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Secret Gospels. Essays on Thomas and the Secret Gospel of Mark

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Secret Gospels. Essays on Thomas and the Secret Gospel of Mark Secret Gospels This page intentionally left blank Secret Gospels Essays on Thomas and the Secret Gospel of Mark Marvin Meyer R1N1TY PRESS INTERNATIONAL A Continuum imprint HARRISBURG • LONDON • NEW YORK Copyright © 2003 Marvin Meyer All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, includ- ing photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, Trinity Press International. Trinity Press International A Continuum imprint P.O. Box 1321, Harrisburg, PA 17105 Cover image: Gospel of Thomas, Nag Hammadi Codex II, page 51: The conclusion of the Gospel of Thomas, with the title. Courtesy of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont, California. Cover design: Wesley Hoke The following images are used by permission of the Institute for Antiquity and Chris- tianity, Claremont, California: Gospel of Thomas, Nag Hammadi Codex II, page 32, and Gospel of Thomas, Nag Hammadi Codex II, page 39. The following images are used by permission of Charles W. Hedrick: Clement of Alexandria, Letter to Theodore, pages 2 and 3. Scenes 1-9, Villa of the Mysteries, frescoes in the triclinium, are used by permission of Scala/Art Resource, N.Y. Scene 10, Villa of the Mysteries, fresco in the triclinium, is used by permission of Alinari/Art Resource, N.Y. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Meyer, Marvin W. Secret Gospels : essays on Thomas and the secret Gospel of Mark / Marvin Meyer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-56338-409-4 (pbk.) 1. Apocryphal Gospels. I. Title. BS2851 .M49 2003 229'.8-dc21 2002012306 Printed in the United States of America 04 05 06 07 08 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Part One GOSPEL OF THOMAS 1. Albert Schweitzer and the Image of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas 17 2. The Beginning of the Gospel of Thomas 39 3. Seeing or Coming to the Child of the Living One? 54 More on Gospel of Thomas Saying 37 4. "Be Passersby": Gospel of Thomas Saying 42, Jesus Traditions, 59 and Islamic Literature 5. Making Mary Male: The Categories "Male" and "Female" 76 in the Gospel of Thomas 6. Gospel of Thomas Saying 114 Revisited 96 Part Two SECRET GOSPEL OF MARK 7. The Youth in the Secret Gospel of Mark 109 8. The Youth in Secret Mark and the Beloved Disciple in John 135 9. The Naked Youths in the Villa of the Mysteries, Canonical Mark, 149 and Secret Mark 10. Taking Up the Cross and Following Jesus: 168 Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark and Secret Mark Bibliography 179 Index 191 V This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments I am pleased to express my appreciation to some of the people and organizations that helped to bring this book to fruition. These essays have been prepared and published over the past two decades, and dur- ing that time numerous colleagues and students have offered advice and counsel, for which I am grateful. I thank Gawdat Gabra, Girgis Daoud Girgis, Samiha Abd El Shaheed, among others at the Coptic Museum, for their kindness and generosity in giving me access to the Coptic Gos- pel of Thomas over the years. I am pleased that the several publishers have given permission to reprint the essays included in this book, and I thank Charles W. Hedrick for providing new photographs of the letter of Clement of Alexandria and the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity for providing photographs of the Gospel of Thomas. I acknowledge the support of several grants that have aided in my research on the Gospel of Thomas and the Secret Gospel of Mark, and in particular I acknowl- edge the support of the Griset Chair in Bible and Christian Studies at Chapman University. I thank Henry Carrigan for the invitation to pub- lish these essays with Trinity Press International, and the editorial staff at Trinity Press International for their industry and professionalism. I also thank Linden Youngquist for his help with issues of formatting. Finally, I salute the patience and support of my wife and children, who for many years have endured a scholar frequently preoccupied with secret gospels, and who have shown me in countless ways what wisdom truly means. vii This page intentionally left blank Introduction This book, Secret Gospels, consists of ten essays that address themes in the Gospel of Thomas and the Secret Gospel of Mark, two gospels that may be considered secret gospels. These gospels also present two early and compelling versions of the good news of Jesus of Nazareth. Secret Gospels Since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library and the publication of the texts in the library, the Gospel of Thomas has assumed a prominent and oftentimes controversial place in the study of the historical Jesus, Christian origins, and early Christian literature. The Gospel of Thomas is given its traditional title (literally, "The Gospel According to Thomas") in the manuscript of the Nag Hammadi edition of the Coptic text, at the very end of the text. What is most likely an earlier version of the title of the work is given in the incipit, or opening prologue of the text, where reference is made to hidden sayings of Jesus: "These are the hidden say- ings that the living Jesus spoke and Judas Thomas the Twin recorded."1 The Gospel of Thomas, then, is designated as a collection of hidden say- ings of Jesus, and the hidden sayings (in Coptic, ensaje ethep; in Greek, reconstructed for P. Oxy. 654, hoi logoi hoi [apokryphoi]2) may also be understood as secret sayings, from a secret gospel. A similar incipit with an interest in hidden or secret sayings of Jesus is to be found in the Book of Thomas (or, Book of Thomas the Contender], another Nag Hammadi text, which resembles the Gospel of Thomas in several respects but offers a more vigorously ascetic perspective. In the Book of Thomas, the opening also indicates that the book is primarily a collection of hidden or secret sayings, and the collection is said to derive from a discussion overheard on a stroll with Jesus and Judas Thomas: "The hidden sayings that the savior spoke to Judas Thomas, which I, Mathaias, in turn recorded. I was walking, listening to them speak with each other."3 1 2 Introduction An equally vivid description of the composition of such secret gos- pels and secret books is presented in yet another Nag Hammadi text, the Secret Book of James, a work that uses apokryphon, the same word of Greek origin as in the reconstructed incipit of the Greek Gospel of Thomas, in the opening sentences of the text. As a result, the text is com- monly referred to as the Apocryphon of James in the scholarly literature. While this description may hardly be taken as an exact account of how Christian gospels were composed, it does indicate a popular understand- ing of such compositional moments. In a manner somewhat reminiscent of imaginative accounts, especially Markan, of Jesus teaching in parables openly and giving allegorical interpretation in secret,4 the Secret Book of James also distinguishes between what Jesus revealed openly and what he revealed secretly: "The twelve followers [were] all sitting together, recalling what the savior had said to each of them, whether in a hid- den or an open manner, and organizing it in books." James the Just, the brother of Jesus and the pseudonymous author of the document, then adds, "[And] I was writing what is in [my book]."5 But this fanciful understanding of how Christian gospels and other Christian books were written on the basis of secret or open conversa- tions with Jesus is not the real reason for considering a text like the Gospel of Thomas a secret or hidden gospel. As I propose in the essays below, the sayings of the Gospel of Thomas are wisdom sayings, hid- den, obscure, secret wisdom sayings. What characterizes these wisdom sayings is that they are all hidden, but they are capable of interpreta- tion and even demand interpretation if they are to be understood. The need for such interpretation is underscored in the hermeneutical prin- ciple articulated in the first saying of the gospel: "Whoever discovers the interpretation (hermeneia) of these sayings will not taste death." The Gospel of Thomas is a hidden or secret gospel with which readers may creatively interact, and through the interaction with and interpretation of the hidden sayings of Jesus, the gospel proclaims, the hidden is revealed, death is overcome, and life is transformed. The Secret Gospel of Mark has been known to scholars since the time of the discovery of the letter of Clement of Alexandria to Theodore in the Mar Saba monastic library and the publication of the text by Morton Smith. Since then this secret gospel has generated both heat and light in scholarly discussions. According to the letter of Clement that contains the fragments of the Secret Gospel of Mark, Mark composed an original Introduction 3 gospel book, and, after the martyrdom of Peter, a second, "more spiritual gospel" that he edited in Alexandria, Egypt, with additional material from his own notes and Peter's.6 Clement calls this more spiritual edition of Mark's gospel a mystikon euangelion, which may be translated as "secret" or "spiritual" or "mystical gospel."7 The title Secret Gospel of Mark was used by Morton Smith, and it has stuck as the usual way of referring to the gospel. The more spiritual edition of Mark may be considered secret or spir- itual or mystical in slightly different ways.
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