Did the Author of Acts Know About Paul's Letters?

[Secret Alias]

Again on its own 'Pantainos' is not an argument. But coming from the mouth (or pen) of Clement it's a distinct possibility (given that he is such a sneak).

[Ben C. Smith]

Well, never mind. I was just trying to figure out why you think a megagospel preceded the extant gospels. I did not realize what I was getting into, though in retrospect I probably should have.

[Secret Alias]

Exactly. Real life experience told me that it isn't enough to take what books say prima facie. They say that arguments from silence are bad. But that's why endangered cultures cultivate a 'ritualized silence' around their beliefs and practices - i.e. just so outsiders can't say anything about them. I've yet to read an authoritative account of WTF the Alawites are up to or the Druze for that matter. They exist. I know that. But what exactly they believe and how they believe it, why they believe that is another matter entirely. So when you ask me, why I think Pantainos is a reference to the secret gospel, it's a guess a stab in the dark ... like Brad Pitt is gay because his wife likes girls, and he's cute and he was in the Kiss of a Vampire movie kissing guys to get his break and his best friend back in the day was Michael Stipe and ... Yes these are shitty arguments but if you ARE going to investigate the silence cultivated around gay celebrities in order to maintain their ability to work in Hollywood you have to start thinking like that and making stupid arguments like that (at least to yourself). The same holds true with Christianity. If you believe Irenaeus' BS that Christianity was always an 'openly confessed' religion with their beliefs all explicit denying denial and any 'hypocrisy' any place etc. fine believe what these silly texts like Acts say about the founding principles of the religion. But when you see that the Marcionites shrouded their Paul with the same kind of obscurity as Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, John Travolta PR people cultivate, you have to wonder, what's going on behind the veil?

People did this with the Jews - they said they sacrificed and ate little boys. They said Christians were engaged in orgies. This is what goes on in secret societies all the time and in the reporting on secret societies all the time. It's what I am doing when I start talking about gays and drugs and menstrual cycles rather than giving my reasons for interpreting Pantainos in this or that way. Whenever something is sacred it's secret.

[Ben C. Smith]

So when you ask me, why I think Pantainos is a reference to the secret gospel, it's a guess a stab in the dark ...

Actually, no, that is not a question I am (or would be) asking you, at least not yet. What you may be missing is that I do not see how your musings on Pantaenus in India, Clement of Alexandria, clandestine recensions of Mark, or word plays — even if they should all prove completely correct — have anything to do with whether a megagospel was the first gospel or not.

Ben.

[Ben C. Smith]

Real life experience told me that it isn't enough to take what books say prima facie.

That is fine and dandy, and on the terms of the statement itself I would agree, but when you actually start to reconstruct what happened (which gospel came first, for example), one thing ought to imply another, and then another, and so on until a conclusion is reached, whether or not prima facie readings of books are in play. The connections in the argument need to make sense.