Peter Kirby wrote: ↑Wed Mar 06, 2024 10:45 pm
I think you have a good point.
Attempting to build on this a bit: A diminutive name (IMO) can refer to the name itself ("Mark" here) and then add something that is descriptive. This could also be something that is specifying (
that Mark), but it doesn't have to be specifying and distinguishing one "Mark" from another "Mark." It could also just be describing "Mark." A description of "Mark" as little / lesser / short just makes sense. Every text that has gone under the name "Mark" is shorter than the synoptic gospels known to be more popular among the orthodox, Matthew and Luke.
Your point about "memoirs" and more-finished texts also makes sense to me (not sure if it's necessarily proven but I like it). If the Marcionites are claimed to use "Mark" (Hippolytus/ps-Hippolytus), and if Justin claims to use a "memoir of Peter" that sounds a bit like canonical Mark, and if canonical Mark can be said to have this kind of quality about it in any case, this would provide a context where what ends up going into the canon under the name "Mark" was based on the rougher text.
A text that is "The Gospel," likewise, makes sense as "the" finished text, possibly before any competitors to be the finished text. So perhaps there was both a rough text and a more-finished text that were both being associated somehow with the name "Mark."
I may have taken this in unintended directions. I'm not quite sure if I did. If so, that's fine. That just makes it a productive idea.
I'm not entirely clear on what you're saying here. JM and others prior to Irenaeus identify a figure called "Marcion". JM does not identify any Gospel by name. The supposed testimony of Papias is dubious given what it says, given our lack of any direct copies of the work, and the propensity for forgery happening at the time. My concern about the supposed works of Papias and what they supposedly say about Mark is that clearly by the middle of the second century the fraud and forgery machine was already in full swing. Anyone citing the works of Papias may well have been citing a forgery and not have even known it themselves. Certainly what Eusebius "quotes" from Papias in the 4th century is highly suspect by that point.
At any rate, Irenaeus tells us of three "Marks": Marcion the heretic, Marcus the heretic, and Mark the Evangelist.
I certainly think that there is some relationship between these and that the "Gospel of Mark" is linked in some way to either "Marcion" or "Marcus".
It seems to me that Irenaeus was working from a four Gospel collection in which the names of the Gospels had been assigned. He did not name the Gospels. He possessed a collection that consisted of a codex in which the Gospels were identified as "The Gospel According to Matthew", "The Gospel According to Mark", etc. He actually knew not where these names came from or why they were assigned. He invented rationalizations for the names. It was Irenaeus who invented back stories for the Gospel writers.
The prime example here is the "Gospel of John", which I am certain received the name "Gospel according to John" because the Gospel was associated with John the Baptist, as this Gospel is presented as "the testimony of John (the Baptist)". Nowhere in the original (pre-canonical) work was any John named other than John the Baptist and John the Baptist is far more prevalent in this Gospel than any other Gospel. Thus, this was the Gospel of John the Baptist. But the creator of the collection added John 21 and inserted John Zebedee at the end. And whether it was the creator of the collection or Irenaeus himself, this addition of John Zebedee at the end allowed the existing association of this Gospel with "John" to be transferred to the identity of "John Zebedee".
So any any rate, the point is, this Gospel was associated with "John" prior to its inclusion in the four Gospel collection. In its pre-collection form the Gospel was associated with John the Baptist, not John Zebedee. Irenaeus then invents a whole back story about how this Gospel was written by "John Zebedee" and associated with that disciple, which is actually very forced because John Zebedee isn't even a character in the Gospel, he only appears in the late addition of John 21. But, this was done because the Gospel existed (without 21) outside of the collection and was already known as the "Gospel of John". When it was given this title in the four Gospel codex it was given the title it was indeed known by, but Irenaeus had to change the association from "John the Baptist" to "John Zebedee" in order to fulfill his requirement of being a Gospel by a disciple of Jesus or an associate of an apostle and since John was what he had to work with, he had to link it to John Zebedee. Maybe Irenaeus really thought that "according to John" meant John Zebedee. Maybe he was told that. Or it was unclear and he forced the association himself.
At any rate, now we come to "Mark". Again, I think what we had here was a Gospel that was titled "According to Mark" by the editor of the four Gospel codex because the individual work was associated with "Mark". Irenaeus then invented this back story about "Mark" being an associate of Peter's. This backstory was likely inspired by the comment in JM, which we have discussed before:
And when it is said that He changed the name of one of the apostles to Peter; and when it is written in the memoirs of Him that this so happened, as well as that He changed the names of other two brothers, the sons of Zebedee, to Boanerges, which means sons of thunder
The original meaning of what JM says here is unclear. Are the "memoirs of Him" the "memoirs about Jesus" or "memoirs of Peter"? At any rate, JM appears to be referencing the "Gospel of Mark" and makes a statement that can be interpreted to mean that this passage is found in the "memoirs or Peter".
I think that Irenaeus had in his hand a work titled "The Gospel According to Mark" and in it there existed this unique statement that JM had (I think inadvertently) identified as having come from the "memoirs of Peter". Thus, Irenaeus concludes that the "Gospel According to Mark" was the "memoirs or Peter". So he proceeds to invent his backstory about how the "The Gospel According to Mark" was written by an associate of Peter's.
This is why I discount the supposed testimony of Papias which claims that "Mark" was written by an associate of Peter's, because why would anyone really make this association? I think that what JM was intending to say here was that the changing of names was recorded in the "memoirs about Jesus", but it got interpreted as meaning "memoirs of Peter", and that's where this link between Mark adn Peter comes from.
At any rate, what Irenaeus had in hand was a Gospel that on its own had already been associated with a "Mark" and so the creator of the four Gospel codex titled it "According to Mark" because that's how the work that he incorporated into his collection was known. But who was the "Mark" that it was associated with?
I would say it was likely "Marcus" the heretic. Another possibility is that it was associated with the Mark mentioned in the letters of Paul. But my reading of the "Gospel of Mark" is that it is highly compatible with heretical views, in fact it is directly counter to many orthodox claims. As you know, I was considering the possibility that the original opening had Jesus descending from heaven, but these recent threads about Capernaum have persuaded me otherwise. The original opening probably said simply that Jesus "appeared" or "appeared" from Galilee.
But certainly the story is a polemic against the disciples that sets up a big reveal of Jesus to Paul. The story is designed to explain why Paul is the only legitimate apostle. The story also uses the Jewish scriptures against the Jews using many scriptures that refer to God's punishment of the Jews and the sins and unfaithfulness of the Jews, etc. The story is also very favorable toward women, which is something we are told about Marcus, whose ministry appears to be geared toward women. Likewise the story uses a lot of symbolism and numerology, which we are told are qualities of Marcus.
So it may well be that the "Gospel According to Mark" had this name because it was a Gospel written by or used by Marcus the heretic. The Gospel was given an orthodox veneer by the editor of the four Gospel codex.
But could Irenaeus really have been so stupid as not to know that one of the Gospels in his collection was directly a "heretical" Gospel and not only that it was "used by" heretics (which was acknowledged) but that its name came from one of the main heretics he was attacking? That it was not, in fact, a Gospel written by an associate of Peter's, but rather a Gospel written by a heretic?
But I don't see how "Marcion" can be an invented name that derives from the Gospel of Mark, meaning like "the user of the little Gospel" or whatever, if that is what you are proposing, because it seems that Marcion was a name known to JM and others, which pre-dates the identification of the "Gospel of Mark" as such.
