, Cyril Richardson, George
MacRae, and Hugh Trevor-Roper. Some scholars did not write reviews
but openly expressed the notion that Smith's work was meritorious.
When asked by the New York Times about Smith's interpretation
of Jesus as a magician, Krister Stendhal tactfully replied,
"I have much sympathy for that way of placing Jesus in
the social setting of his time."[70]
While
that sympathy does not remain particularly widespread, accepting
Smith's magical Jesus has nothing to do with taking Secret Mark
seriously. The two issues may be discussed seperately: the argument
for magical practises in early Christianity may certainly be
made without reference to Secret Mark, and Secret Mark may be
discussed as a text with no more magical implications than we
find in canonical Mark.
In
Thomas Talley's 1982 article on ancient liturgy, he describes
his own attempt to physically examine the Secret Mark manuscript.
As his is the last word on the physical artifact in question,
it is fortuitous to quote him at length:
Given
the late date of the manuscript itself and the fact that Prof.
Smith published photographs of it, it seemed rather beside the
point that some scholars wished to dispute the very existence
of a manuscript which no one but the editor had seen. My own
attempts to see the manuscript in January of 19080 were frustrated,
but as witnesses to its existence I can cite the Archimandrite
Meliton of the Jerusalem Greek Patriarchate who, after the publication
of Smith's work, found the volume at Mar Saba and removed it
to the patriarchal library, and the patriarchal librarian, Father
Kallistos, who told me that the manuscript (two folios) has
been removed from the printed volume and is being repaired.[71]
Although one wishes this document were available for the examination
of Western scholars, it is no longer reasonable to doubt the
existence of the manuscript itself. That it represents an authentic
tradition from Clement of Alexandria is disputed only by a handful
of scholars and, as Talley also points out, the letter has itself
been included in the standard edition of the Alexandrian father's
writings since 1980.[72]
Taking
on the pressing question of Secret Mark's textual relationship
with the version of Mark in our New Testament, Helmut Koester
has published two intriguing studies arguing that the development
of Mark was an evolutionary process. First came the version
of Mark known by Matthew and Luke, the proto-Mark or Urmarkus
long known to scholars of the synoptic problem. After this original
version of Mark was published, the expanded version used by
the Alexandrian church in Christian mysteries was made (and
from that, its gnosticized Carpocration version). Soon afterward
or simulaneously, a mostly expurgated version of Secret Mark
was published widely and became canonical Mark.[73] The original
Urmarkus, lacking anything not found in Matthew or Luke, went
the way of the sayings source and was not preserved.
Koester's
view has made some inroads. Hans-Martin Schenke adopts it with
the modification that Carpocratian Mark predates the Secret
Mark of the Alexandrian Church.[74] John Dominic Crossan developed
a theory like Koester's in his 1985 Four Other Gospels. Secret
Mark has been included in the texts being translated as part
of the Scholars Version project, and is described as an early
gospel fragment in material that the Jesus Seminar has been
making available to popular audiences. None of these treatments
is significantly affected by one's assessment of the magical
Jesus suggested by Smith.
Still,
Jesus as magician is not a dead issue. John Dominic Crossan's
very intriguing book on The Historical Jesus has an extended
discussion of the topic. He argues that Jesus may indeed be
understood as a magician. He rejects an artificial dichotomy
between magic and religion, saying, "the prescriptive distinction
that states that we practice religion but they practice magic
should be seen for what it is, a political validation of the
approved and the official against the unapproved and unofficial."[75]
Conclusion:
Where No Secret Gospel Has Gone Before
Secret Mark's plight constitutes a warning to all scholars as
to the dangers of allowing sentiments of faith to cloud or prevent
critical examination of evidence. When seen in light of the
massive literature which has been produced by the other major
manuscript finds of our century, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi
codices, the comparative dearth of good studies on this piece
in particular cannot be explained in any other way that a stubborn
refusal to deal with information which might challenge deeply-held
personal convictions. It is good to keep in mind an unofficial
directive of the Jesus Seminar: "Beware of finding a Jesus
entirely congenial to you."[76]
"It
is my opinion," writes Hans Dieter Betz, "that Smith's
book and the texts he discovered should be carefully and seriously
studied. Criticizing Smith is not enough."[77] Certainly
it is reasonable to concur. After twenty years of confusion,
it must be time to set aside emotionalism and approach both
this fragment and Morton Smith's assessment of the role of magic
in early Christianity with objective and critical eyes. However
that question is ultimately to be resolved, Secret Mark provides
yet another fascinating window into the remarkable ritual diversity
we may identify in the first phases of the development of Christianity.
Footnotes
1 Parker, "An Early Christian Cover-up?",
5.
2 Smith, "Monasteries and their Manuscripts."
3 Smith, The Secret Gospel, 12.
4 Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel according
to Mark, 1.
5 Smith, The Secret Gospel, 13-14.
6 ibid., 24.
7 ibid., 25.
8 Knox, "A New Gospel Ascribed to Mark."
9 Smith, "Monasteries and their Manuscripts."
10 Smith, "Hellenika Cheirographa en tei Monei tou Hagiou
Sabba."
11 Smith, The Secret Gospel, 76.
12 Smith, Jesus the Magician, 3-4.
13 Smith, The Secret Gospel, 94.
14 ibid., 113n1.
15 ibid., 113-114.
16 Shenker, "A Scholar Infers Jesus Practiced Magic."
17 Skehan, review of Smith's work in Catholic Historical Review,
452.
18 Fitzmyer, "How to Exploit a Secret Gospel," 572.
19 Fitzmyer, "Mark's 'Secret Gospel?'", 65.
20 Achtemeier, review of Smith in Journal of Biblical Literature,
626.
21 ibid.
22 Beardslee, review of Smith in Interpretation, 234.
23 Parker, "An Early Christian Cover-Up?", 5.
24 Conzelmann, "Literaturbericht zu den Synoptischen Evangelien
(Fortsetzung).", 321. (Translation from Schenke, "The
Mystery of the Gospel of Mark," 70-71.)
25 ibid., 23. (Translation from Schenke, "The Mystery of
the Gospel of Mark," 70-71.)
26 Brown, "The Relation of 'The Secret Gospel of Mark'
to the Fourth Gospel," 466n1.
27 Danker, review of Smith in Dialog, 316.
28 Merkel, "Auf den Spuren des Urmarkus?", 123. (Translation
from Schenke, "The Mystery of the Gospel of Mark,"
69.)
29 Musurillo, "Morton Smith's Secret Gospel," 328.
30 Brown, "The Relation of 'The Secret Gospel of Mark'
to the Fourth Gospel," 466n1.
31 Including Fitzmeyer, "How to Exploit a Secret Gospel";
Parker, "An Early Christian Cover-Up?"; Skehan, review
of Smith in Catholic Historical Review 60(1974); Gibbs, review
of Smith in Theology Today 30(1974); Grant, "Morton Smith's
Two Books"; Merkel, "Auf den Spuren des Urmarkus?";
Kummel, "Ein Jahrzehnt Jesusforchung"; and Beskow,
Strange Tales about Jesus. Anitra Kolenkow's comments on this
bias are salient: "We know that the gospel of John long
has been known as possibly containing both gnostic and homosexual
motifs. John may have been written at approximately the same
time as Mark. What difference does it make to us if Jesus is
not separated from a homosexual situation?" (Quoted from
Kolenkow's response to Reginald Fuller, Longer Mark, 33.)
32 Examples are Achtemeier, review of Smith in the Journal of
Biblical Literature 93(1974); MacRae, "Yet Another Jesus";
Gibbs, review of Smith in Theology Today 30(1974); and Fuller,
Longer Mark: Forgery, Interpolation, or Old Tradition?
33 See the statements to this effect in Quesnell, "The
Mar Saba Clementine," and Hobbs (response in Fuller, Longer
Mark: Forgery, Interpolation, or Old Tradition?).
34 Such scholars included Pierson Parker, Edward Hobbs and Per
Beskow.
35 See Bruce, The 'Secret' Gospel of Mark; Musurillo, "Morton
Smith's Secret Gospel"; and Kummel, "Ein Jahrzehnt
Jesusforschung."
36 Fitzmyer, "How to Exploit a Secret Gospel"; Gibbs,
review of Smith in Theology Today 30(1974).
37 Danker, review of Smith in Dialog, 316.
38 ibid.
39 ibid.
40 Quesnell, "The Mar Saba Clementine," 49.
41 ibid., 50.
42 ibid., 52.
43 ibid., 53.
44 ibid., 57.
45 Smith, The Secret Gospel, 25.
46 Smith, Clement of Alexandria, ix.
47 Quesnell, "The Mar Saba Clementine," 58.
48 ibid., 61.
49 ibid., 60n30.
50 ibid., 48.
51 Smith, "On the Authenticity of the Mar Saba Letter of
Clement," 196.
52 Quesnell, "A Reply to Morton Smith," 201.
53 Beskow, Strange Tales about Jesus, 101.
54 Smith, "On the Authenticity of the Mar Saba Letter of
Clement," 196.
55 Sider, "Unfounded 'Secret'," 160.
56 Private correspondence with Saniel Bonder.
57 Bonder, The Divine Emergence of the World-Teacher, 234.
58 ibid., 235.
59 Feuerstein, Holy Madness, 90-92.
60 ibid., 94.
61 Bonder, The Divine Emergence of the World-Teacher, 287.
62 ibid., 288.
63 It is neccessary to stipulate that nothing in the above discussion
of the Free Daist Communion should be read as derogatory. The
purpose is simple description. Despite the controversy which
has sometimes surrounded this movement, the author does not
feel that its practices are in any way fraudulent or abusive.
Scholars should consider the possibility that examination of
modern new religious movements such as the Da Avabhasa sect
might be extraordinarily helpful in our understanding of the
community dynamics of early libertine Christians such as the
Carpocratians.
64 Baigent et al, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, 290.
65 Prophet, The Lost Years of Jesus, 9. Most interestingly,
in her notes Prophet quotes a 1984 telephone interview with
scholar Birger A. Pearson, in which he says that "many
scholars, maybe even most, would now accept the authenticity
of the Clement fragment, including what it said about the Secret
Gospel of Mark." (434n16)
66 Smith, The Secret Gospel (1982 Dawn Horse edition), 150n7.
67 Mann, Mark (The Anchor Bible), 423.
68 Meier, A Marginal Jew, 140.
69 Beskow, Strange Tales about Jesus, 99. One wonders what a
"genuine piece of gospel material" might be. Are gospel
additions such as the second ending of Mark (16.9-20) and the
famous story of the adulterous woman (John 8.53-9.11) "genuine
gospel material," even if we know they were not originally
part of the gospels in which they are found?
70 Shenker, "Jesus: New Ideas about his Powers."
71 Talley, "Liturgical Time in the Ancient Church,"
45.
72 ibid.
73 See Koester, "History and Development of Mark's Gospel,"
and Ancient Christian Gospels.
74 Schenke, "The Mystery of the Gospel of Mark," 76.
75 Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 310.
76 Funk et al., The Five Gospels, 5.
77 Fuller, Longer Mark: Forgery, Interpolation, or Old Tradition?,
18.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's note:
The author would like to offer thanks to Saniel Bonder of the
Mountain of Attention Sanctuary for his kind assistance in providing
research materials and his willingness to share with me information
pertaining to The Dawn Horse Press and The Secret Gospel. Further
thanks are due to Dr. Jon Daniels of The Defiance College for
his helpful insights into the subject matter of this study.
