Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§7.8 The Sources
(e.g. 10.1-6; 12.4-9) and the parallels could very well be explained as echoes of
tradition known from the canonical Gospels. 145
c. 'The Secret Gospel of Mark' 146 refers to a version of Mark's Gospel
which Clement of Alexandria regarded as a 'more spiritual' elaboration of canonical
Mark, and which the Carpocratians (a second-century Gnostic sect) further
amplified. 147 The two extracts follow Mark 10.34 and 10.46a respectively:
the former and longer recounts the raising of a young man and appears to be a
variation of the raising of Lazarus in John 11; the latter recounts briefly Jesus'
encounter with the young man's sister and mother and Salome. Crossan and
Koester, however, both argue that canonical Mark is derived from Secret Mark,
the two extracts adding to the store of pre-canonical Gospel tradition and confirming
the diversity of that earlier tradition. 148 On the parallels between the Secret
Gospel and John 11, Koester thinks it 'impossible that Secret Mark is dependent
upon John 11'; 149 but he does not even consider the possibility that the
Secret Mark version is an allusive echo of John's account. With such logic, the
recognition of any allusion to earlier documents would be equally 'impossible'.
On the several parallels between Secret Mark and phrases from different parts of
Mark, Crossan thinks it probable that 'canonical Mark scattered the dismembered
elements of those units throughout his gospel'. 150 But that is a highly implausible
scenario; it is much more likely that Secret Mark is a composition
drawing on remembered phrases from other stories in canonical Mark. 151 The
145. Tuckett, Nag Hammadi 88-97. Cf. particularly 4.23-30 with Mark 10.28-30 and
Matt. 6.13. The echoes of John's Gospel are strong: the ascending-descending motif in 14.19—
15.35; and cf. Apoc. Jas. 7.1-6 with John 16.29 and Apoc. Jas. 12.41-13.1 with John 20.29. Is
there an echo of Gal. 3.13 in Apoc. Jas. 13.23-25?
146. H. Merkel, in Schneemelcher and Wilson, New Testament Apocrypha 1.106-9; Elliott,
Apocryphal New Testament 148-49 (with bibliography); also Cameron, Other Gospels 67-71;
Miller, ed., Complete Gospels 408-11; analysis in Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels 293-303.
147. See Crossan's helpful account in Four Other Gospels 98-100.
148. Crossan, Historical Jesus 328-32, 411-16.
149. Ancient Christian Gospels 296, despite Crossan's recognition of the unwisdom of
such an emphatic and unyielding term ('impossible'), citing R. E. Brown, 'The Relation of
"The Secret Gospel of Mark" to the Fourth Gospel', CBQ 36 (1974) 466-85 (here 470, 474)
{Four Other Gospels 104-105).
150. Crossan, Four Other Gospels 108; further Historical Jesus 415-16; there are parallel
phrases in Mark 10.47; 10.13-14; 14.51; 1.41; 5.41; 9.27; 10.21,22; 9.2; 14.51-52; 4.11; 3.33-34.
151. Similarly F. F. Bruce, The 'Secret' Gospel of Mark (London: Athlone, 1974): 'an
obvious pastiche ... a thoroughly artificial composition, quite out of keeping with Mark's quality
as a story-teller' (12); Merkel, New Testament Apocrypha 1.107; Charlesworth and Evans,
'Jesus in the Agrapha' 526-32. Nor is it self-evident that the absence of some of these phrases
from Matthew and Luke indicates that they appear in Mark as 'secondary redaction' (Koester,
Ancient Christian Gospels 298); Matthew and Luke regularly omit or qualify phrases and motifs
in their use of Mark.
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