Thoughts on Secret Mark by Smith and Landau

[Secret Alias]

Christians were frequently accused of being homosexual and engaging in homosexualized rituals. Smith found a text which can be interpreted as being another reference to this practice? What's he supposed to do? Ignore what Hegesippus says about the Carpocratians? Ignore what Epiphanius says? Ignore the sexualized context of Clements comments about the Carpocratians? Just silly.

[StephenGoranson]

Concerning the excerpted text above,
"...Clement[']s comments about the Carpocratians...."
Do you, Stephan Huller, think Clement wrote To Theodore?

[Secret Alias]

It's about as certain as any claimed authorship of any New Testament or Patristic document. No need for an asterisk.

[Secret Alias]

In fact I can't think of a single document before the third century who's authorship can be determined with any degree of certainty, who's literary context can fully be established or who's author is known beyond a name and (sometimes) a place.

[Secret Alias]

Y'all act like Clement's works are so certain. That we know anything certain about Clement or Alexandrian Christianity or the gospels of that time. Just a big joke.

This guy wrote a whole paper attacking Smith because people were citing the change of mind on Secret Mark as a reason to accept Shapira. He literally has no background in early Christianity and it shows. Oh the noble motives of humanities scholars. It's always endless proxy wars. Like our atheist friends in the other forum embracing Gmirkin because his arguments cut the legs out from the Pentateuch. They're not far removed from "real scholarship" as we once thought. It's all attack X to support Y.

Who or what is a "Mark" or a "Matthew" or a "Paul"? We act like we know ghosts and shadows so lonely are we.

[Secret Alias]

His "I am not accusing Smith of forgery" is little more than admission he can't.

[Secret Alias]

The gay thing is silly. Apparently every jazz great was gay including 4 time married Oscar Peterson. Rumors can't be used as the basis to serious reporting.

https://www.organissimo.org/forum/topic ... musicians/

[billd89]

In a rant above emerges this question:
"Where is the footnote confirming Smith's interest in Crowley?"

Try Klawans footnote 49.

Or, to restate, in a letter from Smith to Scholem dated November 26, 1945, Smith mentions Crowley--eight times.

Morton Smith and Gershom Scholem, correspondence 1945-1982
edited with an introduction by Guy G. Stroumsa.
Scholem, Gershom, 1897-1982
Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2008, pages 10 and 11.

Sorry to bump, but this PDF.

Pierluigi Piovanelli, "Halfway Between Sabbatai Tzevi and Aleister Crowley: Morton Smith’s “Own Concept of What Jesus ‘Must’ Have Been” and, Once Again, the Questions of Evidence and Motive" in Tony Burke (ed.), Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery? The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate: Proceedings from the 2011 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium (Eugene, Ore.: Cascade Books, 2013), 157–83.

Side-note: Piovanelli cites the Smith Correspondence (Letter 3 of 26 November 1945 [Stroumsa, Correspondence, 11]) and a garbled Hebrew term/name that erroneously transcribes as 'Mittel-Danj' : "Crowley was in England in the thirties when Stephenson’s [sic] book was published. When was the article you have about the Mittel-Danj [?] “zwischen Schopenhauer und Busch” written?"

I don't agree w/ Piovanelli's assertion of relevance. From context, I strongly suspect this Mysterious Author was rather a reference to Crowley's former acolyte, Israel Regardie. Firstly, although he had published several books on the Kabbalah, (e.g. The Tree of Life: A Study in Magic [1932]) from 1932-38, none were successful nor well-known. It is even doubtful Scholem had read these obscure, low print-run books himself; he probably only knew of them from book reviews. Secondly, though Scholem would logically have known of Regardie, Smith not so much. In fact, Regardie remained terribly obscure throughout this period: he worked as a masseur ("Happy Endings!") in Manhattan c.1938. Thirdly, Smith referencing Crowley to Scholem naturally drew a cryptic response (whataboutery) mentioning Regardie, more recently involved in the publication of four volumes of Golden Dawn material (Chicago 1938-40) but just discharged in the US Military (1944). Fourthly, while his interests expanded to Christian Science and whatnot, Regardie re-published one or more of his Kabbalah-themed books in 1945: Scholem might have been aware of that, from a recent review. Fifthly -- and doubtful I think, but mentioned only to insure I present everything relevant here -- Regardie (then living on the UWS) might well have attended Scholem's 1938 lectures of Jewish mysticism in Manhattan and introduced himself. Sixthly, that Scholem in Palestine was wondering to Smith in DC what had become of the Jewish Theosophist in Late 1945 is entirely reasonable, but in fact Regardie (then in LA) had dropped out of occult groups and so remained inactive until about 1963, when his old titles are re-published in 2nd editions.

Of course, Regardie did become famous later on (after ~1968) -- that is not germane to this period of his total obscurity, when the Smith-Scholem correspondence occurred. As for Scholem's characterization of his philosophy(?) between Arthur Schopenhauer (c.1855) and humorist/folklorist Wilhelm Busch (c.1905), I cannot explain this expression; Schopenhauer's influence on The Golden Dawn is rather clearer.

A better and more erudite qualification of Regardie's perspective is here: Christopher Plaisance,"Israel Regardie and the Psychologization of Esoteric Discourse" [2015]. According to his autobiographical account(s), Regardie (UK-born, ethnically 'Russian Jewish' immigrant) began to study Hebrew in Washington DC at Age 17 (1925); he was supposedly interested to translate (aka dabbling in) the Kabbalah c.1925/6. With that angle, he joined the Societas Rosicruciana in early 1926; in 1928 (Age 20), he made contact w/ Aleister Crowley and soon joined The Mage in Paris as his 'secretary'. Regardie was clearly a writer, and his personal notebooks turned into print publications by 1932 and thereafter. As far as I can tell, he never formally studied Kabbalah; this fact would have irked Scholem, especially.

[StephenGoranson]

Between Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908), if that is who is intended, would not chronologically (if chronology is intended) fit Israel Regardie (1907-1985).
Maybe "Eliphas Levi" (1810-1875)?
If anyone wishes to research it, the letter is at Hebrew University.
And there is a
Bibliography of the writings of Gershom G. Scholem.
Jerusalem : Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1977
to see which publication may be relevant.

[StephenGoranson]

To be clear, the letter written in Hebrew by Smith is now in the Hebrew University collections.
It was translated into English for publication in the Smith-Scholem Correspondence volume by Yonatan Moss, who has noted elsewhere that Smith's modern Hebrew was not fluent.