Having It Both Ways With Secret Mark

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
lsayre
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Re: Having It Both Ways With Secret Mark

Post by lsayre »

Secret Alias wrote: Sun Jun 20, 2021 6:37 am That may be true today. It is after all a new generation. But in 2008 the squeaky wheels were squeaking A LOT and let's not forget. This is not a scientific investigation. It is not like they're saying 'let's just continue to investigate Morton Smith off to the side here' while the Letter to Theodore is accepted as a historical document from antiquity. It is rather 'let's destroy the reputation of the document by means of innuendo against Morton Smith' and HOPE it isn't used by anyone. It's a scholarly adaptation of the political smear campaign.
As an adherent of the philosophy of objectivism, I clearly see correlation here to that of the subjectivists who consistently attempt to crush the validity of objectivism by attempting to expose Ayn Rand, its (effectively convenient from a bashing perspective) 'nominal' founder, albeit that it goes back to (at least) Aristotle, as a morally corrupt and debased non-human. It's the old adage that if you can't kill the message, kill the messenger. It's no different for Trump. Or Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Adam Smith, MLK, Jr., etc... Same thing...

As an aside, I see virtually everything that is happening in the world today as a (highly mistaken) transition from objectivism to subjectivism. An example would be in law, where subjective law is rapidly replacing objective law. No longer is it objectively obvious that a rioting looter who is burning and maiming is committing a crime. That it is (or is not) a crime is now subject (as in subjective) to such qualifiers as the circumstances and group identity, etc... of the ones doing the rioting.
Last edited by lsayre on Tue Jun 22, 2021 8:46 am, edited 3 times in total.
StephenGoranson
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Re: Having It Both Ways With Secret Mark

Post by StephenGoranson »

Some wrong things:

This text, to which no Orthodox librarian or monk ever gave the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, as far as I know (despite unsupported claims), though apparently unwelcome in the Patriarchal library, was putatively copied by a Mar Saba monk without comment or colophon on its origin or its content.
Andrew Criddle’s is not the only nor most recent stylometric analysis that shows against a Clement attribution.
The content contradicts known Clement views, as specified, for example, by Eric Osborn in Second Century, 1983, page 224.
The paleography is of mixed types and dates, according to a most expert Greek paleographer.
As Geoffrey Smith (in a recorded webinar) showed, imo persuasively, that whoever composed it did so some time after and using Eusebius, so not by Clement, who was dead.

But S. A. is a faster typist than I, and evidently has a limitless font of disdain.
Secret Alias
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Re: Having It Both Ways With Secret Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

I don't know if it's disdain. It's just sort of sad see the decline of Western civilization play out in this subjective assessment. For instance:
This text, to which no Orthodox librarian or monk ever gave the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval
There are Quesnell's notes and Dragas's eyewitness. Ignorance (with respect to the notes) isn't an argument.
Andrew Criddle’s is not the only nor most recent stylometric analysis that shows against a Clement attribution.
I mentioned Andrew but it's not proof of forgery. I don't know what it proves. It's interesting but hardly conclusive. Marginalia in the debate.
The content contradicts known Clement views, as specified, for example, by Eric Osborn in Second Century, 1983, page 224.
We can't say that. We don't know how open Clement was to express his views. If Origen is any example it was dangerous to express certain opinions in contemporary Alexandria especially after Demetrios came to the throne. Not substantive. We don't even know who Clement was. How can we know what his 'true opinions' were?
The paleography is of mixed types and dates, according to a most [notable?] expert Greek paleographer
.

That's not a proof. Tselikas has his opinion. Apparently you agree that it is unusual that spelling mistakes come up in the transcription of ancient documents. I don't share that view. Nor do I believe that Morton Smith gathered photos of the three manuscripts Tselikas claim 'make up' the handwriting found in the document. I don't know of anyone who shares Tselikas's assessment. I've even heard some Byzantine experts (one in Austria immediately comes to mind) who laughed out loud at the suggestion. I can bring forward a dozen Greek Byzantine experts who say the handwriting is 17th or 18th century. Tselikas offers a dissenting view. There is always diversity in scholarship.
As Geoffrey Smith (in a recorded webinar) showed, imo persuasively, that whoever composed it did so some time after and using Eusebius, so not by Clement, who was dead.
It's harder to prove that it's an ancient forgery. But an ancient forgery is ancient. You're grasping at straws here.

If this is the best you got, the document can continue to accepted as ancient. There's nothing here.
Secret Alias
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Re: Having It Both Ways With Secret Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

A side note as I am developing my genealogy for my son's Portuguese passport. It would seem a branch of my family came from Emden a port city in what is now East Frisia in Germany. Among the earliest Jews there were Portuguese Sephardim who were actually preferred by the local populace because of their connections to the West Indes. The Portuguese Jews could be citizens (because people thought they would help make everyone rich). The Jews from the Rhineland not so much. Along comes a rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi's son Jacob later called Jacob Emden who effectively took revenge on the Sephardim. It's rarely positioned as an anti-Sephardic campaign. It's always said to have been 'anti-Sabbatean' but the one was an outgrowth of the other.

Here's the synopsis:
The city council of Emden discriminated between the local Jews and the Portuguese, encouraging the latter to settle in the city, while attempting to expel the former. Their attempts, however, were unsuccessful, since the duke intervened in their favor. The judicial rights of the Portuguese Jews were defined in a grant of privilege issued by the city council in 1649, and renewed in 1703.
Jacob makes up all these reasons to hate the kabbalists. But surely the real reason is that they were full-citizens and the rest of the Jews weren't. From that point onward a break occurs between the two branches of Judaism which never really existed before. Were Sephardic Judaism less legitimate or 'fake' merely because a resentful 'white' Jew (for lack of a better term) pronounced it to be so? So much of history comes down to pettiness. My ancestors were likely with Jacob Emden. But I always take the side against resentment and pettiness.
andrewcriddle
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Re: Having It Both Ways With Secret Mark

Post by andrewcriddle »

StephenGoranson wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 8:40 am .................................
Andrew Criddle’s is not the only nor most recent stylometric analysis that shows against a Clement attribution.
..............................................
Talking about stylometric analysis Stephen; are you aware of this thread ?
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7037 the results are striking even if maybe not clear evidence of Clementine imitation by a modern writer.

Andrew Criddle
Secret Alias
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Re: Having It Both Ways With Secret Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

I just don't know what any of this actually means. The results are interesting. But what do they mean exactly? What can we definitively say about the writings of the Church Fathers, stylometry and what should be expected and what shouldn't. I don't think this proves or suggests that someone took a particular book with all the words used in Clement and constructed a 'fake letter.'

Moreover, and this points specifically at the two of you. If on the one hand you accept Carlson's business about salt and baldness and then you want to add this theory (that someone used a book of words associated with Clement's writings) to that propisition, surely you have to decide. If you are saying both propositions are true surely the whole theory becomes less likely rather than more likely as you have two probabilities to consider. And if you won't commit to either theory you end up looking like people who just want to latch on to anything - something - whatever it takes to discredit the letter. I said earlier that Andrew's argument is the most interesting. I just don't see that this - stylometry - alone does anything to push the needle in favor of forgery.

From what I know, and that is next to nothing, stylometry generally has a better track record demonstrating deviation from a style than it does proving anything from too closely following a style. But again, I am not an expert. But again in the words of the author of the more recent study:
The outcomes of the analysis tend to attribute the disputed letter to Clement but they also show its hyper-Clementine quality. Is this due to a forger, deliberately trying to imitate Clement’s style or is it instead a feature characteristic of the epistolary style of Clement? Regrettably without further samples of Clement’s letters to be used as terms of comparison it seems not possible to safely answer this question.
So, I think, not a proof or argument for forgery.
andrewcriddle
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Re: Having It Both Ways With Secret Mark

Post by andrewcriddle »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 12:28 pm I just don't know what any of this actually means. The results are interesting. But what do they mean exactly? What can we definitively say about the writings of the Church Fathers, stylometry and what should be expected and what shouldn't. I don't think this proves or suggests that someone took a particular book with all the words used in Clement and constructed a 'fake letter.'

Moreover, and this points specifically at the two of you. If on the one hand you accept Carlson's business about salt and baldness and then you want to add this theory (that someone used a book of words associated with Clement's writings) to that propisition, surely you have to decide. If you are saying both propositions are true surely the whole theory becomes less likely rather than more likely as you have two probabilities to consider. And if you won't commit to either theory you end up looking like people who just want to latch on to anything - something - whatever it takes to discredit the letter. I said earlier that Andrew's argument is the most interesting. I just don't see that this - stylometry - alone does anything to push the needle in favor of forgery.

From what I know, and that is next to nothing, stylometry generally has a better track record demonstrating deviation from a style than it does proving anything from too closely following a style. But again, I am not an expert. But again in the words of the author of the more recent study:
The outcomes of the analysis tend to attribute the disputed letter to Clement but they also show its hyper-Clementine quality. Is this due to a forger, deliberately trying to imitate Clement’s style or is it instead a feature characteristic of the epistolary style of Clement? Regrettably without further samples of Clement’s letters to be used as terms of comparison it seems not possible to safely answer this question.
So, I think, not a proof or argument for forgery.
I know you read the thread when first posted (and commented within it) I was not sure whether Stephen Goranson was aware of the thread or the published article.

I agree that it is no proof of forgery but it is evidence that something odd is going on.

If I understand the point you are raising I don't regard the idea that the author was using a list of words and phrases from Clement's authentic works as an additional hypothesis to the hypothesis that the work is non-authentic. If the work is non-authentic then the author must have used data from Clement in order to imitate him. There is no other way to do a plausible imitation. (I may be misunderstanding your point and if so I apologise.)

Andrew Criddle
Secret Alias
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Re: Having It Both Ways With Secret Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

I am just saying how do we know what it means. As far as I can see it could be:

1. random/occurrence i.e. Clement being Clement
2. someone trying to be Clement the way you suggest

But what is the history of using stylometry in this way? As I said isn't stylometry used for detecting deviations from style and thereby proving inauthenticity. Are there other examples of 'too Shakespeare for Shakespeare' or a piece of music that is 'too Beethoven for Beethoven'? I just don't see anyone trying to make this sort of argument unless they had to. But again, I am not familiar with the history of stylometry. Do they have a convention or an annual meeting? An association or guild?

Not only don't we have enough of Clement to know if it is or isn't Clement as the author notes we don't have enough of contemporary Christian writing to compare to either. Steve wants to say 'we know Clement.' We don't know Clement. We don't know who he was or even where he came from, where he went. Osborne is just glossing over blind spots in our knowledge to fill out the pages of his book. We know he was 'different' from other Christians in certain respects. But that's not actual knowledge. That's contrast.

Another odd thing. The forgery I know of - Pfaff I think his name was - the style and content was 'too Clement to be Clement' (I think Pfaff's was too Irenaeus to be Irenaeus. But what's the thinking behind making the letter too Clement to be Clement but then make the content (as Steve claims) un-Clementine? I know what you guys want to believe - that someone deliberately imitated the style but not the content because he wanted to make the world the way it is now (more gay). But isn't that a contradiction in itself? You're arguing on behalf of a methodology that hasn't existed before.
andrewcriddle
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Re: Having It Both Ways With Secret Mark

Post by andrewcriddle »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:06 pm I am just saying how do we know what it means. As far as I can see it could be:

1. random/occurrence i.e. Clement being Clement
2. someone trying to be Clement the way you suggest

But what is the history of using stylometry in this way? As I said isn't stylometry used for detecting deviations from style and thereby proving inauthenticity. Are there other examples of 'too Shakespeare for Shakespeare' or a piece of music that is 'too Beethoven for Beethoven'? I just don't see anyone trying to make this sort of argument unless they had to. But again, I am not familiar with the history of stylometry. Do they have a convention or an annual meeting? An association or guild?
Enrico Tuccinardi the author of the paper agrees with you that the results are ambiguous. They are still peculiar.

Andrew Criddle
Secret Alias
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Re: Having It Both Ways With Secret Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

They might be. Or they might not be. At least it's better than the rest of the arguments.
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