Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

TedM wrote: Those who read Paul's gospels and still believe there was a very different 'secret' gospel IMO have been duped by their own gullibility. Paul's gospel message as seen in the epistles he wrote is quite consistent. Claims to 'secret knowledge' from Paul sound a lot like Roswell sightings and alien abductions by people looking to gain religious influence

Exploitation of a 'secret' gospel by a long-dead church original and authority figure would easily serve a political purpose.

Exploitation of a 'secret' gospel by a long-dead church original and authority figure would easily serve a political purpose. It's a very appropropriate and effective technique that is designed to influence the gullible.

Those who read Paul's gospels and still believe there was a very different 'secret' gospel IMO have been duped by their own gullibility.

Paul's gospel message as seen in the epistles he wrote is quite consistent.

Claims to 'secret knowledge' from Paul sound a lot like Roswell sightings and alien abductions by people looking to gain religious influence. Of course it isn't proven and those that like conspiracy theories can chase these rainbows their entire adult lives if they want to.

No doubt Paul was caught up to the third heaven and borne to paradise, and there heard certain things. But they were things which could not possibly equip him to preach a different doctrine, since by their nature they must not be communicated to any human being.

As for 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 what he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed. But when Peter died 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. 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 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 prepared 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.

Hippolytus's basic strategy, as well as his contribution to the present study, can be witnessed in a comment about one of the earliest and most noteworthy of Christian Gnostics, Marcion of Pontus (d. ca. 160):

Whenever Marcion or any of those dogs would howl about the demiurge, fobbing off contrasting statements of good and evil, one must say of them that neither Paul, the apostle, nor Mark, the stumpy -fingered (kolobodaktylos) corroborated such things — for nothing of this is written in the Markan Gospel — but rather Empedocles of Acragas [in Sicily], whose appropriation has until now gone unnoticed. [Marcion] seized upon the arrangement of every one of his heresies, transferring these sayings from Sicily over to the evangelical words. (Refut 7.30.1)

This, the only reference to Mark the Evangelist in Hippolytus's Refutation, is odd. For the first time since the composition of the Lukan Acts and the Pauline corpus, we observe here an association of Mark with Paul, not Peter. Completely without precedent is the association of Paul with the author of Mark's Gospel. Less subtle but no less mysterious is the characterization of "Mark the stumpy-fingered."

On its own terms, apart from our particular concerns, at least one other aspect of this refutation of Marcion seems puzzling: whereas Hippolytus suggests that Marcion coated Paul's letters and Mark's Gospel with a thick veneer of plagiarized Greek philosophy, both Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 1.27.2) and Tertullian (Adv. Marc. 4.2.4; cf. 4.3.1-2) are clear that Marcion bowdlerized those Epistles and Luke's Gospel and cut out everything else - including presumably Mark. Assuming (as do most scholars) that Irenaeus and Tertullian were right about this, has Hippolytus confused Mark with Luke, or is this evidence of his cavalierness with the facts about those whom he excoriates?3 As posed, such questions are impossible to answer: nothing has survived from among Marcion's own writings against which we might measure the accuracy of his opponents castigations. And Hippolytus himself does not elaborate his meaning, beyond the useful clarification that the "Mark" he (like Irenaeus) has in mind is the alleged author of the Second Gospel.

Regardless of how fairly Marcion's perspective is represented in the Refutation, the affiliation of Mark with Paul is intriguing. Of course, by this association nothing more consequential may be intended than Hippolytus's attempt to preserve the integrity of two orthodox figures, thought to have been commandeered and besmirched by a known heretic. If so, this in itself markedly corroborates a tendency that we have already witnessed in (at least) Irenaeus and the Muratorian fragment: in the West, by the turn of the third century, the figure of Mark had become securely connected with a written Gospel that was considered to be as ecclesiastically normative as the letters of Paul. Indeed, despite its curt ellipticalness, the statement about Mark in the Refutation may suggest a notable turning point for our investigation: whereas Hippolytus, like Irenaeus, accords to Mark's Gospel an orthodox stature and disciplinary authority, comparable to that of the Epistles, Hippolytus expresses greater interest than Irenaeus and most of his patrisitc predecessors in the figure of Mark, the putative author behind the Gospel. Strictly speaking, with Hippolytus the persona of Mark the Evangelist, though far from fully developed, begins to come into its own.

And how intriguing is that persona! For the first time in our study the author of the Second Gospel is not clearly joined with Peter (though an assumed linkage is conceivable, if not verifiable). Neither, in fact, is Mark joined with Paul, in the sense that the former acquires his "identity" through association with the latter: unlike the Pauline epistolary corpus or the Lukan Acts, Hippolytus's Refutation does not identify Mark as Paul's associate or onetime traveling companion. Rather, Paul and Mark now stand together, though from all appearances independently of each other, as recognizable figures within Christian tradition. Indeed, Hippolytus seems to assume of his readers an acquaintance with the figure of Mark no less ready or sharply etched than their knowledge of Paul: support for Marcion's heresy is provided by neither "Paul the apostle nor Mark the stumpy-fingered." [Mark p. 116 - 117]

Stephan Huller wrote: Maybe the gospel message wasn't for people like you. Maybe that's why you have such a hard time making sense of its 'mystery' component - i.e. so that "though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand." I think what you think is 'straightforward' is the religion of your parents and forefathers. The earliest forms of Christianity were all mystery religions. That aspect was dumped by Luther, but maybe Protestantism isn't really Christianity.