Secret Gospel of Mark
In 1958 Morton Smith, professor of ancient history at Columbia University, discovered a “Secret Gospel of Mark” at Mar Saba, a Greek Orthodox monastery in the Judean desert. Actually what he discovered was a portion of the Gospel quoted by Clement of Alexandria in a fragment of a letter to a certain Theodore. Clement, who was an influential early Church Father living around A.D. 200, was trying to set Theodore straight about the evil Carpocrations. In his discussion he revealed that
Mark, then, during Peter’s stay in Rome he wrote [an account of] the Lord’s doings, not, however, declaring all [of them], nor yet hinting at the secret [ones], but selecting those he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed. But when Peter died as a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria, bringing both his own notes and those of Peter, from which he transferred to his former book the things suitable to whatever makes for progress toward knowledge [gnosis]. [Thus] he composed a more spiritual Gospel for the use of those who were being perfected. Nevertheless, he yet did not divulge the things not to be uttered, nor did he write down the hierophantic[1] teaching of the Lord, but to the stories already written he added yet others and, moreover, brought in certain sayings of which he knew the interpretation would, as a mystagogue, lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven [veils]. Thus, in sum, he prearranged matters, neither grudgingly nor incautiously, in my opinion, and, dying, he left his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries. [emphasis added][2]
This is indeed an astonishing letter. In it, Clement writes of “a more spiritual Gospel” which was given only to initiates of “the great mysteries.” Clement insists elsewhere that Jesus revealed a secret teaching to those who were “capable of receiving it and being moulded by it.”[3] Clement indicates that he possessed the secret tradition, which was handed down through the apostles.
Smith and other scholars analyzed the fragment of Clement’s letter, and the majority agreed it had in fact been written by the Church Father. Smith then concluded from stylistic study that secret Mark did not belong to the family of New Testament apocrypha composed during and after the late second century, but that it had been written at least as early as A.D. 100–120.[4] Furthermore, from other clues Smith makes a good case for it having been written even earlier—around the same time as the Gospel of Mark.[5]
Evidence for Jesus’ initiatic rites
Most significantly, the fragment reveals more about Jesus’ secret practices. It contains a variant of the Lazarus story, which theretofore was found only in the Book of John.[6] It had always seemed strange that only one of the Gospels should record this most important miracle by Jesus—the raising of the dead. The passage from the secret gospel reads:
And they come into Bethany, and a certain woman, whose brother had died, was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, “Son of David, have mercy on me.” But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over [his] naked [body]. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan.[7]
This story, coupled with the very existence of a secret Gospel, strengthens the evidence for secret teachings and initiatic rites.[8]
Clement’s reference to Mark having combined his notes with “those of Peter” supports the theory that the immediate followers of Jesus kept a record of their Lord’s teachings—if not an historical diary. The fragment not only provides reinforcement for the Lazarus miracle but also explains a portion of the Gospel of Mark which has baffled scholars for centuries.
At the point of Jesus’ arrest on the Mount of Olives, Mark gives the following verses: “And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him: And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.”[9]
Smith reasons that Jesus was baptizing the young man in a rite similar to that which he administered to the Lazarus figure in the secret gospel after he had raised him from the dead. The circumstances are the same, he says—similar attire, nocturnal meeting—and the stream at the foot of the Mount of Olives could have provided the water.[10] This seems the best explanation yet for the presence of the peculiarly attired young man at Jesus’ arrest.
Editing the gospels
Another thing the secret Gospel does is present evidence of a deletion in the Gospel. Mark 10:46 reads, “And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples ...” What happened in Jericho? Whatever it was, it was taken out.
Clement’s letter apparently quotes the same verse: “And he comes into Jericho and the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome were there ...” Smith believes that Clement himself added the concluding words to this sentence, “... and Jesus did not receive them,” in order to discredit Salome, a woman of ill repute whose name was deleted from Matthew, Luke and John[11] (whether by the Gospel writers or someone else, we do not know).
But we must ask ourselves, Who decided to leave this sentence (and any story which might have ensued about Salome) out of the Gospel of Mark? Did Mark do it because he thought it belonged only in the secret gospel? If so, why would he have made such a clumsy edit on his own work?
Smith speculates that Clement might have been wrong: “What if the secret text had been earlier, and canonical Mark had been cut down from it?”[12] That would explain the deletion. But this leads us to wonder: How many other accounts of Jesus’ words and works were lifted out? How many edits were made?
If Clement edited the sentence about Salome in his letter, as seems likely, Smith says, from the Church Father’s use of a Greek verb virtually unheard of in Mark, we may ask where the editing ended. If Clement, who was a Church Father and saint, had no scruples about editing a sentence of the document he said was the “more spiritual gospel,” how can we be sure he or the other fathers did not commit further editing, “for the good of the people,” on this and the manuscript that has been handed down to us as the Gospel of Mark?
Implications of the Secret Gospel
Secret Mark casts the official canon in another light. Could the Gospels themselves be the “exoteric” teachings, for those who were “without,” so intended by their authors from the start? Clement tells us that Mark’s secret Gospel was for those “who were being perfected,” i.e., in the language of Paul—“we speak wisdom among them that are perfect”—initiated.
The existence of secret Mark brings up another question: If Mark wrote “a more spiritual Gospel,” was he the only one who did? Or were there others?
Yet even if all the secret texts, however many or few they may be, were to be discovered, we still would not have access to all of Jesus’ secret teachings. For in the same fragment, Clement tells Theodore that Mark “did not divulge the things not to be uttered, nor did he write down the hierophantic teaching of the Lord.”
Thus, there were teachings that could not be committed to writing. The best Mark could do was to put the seeker on the right track and trust in the Holy Spirit to quicken his heart in the Lord. But if Mark excluded the Lazarus story from his canonical Gospel for secrecy’s sake, it raises the question as to what else he, or someone, omitted.
See also
Sources
Elizabeth Clare Prophet with Erin L. Prophet, Reincarnation: The Missing Link in Christianity, p. 138.
- ↑ Hierophantic [from Greek hieros, powerful, supernatural, holy, sacred + phantes, from phainein, to bring to light, reveal, show, make known]: of, relating to, or resembling a hierophant, who in antiquity was an official expounder of sacred mysteries or religious ceremonies, esp. in ancient Greece.
- ↑ Morton Smith, The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark (Clearlake, Calif.: Dawn Horse Press, 1982), p. 15. Note: Words in brackets were added in by Smith for clarity.
- ↑ Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 1.71, in Stromateis: Books One to Three, trans. John Ferguson, The Fathers of the Church, vol. 85 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1991), p. 76.
- ↑ Smith, The Secret Gospel, p. 40.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 61.
- ↑ John 11:1–44.
- ↑ Smith, The Secret Gospel, pp. 16–17.
- ↑ Some scholars would take exception to this position. But their dissent should be seen in light of the development of the debate that has surrounded the Clement fragment and the secret Gospel of Mark. Initial discussion focused on their authenticity. In 1982, a decade after Morton Smith published a technical analysis of the fragments, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark, he noted in the Harvard Theological Review that the first reports about his work were either neutral or sympathetic, followed by “a swarm of attacks in religious journals, mainly intended to discredit the new gospel material, my theories about it, or both.” But by 1982, he reported, “most scholars would attribute the letter to Clement, though a substantial minority are still in doubt.” As for the actual meaning of the fragment, Smith said that “I had shown that the gospel fragments represented Jesus as practicing some sort of initiation.” While Smith acknowledged that no one accepted his proposed explanation of the purpose of the initiation, he “was amazed that so many went so far as to concede that Jesus might have had some secret doctrines and initiatory ceremonies.” Nevertheless, Smith observed that “serious discussion [of secret Mark] has barely begun. The lack of such discussion is the starting point for a more recent paper “The Young Man in Canonical and Secret Mark” by Marvin Meyer. “Although the Secret Gospel has been on the lips and in the pens of numerous scholars,” Meyer points out, “it seems fair to observe that the text has not achieved any sort of prominence in New Testament discussions.” Much of Meyer’s paper is a review of the first stirrings of “serious discussion” of secret Mark and includes his own original contribution to the debate. While Meyer assumes “the authenticity of the letter of Clement as an ancient text,” he disagrees with Smith about its meaning. Where Smith holds that the “young man” is an actual person participating in an initiatic rite, Meyer and a number of other scholars believe that this is a literary device; the young man in both the canonical (Mark 14:51, 52) and secret Gospels of Mark functions as a “prototype and a symbol of all those who are to be initiated into the higher discipleship of Jesus.” Further, he argues, “this story of the young man ... means to communicate Secret Mark’s vision of the life and challenge of discipleship, as that is exemplified in the career of the young man.” Fifty years later, scholarly opinion is still divided on the authenticity and significance of the secret Gospel of Mark. See Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973); Morton Smith, “Clement of Alexandria and Secret Mark: The Score at the End of the First Decade,” Harvard Theological Review, 75 (October 1982): 449–61.
- ↑ Mark 14: 51, 52.
- ↑ Smith, The Secret Gospel, pp. 80–81.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 69–70.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 41–42.