Secret Mark, part 2
July 22nd, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Secret Gospel of Mark. No Comments.
Scholars trying to determine whether or not Clement’s letter describing the Secret Gospel of Mark is a modern forgery have faced a major obstacle: the lone manuscript containing the letter seems to have vanished. Thus, forensic tests that could conclusively demonstrate when the manuscript was copied are currently out of the question.
Charles Hedrick became involved in the search for the manuscript around 1990, and he summarized what he was able to ascertain about its fate in an article published a decade later:
Hedrick, Charles W., and Nikolaos Olympiou. “Secret Mark: New Photographs, New Witnesses.” The Fourth R 13, no. 5 (2000): 3-16.
In this article, Hedrick reports:
- In 1977, Archimandrite (an honorary title for a priest in the hierarchy of the Greek Orthodox church) Melito tranfered the 1646 Voss edition of the letters of Ignatius (still containing the letter of Clement) from the monastery at Mar Saba to the Patriarchate Library in Jerusalem.
- Later in 1977, Father Kallistos Dourvas (the Patriarchate librarian at the time) removed the Clement manuscript from the Voss book to photograph it. However, he did not separate the Clement manuscript from the Voss book. He insists that the two were kept together at least until the end of his tenure as librarian in 1990.
- In 1980, Professor Thomas Talley of General Theological Seminary in New York was informed about the transfer by both Melito (the deliverer) and Kallistos (the receiver). However, he was told the manuscript was not available for viewing.
- In 1990, Charles Hedrick and Nikolaos Olympiou, Professor of Old Testament at the University of Athens, visited the monastery at Mar Saba and were told the same thing Talley had been: the manuscript had been moved to the Patriarchate library.
- In 1992, Hedrick and Olympiou visited the Patriarchate Library and were told that the manuscript could not be located.
- In December 1998 and June 2000, Olympiou viewed the 1646 Voss edition of the letters of Ignatius, but the letter of Clement was no longer in the book.
Between 1990 and 2000, Olympiou obtained new color photographs of the Clement manuscript (published with this article) from Kallistos and photographs of the Voss book from Bishop Aristarchos, the librarian of the Patriarchate.
Hedrick concludes, with justification, that “the letter of Clement was indeed at one time included in the back of the Voss edition.” A small discoloration of the pages visible in the photos of both the Voss book and the Clement manuscript indicate clearly that the Clement manuscript was once a part of the Voss book, and there is no reason to doubt the corroborating testimonies of Melito and Kallistos.
The controversial letter attributed to Clement definitely did exist, and it was once located where Smith said it was.
But there remain many unanswered questions? Did Smith write the write the letter on the blank pages in the Voss book himself? Who separated the Voss book from the Clement manuscript? Why did that person do so?
And, most importantly, WHERE IS THE CLEMENT MANUSCRIPT NOW?!
