Secret Mark as Counter-Memory (Part Three) - Le Donne

My first two posts can be found here and here.

As I argued in my last post, if this document reflects the pen of Clement of Alexandria, the text betrays a memory/counter-memory exchange.  The “memory” that best explains Clement’s counter-memory is the rumor that Jesus was known to have engaged his followers in “naked man with naked man” activity.  Of course, social memory is often self-correcting.  Sometimes the counter-memory reflects the best explanation (consider the “birthers” attack of Obama; it was the counter-memory that won the day).  In such cases, we might simply say that the rumors are not always the best explanations of the perceived past and sometimes they are crafted intentionally.

But here is the next question: is the rumor that the author passes to us a memory that he (a) betrays, or is it (b) something that he intends to pass on?  In other words, does the author of this document really want, as he claims, to keep this rumor a secret?  Everything about this document suggests otherwise.

The author of this document would have us believe that he is anxious to keep all of these rumors suppressed.  Theodore should deny the basis of these rumors even if it means denying a document that he knows to exist! He writes: “not all true things are to be said to all men”. This is not dissimilar to what Clement writes elsewhere, but the author (remarkably) instructs Theodore to deny it with an oath!  Does this lend credence to a conspiracy theory for Christian origins?  It seems so to me.

And doesn’t the author try a bit too hard to convince Theodore that the secret must be kept only to reveal the secret — in writing and explicitly so — at the end of the document?  The author vaguely refers to the topic on the table.  He carefully dances around the topic of homoeroticism throughout the document: “unspeakable teachings”, “carnal and bodily sins”, “servile desires,” “blasphemous and carnal doctrine,” “falsifications” (x2).  The author is vague, vague, vague and then really vague.  This all sounds plausibly Gnostic.  But then he baldly reveals the basis for Carpocratian rumors—the very thing that he has just said are “not to be uttered”!  And so we have, revealed in writing, an excerpt of Secret Mark.  Finally, the document (just before it breaks off, mind you) bluntly lets the cat out of the bag.  To what do all these vague nods refer?  "Naked man with naked man."

Just for good measure, the author concludes (in the last complete sentence, anyway) in vagueness: “But the many other things about which you wrote both seem to be and are falsifications.”  Are we to imagine that poor Theodore has written Clement asking him about all sorts of heresies but that Clement dismisses all but one with a wave of his hand?  And the one heresy that he does address turns out to be half true?! 

Like Watson says:

In sharp contrast to this excess of detail, the ‘many other things’ listed by Theodore are dismissed without further consideration as blatant forgeries. The real intention of the letter is evidently to disclose the existence and content of the Secret Gospel, not to respond appropriately to Theodore. If that is the case, however, then Clement’s role as revealer of the Secret Gospel is parallel to Morton Smith’s as its discoverer.  (here, pp.147-48)

Further to Watson’s assessment, the author of this document provides every bit of information that a twentieth-century fundamentalist would need to know about Secret Mark’s status as Holy Scripture.  It comes from Peter (who took “notes”) via the same Mark who wrote the canonical gospel (who also took “notes”).  So any question of apostolicity and authorship has been answered at the start.  Moreover, we're given a few details about authorial intent: why it was written, when it was, why it was kept secret.  Most telling, to my mind, is that the author specifies that contents of the gospel are “divinely inspired” and that it has been “very securely kept”.  These details strike with the same ideological force as the Westminster Confession:

The Old Testament in Hebrew…and the New Testament in Greek…being immediately inspired by God and by this singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical. (Westminster Confession of Faith, Ch. 1, Sect. 8)

And if that were not enough, the author explains that he will provide the “very words of the Gospel”.  He emphasizes that his excerpt of the gospel will be “word for word”.  This has the look of someone who is attempting to convince an adherent of verbal plenary inspiration that Secret Mark is every bit as “divinely inspired” as the pages of their KJVs.

My good people, the author actually details where we ought to insert the text into our Bibles.  When I first read this text, I half expected to find a critical apparatus at the bottom of the page.

As I said in my previous post, if this document represents an ancient correspondence, and if Clement’s interpretation is followed, Secret Mark provides the only repudiation of homosexual practice in the Jesus tradition. How fortunate we were to discover this text exactly when the gay advocacy movement began stealing the hearts and minds of our young people!  (More on this in my next post.)

If the intended audience of this document is a second-century “Theodore” whose orthodoxy has been troubled by heretics, Clement’s letter is a blunder.  If “Clement” intended to keep a veil of secrecy around the mystical truths of Christ, this letter is ironically ineffective.  If this document is an excerpt of a larger letter, why does it look to have a central theme, foreshadowing motifs, a grand reveal, and a conclusion?  Finally, if this letter was intended for a second-century Theodore, why does it seem to be written specifically for twentieth-century fundamentalists?

As a product of “counter memory”, this document fits remarkably well within the twentieth-century, Christianized West.  Secret Mark provides fundamentalists with a text that repudiates homosexuality and the letter itself provides historical Jesus scholars with unique evidence for historical study.

Tune in tomorrow to see me play amateur psychologist and gossip columnist.