Mark in the wilderness

Twelve years ago Dr. Mark Goodacre lectured about what life would look like without his namesake Gospel. Somehow it took until last year before an essay made it into publication.

One contrafactual is, what if nobody ever wrote that particular defence of Mar Kepha. This much is difficult even to comprehend, if Christianity existed only upon the backs of James, John, Paul and maybe Thomas; would "Gospels" even exist? There'd be a biographical tradition but what would it look like?

The other contrafactual, which this post can ponder, is: suppose Mark went the way of Egerton and of the Gospel of Hebrews. That is: it was composed. The later New Testament cited it, or didn't; starting with Matthew and Luke (and Acts). Then it was lost. How was it lost, and how far can it be lost?

Goodacre of course has his reasons, as Fuller had his reasons. I must disclose mine own biases, being Catholic. But here, I am most intrigued by the opportunity to play the What If... game. Permit me to map early Christian literature as close to the mainline as possible. Spoiler: the Church endures.

I allow early-Patristics retained hold on Mark, directly or indirectly. 2 Clement 2:4 is usually cited here, as quoting Mark 2:17 ουκ ηλθον καλεσαι δικαιους αλλα αμαρτωλους; as now, without the metanoia, although 2 Clement 8 will get around to that. Papias still contrasts Mark's memoirs of Peter against Matthew's Hebrew-language tradition. The Muratorian Canon as today is mutilated before mention of Mark or Matthew, and may or may not count four gospels.

But by the time of Irenaeus nobody important is proposing Mark-as-we-know-it as one of the canon Gospels, and no commentaries ever get composed.

The key moment in my calculus is at Antioch, whose bishop Serapion notes our Mark as like to the "Gospel of Peter", to reject all such. Similar moves are made in Egypt, Edessa, and the Latin West. Absent our Mark's nigh apocalypticism, the mainline Church's eschaton shifts to the more staid accounts in what we call "Matthew" (more on this anon) and "Luke".

As to the main alteration from the Church as we know it I expect a richer trade in the additional Agrapha, those sayings cited "from the Lord" but not (anymore) known by which isnad. In our world Papias and Hegesippus may even have done their work exactly because their audience found difficult to get copies of our Mark or else didn't trust this Mark. In the alt-world: copies of Papias and maybe Hegesippus get made early on, exactly because no proper Christian can find Mark, so needs bridge this gap amongst all the early-Patristics' parallel-readings. These extraneous traditions are assumed from Matthew where not ascribed to John and other "Elders". From Papias' influence that pro-Peter gospel which we now call "Matthew" is subsequently associated with Mark and takes that title.

Expelled from Antioch, our crippled paraMarkan gospel limps its way up rural Anatolia - to die. Mainline haeresiology - lookin' at Tertullian here - mentions the Montanists' "false" Markan gospel; at the same time as the Church Fathers note Marcion's false Luke with truncated "Romans".

2 Clement's variants are assumed paraphrase to the alt-known three-gospel canon, not witnesses. Justin Martyr's parallels: likewise; and all this stuff in Arabic. The Diatesseron is remembered as the Diatreion or something like that, maybe the "Tripod"; but still bears Markan readings, here and there. Most churchmen assume these wild readings come from Papias or someone like that.

A whisper persists. Tertullian, who knew the Montanism best, notes a few Marcan readings in their bible; other Fathers comment on the Carpocratians. Epiphanius devotes a (very) few paragraphs to the Montanists' Mark knowing only as much as Tertullian knew. These sparse notes trickle along the sidelines.

With more respect for Papias and so on, comes more heated controversy against nonorthodox gospel sayings-tradition like in GosThomas. Either translations creep into Latin and Syriac; or else they never creep into Coptic. I'll assume that Thomas and others go like they do here: fragmentary Greek, full Coptic, only found lately.

All this amounts to a Western Christendom vaguely aware of a variant Mark; but this lore makes little difference to orthodoxy, aware also of variant Luke. Of more impact to Church history is Papias as a more-copied Apostolic Father. The Protestant Reformation rejects Papias and burns his works.

It is for modern times when Mark Goodacre would lift the embargo: first at Oxyrhynchus, I guess, with fragments of "proto-Mark" (i.e. Mark) then up river, a full codex in Sahidic. In the late 1940s we next catch rumour of Geez, Syriac, Arabic, and/or Latin MSS here and there but their publication is delayed, for the same stupid and venal reasons as plagued "Judas".

Meanwhile (as real-1950) Morton Smith proposes Clement of Alexandria as witness to the Carpocratians' secret Mark. You know - the "gay" one, with the ephebe. Smith muddies the well and induces great skepticism that the newly-found Mark is real in the slightest anywhere.

Also as here, the Nubian Mark (with Luke!) from Sunnarti is published in the 1980s. That might be the point at which Pope John Paul II must decide what to do with this thing. In the midst of the Scandals.