THE SISTER OF , SALOME THE OF JESUS, AND THE SECRET OF MARK

by

RICHARD BAUCKHAM

Manchester

The name Salome occurs in the only twice, in :40; 16:1, where it designates the third of three women disciples of Jesus. Perhaps it is not surprising that this disciple of Jesus has received very little attention, even in recent studies of the women disciples of Jesus.' But she is not infrequently named in extra-canonical Gospel traditions and other early Christian literature. Because she appears in one of the two quotations from the Secret , which gives in his Letter to Theodorus,2 the fullest previous study of the figure of Salome in early Christian literature is the two pages which Morton Smith devotes to her in his exhaustive study of Clement's Letter and Secret Mark.' Smith assembles most, though not quite all, of the significant references to Salome, but closer study of these references shows his interpretation of the evidence to be seriously deficient. In par- ticular, (1) he does not distinguish the disciple Salome from a sister of Jesus who was also known by the name Salome in some early Christian traditions; (2) partly for this reason, he mistakenly sees

1 See E. S. Fiorenza, In Memoryof Her: A Feminist TheologicalReconstruction of Christian Origins(London: SCM Press, 1983) 320; B. Witherington III, Womenin the Ministryof Jesus(SNTSMS 51; Cambrdige: Cambridge University Press, 1984) 120; J. A. Grassi, The Hidden Heroesof the :Female Counterparts of Jesus(Col- legeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1989) 40-44. 2 Morton Smith's argument for the authenticity of the Letter to Theodorushas been widely accepted and will be assumed in this article. For the state of the discus- sion on this question, see M. Smith, 'Clement of Alexandria and Secret Mark: The Score at the End of the First Decade,' HTR 75 (1982) 449-461; S. Levin, 'The Early History of Christianity, in Light of the "Secret Gospel" of Mark,' ANRW 25/6 (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1988) 4272-4275. 3 M. Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973) 189-192. 246 in references to Salome by orthodox writers evidence of polemic against her status as an authority for unorthodox or Gnostic groups. The aims of this article are to recover the tradition about Salome the sister of Jesus and to disentangle it from the traditions about her namesake the disciple of Jesus; to provide a detailed study of the role of Salome the disciple of Jesus in early Christian traditions; and, in the light of the latter, to criticize Smith's interpretation of the passage of Secret Mark in which Salome the disciple of Jesus appears and to suggest a more probable interpretation. While this article will certainly not solve the whole of the puzzle of Secret Mark, it may help to explain one of its most enigmatic parts.

I. Salome the Sister of Jesus The best attested of the names which post-canonical Christian 4 tradition attributed to the sisters of Jesus are Mary and Salome.4 These are given by Epiphanius (Pan. 78:8.1; 78.9.6; cf. Ancoratus 6 60.1)5 as the names of the two daughters of Joseph by his first wife . Although Lawlor argued that in Pan. 78.8.1 Epiphanius was depen- dent on Hegesippus,7 it seems more likely that he drew these names, along with other information about Joseph's first marriage, from some apocryphal source which is no longer extant, probably one which bore some relation to the Protevangelium of James, on which Epiphanius seems also to be dependent (directly or indirectly) in this context.a These names for the sisters of Jesus are

4 In Pan. 78.8.1 the order is Mary, Salome; in Pan. 78.9.6 the order is Salome, Mary. For other names, see J. Blinzler, Die Brüder und SchwesternJesu (SBS 21; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 21967) 36-38. 5 The text of Ancoratus 60.1 gives the names Anna and Salome ("A "A may be a textual error for M (so K. Holl, Epiphanius: 1: Ancoratusund Panarion Haer. 1-33 [GCS 25; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1915] 70n.), but if so it was an early error known to Sophronius of Jerusalem, who knew of three daughters of Joseph: Mary, Anna and Salome (Blinzler, Brüder, 36-37). 6 The extant text of Epiphanius gives no name to Joseph's first wife, but Anastatsius of Sinai, Quaest. 153 (PG 89:812), purporting to quote Epiphanius (Pan. 78.8.6) calls her Salome. Other late writers identified her with Mary the mother of James and (Mark 15:40). 7 H. J. Lawlor, Eusebiana: Essays on the EcclesiasticalHistory of EusebiusPamphili (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1917; reprinted Amsterdam: Philo Press, 19733) 11-12. 8 Pan. 78.7.2; cf. Protevangeliumof James9. The references to Joseph's age in Pan. 78.8.1-2, which do not derive from the Protevangeliumof James,correspond roughly, but not exactly, to History of Joseph 14.