The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 73 - Was there a secret Gospel of Mark containing hidden mysteries?
What about the idea that there were secret and alternative Gospels that challenge conventional narratives?
We'll guide you through the mystifying world of Gnostic writings from the second and third centuries, where fantastical elements meet traditional gospel material.
By contrasting these ancient texts with the 19th-century attempts to portray an "authentic" Jesus devoid of miracles, we reveal how diverse portrayals often tell us more about the authors than about the historical figure of Jesus himself. With insights from Albert Schweitzer, we reflect on how these efforts mirror the personal beliefs of their creators.
Embark on a journey into the realm of ancient monastic manuscripts, where stories of devotion and scholarship intersect. The mid-20th-century discovery of Clement's letter to Theodore offers a compelling glimpse into the past, inviting comparisons to the famed Dead Sea Scrolls.
Through the lens of historical figures such as the prophetess Anna, we delve into the lives of anchorites and anchoresses—those who chose the solitude of church-affiliated cells for spiritual practice. The vital role of monasteries in preserving these invaluable texts underlines the enduring legacy of sacred knowledge.
Explore the multifaceted narrative of Mark's Gospel, which may have existed in multiple versions, offering a fresh perspective on its composition.
We ponder the Holy Spirit's influence in communicating divine truth through varied authors and sources.
Unravel the symbolic journey of wealth and spiritual enlightenment embodied by a young man in Mark's Gospel, as he transitions from earthly riches to the true wealth of the kingdom. With a backdrop of Alexandria's rich biblical scholarship, this episode invites listeners to reconsider the profound spiritual messages embedded within these ancient texts.
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the Christ-centered Cosmic Civilization. In this episode we're going to be thinking about secret Gospels or Gospel material that is beyond the four canonical Gospels in the form, basically, that we have them Now. It's a controversial subject because Gnostics did begin to write these sort of Gospels In the second century. There are these expanded Gospel accounts where what they're doing is producing kind of fictional works really, but weaving into them the standard gospel material and then including in those extra teachings and activities of Jesus that fit with the religious agenda. And we know about those. They're there in the second century, even into the third century, and that gospel tradition and you kind of have had those all through church history.
Speaker 1:Even modern-day people write new accounts of the life of Jesus. In the 19th century they were very popular to write like this is the real story of Jesus, and then a person would carve out of these, you know, produce a life of Jesus. That was what they regard as the authentic one. And then in the 19th century what they would do is strip away miraculous activities and deep theological conversations of the original jesus because they'd go well, we don't like those. We want, want to produce a life of Jesus that fits with our view of the world In the second and third century. I mean, they were the complete opposite. They're like oh, like, the official historical Jesus doesn't have enough weird stuff. We want a Jesus who makes clay animals and all kinds of stuff and turns women into men and all kinds of Wow. That would probably be super popular these days. But that's the sort of thing they wanted. Their worldview was a worldview of weird and wonderful and Gnostic powers and aeons and all kinds. So they wanted to produce their own official lives of jesus. Let us tell you the real story of jesus and in their case they added like loads of miraculous and weird and wonderful things. Uh, it'd be sort of wonderful really to get gospel right. Got alternative gospel writers from the second century sitting in a room with alternative gospel writers from the 19th century and then just lock the door and run for it. It'd be like matter and antimatter uh colliding. It'd be awesome.
Speaker 1:But, um, I like that albert schweitzer point. When, at the end of all that process in the 20th century, albert schweitzer sort of of does that book on the quest for the historical Jesus and he's just looking back at this extraordinary range of the true lives of Jesus from the 19th century and so on. And he just makes that brilliant point that what really you get is each of these writers is saying I can see what the real Jesus was like, and of course we still have people like that today. But Schweitzer makes the brilliant point that actually they're all gazing down a well trying to look back to see the authentic thing, but what they see is their own face reflected in the water at the bottom, and so what you really just have is all these alternate lives of Jesus tell you much more about the author of them than about the real Jesus. So that's the context for all these secret and alternative gospels.
Speaker 1:But having said that, john, when he's writing his gospel, just overtly says I had tons more material of things that Jesus said and did that I could have recorded, but I've chosen not to. I've got to keep it to a manageable book, a manageable amount of things. Now, of course, john's probably thinking about the words and activities of Jesus beyond his incarnate life. John's probably thinking all the things Jesus has done from the creation of the world right through, from the creation of the world right through. In which case you can imagine yeah, it would fill the whole world to record all the things that Jesus has done throughout the entire cosmos, since the beginning of all things. But he also clearly has in mind all the events, the light, because Jesus every day seems action-packed when we're reading in the Gospels and some of the days he's up all night still ministering, answering questions, teaching, healing, driving out demons, and it's like as if every day was just jam-packed. And if you were just recording all the encounters and conversations and healings and activities, you would just have volume upon volume upon volume of material.
Speaker 1:And yet what the gospel writers do is select from that and say here let us choose a manageable selection of material that enables people who weren't there, who didn't see it all, to have a manageable account that will make sense to them and by which they can understand and coordinate. Like who is this Jesus? What did he do, why did it, what did it all mean? And Luke kind of says I'm trying to bring together an orderly account, as if there were so many stories about him circulating and of course over time maybe some of the stories had become out of control or people added to them or took away from, and he's like look, I, I sort of did a job on just trying to gather a selection that we could be certain about. Now, all of so, what we know from all of that is the idea that there's a larger body of material that could have been selected from and that, like Paul, quotes a saying of Jesus that isn't in the Gospels, when he said it's better to give than to receive. So, paul, there certainly does have sayings of Jesus that were not included in the official canonical Gospels and, as we've said, john implies that there's a lot more.
Speaker 1:Now then we come to certain things in the gospels, like in John, there's the incident with the woman taking an adultery and there's like, was this part of his original material? Uh, and, and how, how does that fit in? And so there's a little question there about what is the status of this thing that almost certainly John did write, but how was it? An appendage that he added on late, after he'd finished the first edition of his gospel, or how does it work? But when we come to Mark's gospel, there's that whole end section that does look as if it's from Mark, and yet there are additions of his gospel that go around that don't have it. And then there are other additions, particularly from Alexandria, that do have it and how do we explain that? What's the status of this? Now? Then that gets right to this issue of the secret gospel of Mark.
Speaker 1:There's a letter from the most holy Clement to someone called Theodore, and we've got with us PJ Blackham, who heads up the Global Church History Project, and he's a friend of the show, as you know. We often have him and let's ask him to explain what this letter is. Who is Clement, who's Theodore and what do we know about this letter? Uh, first of all, before we get into what's in this letter and I know that's what we all, you all, want to know what's in this like, what's secret information about extra gospels? We'll get to that. Just first of all, who is Clement, who's Theodore and what? What's the status of this letter that is attributed to him? And is it definitely by clement? So the, yeah, saint clement of alexandra?
Speaker 1:He's this bishop of alexandria and a? Uh, so the coptic pope. He leads the egyptian church and, uh, that is in charge of a lot of other churches, like the libyans and the nubians and ethiopians at the time. So he's like a very important dude and he at one point headed up the school of St Mark. So the Apostle Mark. When he comes to Alexandria he sets up the church, but he also sets up a school, and Clement had been in charge of both at different times. So he was in charge of instructing new believers and children in the faith, but then also their school was open to anyone, so loads of non-christians came just to learn anything you know. So it worked like kind of a university as well. He'd been in charge of that, and then he becomes the bishop or the coptic pope and and then he's in charge of spiritual direction over people who are already spiritual directors. He so they call the the word it's like from the word El Baba or relate to the word El Baba, which kind of means the grandfather. So you've kind of got the priests who are like the fathers of a church, but then they've got a father, this grandfather, who looks after them spiritually, and so that's what's happening in this letter.
Speaker 1:Just let me clarify what are the dates for Clement roughly? So he's in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. How does he relate to Oregon? So he's, I believe one of the children that was at the school of St Mark was St Oregon the scholar, so he is his tutor basically. So, right, so, and oregon is like probably he's possibly the most influential, uh, theologian really in early in the early church. I mean, everybody's reacting to him and trying to cope with oregon and in terms of african theology, I, the guy is ridiculously brilliant and deep and complicated and people like attribute to him all sorts of things, often things that he argued against, and he's condemned as a heretic both for being an anthropomorphist and for not being one. So he's like an unbelievably important figure, oregon, but he is being taught by this guy, clement, then, and Clement's really so many of the church leaders in Alexandria are ridiculously clever and important and influential. We'll come back to that later, but there we are. So there's Clement. Oregon is in his class.
Speaker 1:Clement's then writing this letter to Theodore. Do we not know who that is? No, it doesn't matter really, and it could even be a title, because, like Theodore means what A gift of God. A gift of God. So it could be a bit like where Luke writes his to Theophilus, god lover, which may not be a real person, he's just saying anyone who loves God, this book's for you. It could be that sort of thing, but it most likely it is an actual person, but we don't know who that is. That's OK. Now then, what is the status? Have we always had this letter or has it sometimes been? Or is it one of these like letters that gets found, or what's the status of this in terms of how, how well known this letter has been? So it was basically discovered in the mid-20th century.
Speaker 1:Um, and that's one of the things that people find quite odd that, uh, you could have something that's quite important from someone who is quite important, that suddenly gets discovered. It isn't totally unique in that respect. We talk a lot about the Dead Sea Scrolls. This sort of thing happens and, yeah, a lot of well-known people from history. Their stuff is read a lot and people used to like trace the actual words with their fingers and that would wear down manuscripts. So people who are well known and well read a lot, their manuscripts get destroyed and that's why you know good christian manuscripts of the bible are in tatters, and it's because they're being used so much. Yeah, because in secondhand bookshops, like you get absolutely pristine copies of rubbish books and beloved books so are well-thumbed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's exactly that.
Speaker 1:So, um, a lot of quite important people we kind of only get these full manuscripts of in like the 16th or 17th century. So it's quite obviously impressive, when you think about scripture, how many manuscripts we have from so very early on, even if we see it's quite damaged. They just made so many copies of this stuff. But obviously the church fathers, even St Clement, are less important than scripture, so we don't always get the same sort of fragments everywhere. So we take what we can get, and so so we take what we can get, and so there's a book that is preserved.
Speaker 1:So there's this Marseille Monastery. It's an Eastern Orthodox Jerusalemite monastery. Is it in Jerusalem or just connected to nearby, nearby? Yeah, of kind of like anchorites. What's an anchorite? It's not quite anchorites, but it's like anchorites. No, but what is one? What is an anchorite? Or it's not quite anchorites, but it's like anchorite. No, but what is one? What is an anchorite?
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, someone who's kind of sealed into a church or sealed into a cell where they just can then focus in on studying the bible and then doing other stuff like copying books and so on, and so these kind of just let me comment on that as just quickly going through. Can you imagine that, like it's basically you are bricked into a building so you cannot leave it and you might say that sounds a terrible life, but actually it's this wonderful life. For those it's not so much being bricked in as being protected from the distractions of the outside world. And a person then, um julian of norwich, famously, is such a person who was kind of sealed into the building and then she'd be just living there, praying, praising, studying the scriptures, uh, encountering the living god. And then you go into that church building and then there's this sense in which there's a like it's already powered up the whole building and atmosphere because there's somebody there who's just incessantly, utterly dedicated and in the zone and in the spirit all the time, just put in their own kind of granny flat that's kind of sealed as part of the church. That's what it is.
Speaker 1:Now. I know some of you listening will be like, hang on, we need a whole episode to think about anchorites. Yeah, yeah, all right, we'll do that. We might come back to that, but I just wanted to drop in what it is and just the notion of people being so on fire and dedicated that they just want to be kept free of distraction and be kept in a kind of granny flat attached to a church or a religious institution so that they can get on with this kind of study. And just quickly, so that you know the kind of biblical inspiration for all this.
Speaker 1:The prophetess Anna is said to always be in the spirit and spirit's always with her because she's in the temple continually and there are day and night. Yeah, so she effectively was doing that. Yeah, yeah. So it's exactly that, that these people who want to be in the spirit all the time we get that in the bible and they're they're like what, how do you do it? You just be in church all the time is what luke says was the prophetess is anna's, so that, yeah, there are people like that, but not so anchoresses, which are like the female version that is more common, really, because that probably is that. But yeah, we'll save this for a second.
Speaker 1:So there's a place that has people that are in the ranny flats attached to the, yeah, the church building, and they that's what tell us, and this, this manuscript and book, yeah, so, yeah, then these people because they just read lots and lots and lots and they've got to do something with their time and obviously they do a lot of Bible study, but then they do other stuff as well, so they will copy down manuscripts and everything, and so they will preserve a lot of stuff we will have lost otherwise. So you get that in monasteries generally, but I think you get some of the weirder stuff. Maybe you get in the proper cell stuff, so monks sometimes, obviously, they often go down to the market and they're selling beer and stuff, but then anchorites or other cell kind of people don't Right, so they do get out of the norm stuff, and so it's not entirely unexpected that something like this would pop up, even though you'd think, well, it's quite odd, like why did no one think about this before? But we've got that explanation. It's like it is kind of a bit weird.
Speaker 1:So the idea is that there's this documents that are from the like second, third centuries or or copies of them, can be hanging about in monasteries and situations and the wider world doesn't know about them because they're in these kind of sealed environments and kept for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. And then suddenly, like in the 19th century or the 20th century, someone's like hang on, what's that book over there? It's like oh yeah, that's been here for like five thou. You know, not five thousand years, but like 500 years or it could be. That's been here for like a thousand years. Yeah, we hardly ever read that or something. And then somebody goes, oh, hang on, this is some stuff from clement, or this is some stuff from oregon, or this is some stuff from. That's what literally happens. Um, and there was lots of that happening in the 19th and 20th centuries. So that's how we've got this letter of clement to theodore. Is it definitely by clement? It could. There is some thought that it could be from oregon, isn't it? Yeah, so there are there's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's been criticism, you like there is of the Bible trying to figure it out. So at first there's just one guy said, oh, I saw this manuscript and this was in it, and so people thought, well, if there's only one guy saying it, then it's not true. But then later on we found there's. He took photos of it. There's first black and white one, then someone else did colour ones and then several people all attested to it and then we can look at these photos.
Speaker 1:The manuscript got lost. Some people think someone lost it on purpose, given the kind of, because we'll get into how it's quite crazy what's in it. So there might have been foul play there trying to cover things up. But you know, which is interesting to think, that authorities might be getting involved with some of this stuff. But maybe that's why you need to hear it. Um, but yeah, so, but when people then have been analyzing it, now that we've got these photos and everything, we see they the handwriting doesn't have what they call like um, like a forger's shake, I think they call it, or something like that. Or quiver, that when you're forging something, you know your conscience grips you and then you can't do it properly and things like that. It actually seems to be an 18th century manuscript. The handwriting and everything fits all this. So it's not forged by this guy who found it basically so so it's an 18th. Someone in the 18th century made a copy of this early manuscript and in it is this letter. Now, what this letter is about is, in the 2nd century and 3rd century there's Gnostics, and what they were, as we thought, is people who had this idea that the key to the universe is just knowledge, and there are elite people who can handle the knowledge, had this idea that the key to the universe is just knowledge, and there are elite people who can handle the knowledge or are born with it in them or have the capacity for it.
Speaker 1:Then there's some people who are just like muggles and they can't handle it at all. They're doomed to perish and go to hell something. And then there's sometimes an intermediate group who could be instructed into true knowledge if they're diligent. So that's the general Gnostic view of the universe, and the idea is physical things are evil. You've got to. Just the knowledge will guide you up into spiritual things.
Speaker 1:Gnostics tended to be either incredibly strict on morality and say we don't want anything to do with physical things, we're not going to eat, we're not going to eat, we're not going to have any sort of intimate relations or anything, or, as often happens with these things, it flips and they basically have orgies and stuff because they say physical things don't matter, therefore it doesn't matter what we do. So those two things, this very, very, very strict legalists and the utter immoralists are I was gonna say they're often bedfellows, but that's an unfortunate phrase here. Okay, and crucially, you've got these carpacrations and they have this view that the god who made the universe is evil, and one of the sick jokes he plays is giving people sexual desires and then telling them they're not allowed to follow on it. So they have this idea, then the true God liberates you from all that and therefore they are Therefore get jiggy. Yeah, classic with false teachers. They always find some way to justify sexual immorality. Eventually, even if they initially pretend to be against it, they're always in the end it ends up the same way.
Speaker 1:Now, then, what they'd done is the Carpacaritans had taken a copy of Mark's Gospel. They got Mark's Gospel and what they'd done is produce their own version with lots of extra typical Gnostic rubbish in it. And what Clement is saying is hang on, there is the original kind of short version of Mark and then there's this Carpacration long-like thing full of all sorts of rubbish. But then he's explaining there are actually some additional authentic materials for Mark's gospel. Because he says Mark, when he wrote the gospel, had his own personal notes and Peter's personal notes, like working notes and journals and things that he had to help him write the original gospel. And therefore he said, in Alexandria we have that stuff, we have Mark's additional notes that accompany the original gospel and therefore we kind of have had access to an extended Mark's gospel, which Mark himself intended to be used to instruct more mature Christians.
Speaker 1:But so and Clement's saying, so there's the. Let's just get it in clear in our minds. He's saying there's the Mark, the shorter Mark's gospel that we have, and that's the canonical one. That's the one that the Holy Spirit has said, that's the Mark's gospel I want the church to use everywhere. That's the authoritative word of God. Then Clement says but but Mark did in fact have further material that he wrote down and had available. That kind of forms, an expanded Mark's gospel, and that Mark allowed to be used for more mature Christians in Alexandria. Now that got, we'll come to what's in that in a moment.
Speaker 1:But that is not been. The Holy spirit has not authorized that for general usage. He's the holy spirit's like no, no, the, the, what there is the canonical god's word version of of the gospel of mark that's for everybody everywhere. But of course, like john says, I have lots of other material that I could have used. Mark's like yeah, I have lots of other material I could have used and some of that material mark did actually write down and the people in his home church saw that extra material and had use of it.
Speaker 1:And then Clement's saying so we know the original authoritative version of Mark's gospel. We also know some of this expanded material that Mark had. We also know some of this expanded material that Mark had, and so, therefore, this other stuff that the Gnostics have added, that's just nonsense. They're like if they were saying here's an expanded Mark's gospel with Mark's original authoritative stuff, Clement's saying, yeah, that's all right, that's cool, we know about that sort of thing. But he's like saying, yeah, that's all right, that's cool, we know about that sort of thing. But he's like saying, no, they're not even doing that, they're just inventing nonsense and adding that into Mark's gospel. That isn't the expanded version of Mark. So he's almost saying there is a slightly expanded version of Mark that is available.
Speaker 1:The Gnostics are claiming to have got an expanded version of Mark, but their one is pure fiction and dangerous and everyone should denounce it as soon as you see it. But he's sort of saying, but actually we could, if we wanted, publish an expanded version of Mark. We could, but they don't actually do that. Is that a first summary of the situation? Yeah, although you have a theory that they did in fact publish a little bit of it. Uh, do you want to get into that idea or do we save that for another episode? No, no, let's do it because, um, you, as we said at the beginning, at the end of mark there is that extended ending to mark's gospel and we find that that longer ending of Mark is concentrated in manuscripts that come from Alexandria and people have speculated that it is maybe authentic Mark or some people think it's like Mark's disciples wrote it.
Speaker 1:But if we just take what Clement says just at face value, and that Mark did have extra material available, and say that there was this shorter version of Mark that was there and that very quickly they went, well, you can't end with, you know, dazed and confused they wandered around saying nothing to anybody. Uh, because that one, that kind of doesn't cohere quite with the other gospels. Um, but it's. It's not a brilliant ending and that they were like, actually mark's expanded material is much better ending, let's get that in. Or, and they're saying, has it already gone to press for the first day? Oh, let's quickly get a second edition out as quickly as possible and add mark's better ending, it's expanded material, as an ending. Um, is that? I think that's the first summary of what we, what we're proposing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then that really does kind of show, because a lot of people get really interested in this letter and then they just kind of drop it, because then they wonder, well, what's the point of all of it? And you get that a lot, these kind of like our hidden manuscript found, and then it's all over like daily mail and mirror and things, and then everyone forgets about it. And then, but then you're thinking, well, what is actually important about this? Why does this one keep getting brought up? And I think there is this where it's just anything like right, all these difficulties people have with the text of Mark kind of makes sense and it's all kind of original to Mark, and then there was, um, these two versions and so one thing it can give us, whereas a lot of this stuff people try and bring it up because they're trying to undermine our faith in scripture.
Speaker 1:There's a sense in which this kind of does the opposite, where it's's like, yeah, it was all Mark's gospel and then, yeah, it had a complicated process of getting written, but then, like, when you look in Chronicles it says, if you want to read more about this, read this prophet. You know, and we don't have those books anymore. A lot of scripture has this kind of complicated process, because sometimes the Spirit wants to use many people rather than just one. So with chronicles that's explicit and it's also probable in the law of moses that joshua edits sometimes because he says something you know, moses said this and today we say this, so then that has to be someone a bit later and then that must be joshua really. So sometimes the spirit just does that uses more than one person and gives the the text a bit of a complicated history.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we get that in a way where John has all these teachings of Jesus that Jesus only spoke to the disciples kind of in private, where Jesus is not speaking in parables but just like overtly and openly talking about the Trinity, in a way what the Illicit Fathers would say when Jesus was sharing the mysteries to the insiders. So Jesus doesn't just stand publicly and give lectures on the Trinity and his own relationship to the insiders. So Jesus doesn't just stand publicly and give lectures on the Trinity and his own relationship to the Father and the mission of the Spirit and all that kind of thing, because in Jesus' mind that is not to be shared with outsiders. With outsiders we must speak in parables, doing things in such a way that they can hear but not hear, and they must hear with the kind of commitment in order to go through the parable into truth. That's the way Jesus went about it, as if you can't tell outsiders the mysteries of the Trinity or Holy Communion or the sacraments or things like that for outsiders. You must talk to them in parables, almost, and then they, over time, can be introduced slowly into the wonders of the trinity and who jesus is and all the rest of it. And you think, wow, how alien that is to us in the modern world where we literally just try to debate with outsiders about the Trinity and Jesus is like what are you doing? So the early church fathers, clement, just says, like Mark wrote his original, smaller gospel, the canonical gospel, deliberately not including the things, the kind of things that John has, like Jesus' private, talking about the Trinity and things like that, and like the John 6 sayings about eating his flesh and drinking it.
Speaker 1:Mark deliberately didn't include all that because he was writing a shorter version for newcomers to the faith. So I'll read from the letter. I mean we're nearly used up all our time, but I'll say this. This is from Clement's letter. Mark did indeed write down the deeds of the Lord during Peter's stay in Rome, not, however, recounting all, nor indeed indicating the mysterious things. But Mark was choosing what he supposed would be most useful for the growth of the catechumens faith, the newcomers, the new believers. And then he goes on.
Speaker 1:When Peter was martyred, mark escaped to Alexandria taking along both his own and Peter's notes, from which he transferred the things suitable for progress towards knowledge in his first book. But Mark arranged a more spiritual gospel for the use of the advanced. So there you go, that idea then, that he did have this extra material. That was okay for more advanced believers. But the gospel that became the canonical gospel, the one that was published and used by all the churches all over the world, the one that the Holy Spirit has authorized for us as the word of God, that is this more introductory one.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, we know there's a whole story, isn't there, about why john ends up writing his gospel, and we actually know about that, that process, uh, from the first century, and there's a council that authorizes him to do it. Is that enough? Maybe that's enough for us. Maybe you could just share with us, because at the end of the letter Clement tells us some of the extra stories that Mark had. And just briefly, because we're way over our time, but maybe you could just tell us about Lazarus in Mark, right? So, yeah, what these kind of additions to Mark kind of bring out is that Lazarus is a character in Mark's gospel, and so the whole story of Jesus raising Lazarus appears in this longer version, which is quite interesting, and in particular he is said to be this I think the word is like neanias or something, or like young man and a rich young man.
Speaker 1:And so you have earlier, before, jesus raises Lazarus, this rich young man who can't give up his wealth, and Jesus loves him, but then he's like I can't do it. So then he goes away and Jesus is sad, but then, in this bit of it, then he dies and then his sister goes to Jesus Can you resurrect them? And then he does, and then so at first he's got all this rich clothing on and then, when he dies, he's only got a cinder on which is like one kind of ancient A shroud yeah, so he's got that on and which is like one kind of ancient shroud yeah, so he's got that arm, and it mentions that that he's only got a cinder on. Then the young man appears again only in mark, and this is even in the short version of mark, but this story is only in mark, where there's this young man when jesus being arrested and someone grabs his cinder on, and then he throws off his cinder on and he runs away naked, so that you see, jesus says, unless he get rid of all this rich stuff, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. And then this guy slowly becomes a disciple, like he like gets down to the cinder on and then he's like gotten it off.
Speaker 1:Then interestingly I mean it's quite complicated with the resurrection.
Speaker 1:No, but in the resurrection it's interesting because in the resurrection narrative it says there's a young man at the tomb who is dressed in a white robe, a white robe.
Speaker 1:So it's just interesting because, remember, mark is at Alexandria, which is the place where Philo was, and then and then later it's going to be Oregon and it's like, by far, as far as Wilkinson likes them, it's the deepest, richest place of biblical studies. And so it's not surprising that Mark in his expanded gospel has these very deep, layered spiritual things where he is a guy who goes from rich robes to being stripped down of all his worldly possessions. And then in the resurrection there's this young man there dressed in the robes of righteousness, the heavenly robes that are suitable and they were. Those are the truly rich robes, the robes of righteousness. And so you could imagine that mark was saying, oh, look at this, look at this, look at the story of this man, and it's teaching you the story of conversion leaving the world behind, letting it all go and walking into the riches of the kingdom. A wonderful thought. We'll leave it there and next time we've got something new.