Quentin Quesnell’s Secret Mark Secret

vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 Vigiliae Christianae brill.com/vc Quentin Quesnell’s Secret Mark Secret A Report on Quentin Quesnell’s 1983 trip to Jerusalem and his inspection of the Mar Saba Document Stephan Hüller Independent Scholar stephan.h.huller@gmail.com Daniel N. Gullotta Yale University Divinity School daniel.gullotta@yale.edu Abstract Unbeknownst to most, in June of 1983, Quentin Quesnell made a visit to Jerusalem in order to personally inspect the Mar Saba document known as the Letter to Theodore. This is significant because it adds Quesnell to a small group of people who have testified to have seen the Letter to Theodore in person, and an even smaller group who have commented on its appearance and contents first-hand. Following Quesnell’s death in 2012 many of his personal belongings were acquired by Smith College (Northampton) and recently released to the public for viewing. Among Quesnell’s belongings was a journal full of notes, along with photos and letters to his wife Jean Higgins, all relating to Morton Smith’s discovery of the Letter to Theodore at Mar Saba and to Quesnell’s 1983 visit to * We would like to express our thanks to Allan J. Pantuck, Guy Stroumsa, Tony Burke, Timo Paananen, and Fergus J. King, and numerous others for their assistance in the preparation of this article. A special thanks goes to Adela Yarbro Collins, whose commentary on Secret Mark and contact with Quesnell served as the gateway to this research project. We are also indebted to some of the foundational research initiated by Nicholas Pickwood, Mark Goodacre, Scott G. Brown, Charles Hedrick, Harry Tzalas, Jean Claude Bragard, David Rolfe, and Agamemnon Tselikas. We are also grateful to Smith College and to Dr. Quesnell’s trustee, Deborah Jacobson, and to the archives’ staff members, Nancy Young, Elizabeth Carron, and Nichole Calero, for their aid in this endeavor. This article is dedicated to the memory of Helmut Koester (December 18, 1926—January 1, 2016), whose encouragement and enthusiasm helped bring this article to life. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/�57007�0-��34�305 354 Hüller and Gullotta Jerusalem. On the basis of these documents the following article offers a summary of Quesnell’s part in the debate over Smith’s discovery and a report of his inspection of the manuscript. Keywords Secret Mark – Letter to Theodore – Mar Saba – Morton Smith – Quentin Quesnell – papyrology – early Christian apocrypha Introduction Quentin Quesnell (1927-2012) was a biblical scholar who completed graduate studies at St. Louis University, earning a Master’s Degree in Philosophy and a Licentiate of Sacred Theology. Later he studied Semitic languages and the Bible in Vienna, Paris, Jerusalem, and Rome, eventually earning his Doctorate in Sacred Scriptures from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1968. As a member of the Society of Jesus, he served as a Theology professor at Marquette University from 1966 to 1972, but he left the order to marry Jean Higgins, after which he was released from the university. In time, Quesnell joined Smith College and was head of the Department of Religion from 1975 to 1997. He was made the Roe Straut Professor in Humanities in 1988 and named Roe Straut Professor Emeritus in 1997. During his academic career, he published eight books and numerous articles. Today, Quesnell is most well-known for his part in the debate over Morton Smith’s (1915-1991) discovery of the Letter to Theodore and the so-called Secret Gospel of Mark and his accusations that Smith discovered (or constructed) a forgery. To say that there has been controversy surrounding the authenticity of the Letter to Theodore and the trustworthiness of Smith’s testimony is an understatement. Quesnell’s part in this ongoing debate is particularly noteworthy as he was the one of the first to suspect, not only that it was a forgery, but that Smith was the forger. Additionally, what is unknown by most is that in June of 1983 Quesnell visited Jerusalem in order to personally inspect the document. This is significant because it adds Quesnell to a small group of people who have testified to have seen the Letter to Theodore in person, and an even smaller group who have commented on its appearance and contents first-hand. This article details Quesnell’s involvement with Smith’s discovery, the subsequent exchanges about, reviews of, and forgery allegations against the manuscript, Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 Quentin Quesnell ’ s Secret Mark Secret 355 and Quesnell’s recently uncovered notes from his personal inspection of the Letter to Theodore. Smith’s Discovery at Mar Saba Given how often the tale of Smith’s discovery of Clement’s Letter to Theodore has been recounted, the account is almost as legendary as the text itself. Like all tales, however, the story of Smith’s discovery needs to be reexamined in order to sort the facts from the fantasies that have come to be associated with it. In the present case this is also done to properly contextualize Quesnell’s involvement in the debate.1 Smith had traveled to Mar Saba monastery in the spring of 1958 on sabbatical from teaching at Columbia University. He had received permission from the new Patriarch in Jerusalem (Benedict I, 1892-1980) to spend three weeks in the monastery of Mar Saba. He had previously stayed in the monastery for about a month when he was a graduate student at Harvard Divinity School in February of 1942 while he was stuck in the Holy Land due to the dangers of sea travel during World War II. As a part of his sabbatical it was his goal at Mar Saba to catalog the manuscripts within the monastery.2 His efforts came on the heels of Wendell Phillips, who microfilmed the manuscripts of all the major monasteries in Greece and Egypt on behalf of the Library of Congress from 1950 to 1956.3 While Phillips and his team devoted their efforts to actual manuscripts, Smith knew from his time at Mar Saba during the War that there were often interesting things written in the blank spaces at the front and back of old printed books. During this process it caught Smith’s attention that the printed pages of books often contained additional writings in Greek. What struck Smith the most was the end of a 1646 edition of Isaac Voss’s Epistolae genuinae S. Ignatii martyris. In handwritten text, it purported to be a letter from Clement of Alexandria to a certain Theodore, answering his concerns about a heretical 1 For Smith’s personal account of his journeys to Mar Saba and the discovery of Clement’s Letter to Theodore see Morton Smith, The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 1-9. For detailed notes regarding Smith’s visit and discovery see Allan J. Pantuck and Scott G. Brown, “Morton Smith as M. Madiotes: Stephen Carlson’s Attribution of Secret Mark to a Bald Swindler,” JSHJ 6 (2008), 106-108. 2 For the details of Smith’s seventy-five manuscript catalogue see Morton Smith, “Monasteries and their Manuscripts,” Archaeology 13 (1960), 172-77. 3 See Allan A. MacRae, “Archaeology,” JASA 7 (1956), 28-29. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 356 Hüller and Gullotta Christian sect known as the Carpocratians and their falsified version of the Gospel of Mark. Not being able to simply remove it, as the manuscript was the property of the Greek Patriarchate and the monastery, Smith opted to take a set of black and white photographs of the letter and added a reference number to the first page (“Smith 65”).4 Before returning to the United States, Smith shared his findings with Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.5 In the process of his early research, Smith sought out the aid of experts in Greek handwriting, most of whom affirmed that the style presented by the document was typical of the eighteenth century.6 He then spent the next two years comparing the Letter to Theodore with the authentic writing of Clement, endeavoring to see if there were any similarities in style, vocabulary and thought between the two documents. In 1960, Smith gave a formal presentation before the Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature about his findings and his preliminary research, asserting that he believed he had discovered an authentic Clementine letter.7 Smith then proceeded in years of additional research, and he concluded that the letter likely belonged to a collection of letters of Clement first witnessed by Eusebius and later explicitly cited by John of Damascus while writing at Mar Saba in the eighth century. He believed that his discovery was likely a surviving leaf from a Byzantine copyist’s preservation of the codex used by the Damascene.8 Originally intended to be published in 1966, Smith’s study took another seven years to complete and was published in 1973. 4 See Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 1; Smith, The Secret Gospel, 22-23. 5 Smith, The Secret Gospel, 13-14. It should be known that Scholem and Smith continued in correspondence for the remainder of their lives and Smith actively sought Scholem’s advice related to the Mar Saba document; see Guy G. Stroumsa (ed.), Morton Smith and Gershom Scholem, Correspondence 1945-1982 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). 6 Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark, 1. 7 For an account of Smith’s presentation at the Meeting of SBL ’60 see Sanka Knox, “A New Gospel Ascribed to Mark,” New York Times, 30 December 1960, 7. 8 Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark, 285: “Sometime after its arrival in Palestine the letter was incorporated into a collection of Clement’s letters. This is almost certain from the heading of the present text, ἐκ τῶν ἐπιστολῶν τοῦ ἁγιωτάτου Κλήμεντος. The making of the collection may plausibly be assigned to Clement’s friend, the bishop Alexander … and Eusebius knew collections of the letters of a number of Clement’s contemporaries (HE VI.12.1; 14.8; etc.). Moreover, Eusebius reports that Alexander founded the library in Jerusalem and that it was rich in collections of letters, which he himself used for his history (HE VI.20.1ff, on which Ehrhard, Bibliothek 217f.) … Accordingly it seems more likely that the collection was Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 Quentin Quesnell ’ s Secret Mark Secret 357 For his peers Smith published his findings through Harvard University Press in Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark and for laypeople Smith wrote The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark published by Harper and Row. Smith concluded that “The ‘secret gospel’ cited in the letter was a revision of Mark that drew upon a lost source common to canonical Mark and John, thus explaining the parallel to John’s raising of Lazarus (11:1-14) and why Secret Mark’s vision of the tale seemed to be more primitive than the one in John.”9 In addition to these conclusions, built upon a suggestion by Cyril C. Richardson, Smith argued that this story was most likely a part of a baptismal initiation story in which the initiate was “possessed by Jesus’s spirit.”10 Most remembered is Smith’s brief but controversial speculation that this “spiritual union” may have included a “physical union”.11 Smith’s Initial Reception and Rebuttals by Quesnell According to Charles W. Hedrick and Nikolaos Olympiou, “in general, early reviewers of Smith’s books tended to agree that the Letter to Theodore is genuine, though a number of scholars have rejected its genuineness.”12 Quentin Quesnell, extremely critical of Smith’s work, was the first scholar to make a 9 10 11 12 made early and thereafter neglected than that it was made late … At what time the collection containing the letter got into the library of Mar Saba is uncertain. The foundation of the library was probably almost contemporaneous with that of the monastery in the late fifth century, so any date from that time on is possible. Even the citation by John of Damascus does not provide an absolutely certain terminus ante quem, since it is conceivable that John might have cited from a MS not directly related to that from which our excerpt derives. The likelihood, however, is that John’s MS was the ancestor of that from which the surviving (eighteenth century) excerpt was made and that the collection was at the Mar Saba throughout all the intervening period.” The reference to Ehrhard is to Albert Ehrhard, “Die griechische Patriarchal-Bibliothek von Jerusalem,” RQ 5 (1891), 217-65, 32931, 383, and 6 (1892), 339-65. Tony Burke, “Introduction,” in Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery?: The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate, ed. Tony Burke (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2013), 5. Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark, 251. Smith, The Secret Gospel, 114. For a detailed summary of Smith’s exegesis see Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 6-9. Charles W. Hedrick and Nikolaos Olympiou, “Secret Mark,” The Fourth R 13.5 (2000), 3. Brown notes that, “By the end of the 1970s, New Testament scholars still mentioned ‘secret’ Mark in an incidental manner, but were generally reluctant to take the gospel too seriously and risk looking foolish should it be proved a fake.” See Scott G. Brown, Mark’s Other Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 358 Hüller and Gullotta formal case that the Mar Saba document might be a forgery.13 Additionally, Quesnell was one of the first scholars to suggest that the Mar Saba document was a modern day forgery. Before working on his article Quesnell contacted Smith and pressed him with questions about the manuscript’s location, appearance, contents and substance, suspecting that the Letter to Theodore was a forgery. According to Quesnell’s personal exchanges with Scott G. Brown, “everything seemed so familiar. All the characteristics of a hoax were present; all the classic mistakes that popular summaries like [E. J.] Goodspeed’s warn against were being made. I listed them and drew the scientific conclusion that had to be drawn—until further and better evidence appears, this has to be judged a forgery.”14 Smith, however, did not give the confession Quesnell was expecting and brought his issues with the Mar Saba document to publication in 1975. Quesnell stressed the inaccessibility of the manuscript and that Smith had been the only scholar known to have seen the manuscript even to verify its existence. Without the manuscript present for physical examination, no definitive conclusions could be drawn.15 Thus for Quesnell, forgery remained an ever-present reality. Until the original manuscript could be produced, examined, and determined authentic or inauthentic, Smith’s proposal could never really be proven (rightly or wrongly). This being the case, according to Quesnell, it was Smith’s scholarly duty to have acquired the manuscript and presented it to his peers.16 In his view, the least Smith could have done was contact the Patriarchate and “warned them at that time that this document might need special protection.”17 Additionally, Quesnell took issue with Smith’s photographs and the way in which they captured the documents. The photographs, according to Quesnell, “do not include the margins or edges of the pages,” they “are only in black and white” and display “numerous discrepancies in shading, in wrinkles and 13 14 15 16 17 Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith’s Controversial Discovery (Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2009), 14. For summaries of Quesnell’s reviews, criticisms, and comments see Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 34-38; further literature critical of Smith (and taking up many of Quesnell’s arguments) is listed below in footnote 27. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 34. Quentin Quesnell, “The Mar Saba Clementine: A Question of Evidence,” CBQ 37.1 (1975), 49-50. “Future researchers must also regret that Smith has apparently made no effort to assure the safety of his find.” See Quesnell, “Mar Saba Clementine,” 49. Ibid. 49. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 Quentin Quesnell ’ s Secret Mark Secret 359 dips in paper.”18 In suggesting the likelihood of forgery, Quesnell pointed to the library’s apparent lack of supervision, the ability to master and imitate Clement’s style (thanks to Otto Stählin’s concordance of Clement’s vocabulary), and the commonality of hoaxes. In concluding his case Quesnell asked: “Is there a reasonable probability of forgery? The answer working with only the evidence Smith presents seems to be clearly yes.”19 Nevertheless, it should be noted that at this time Quesnell did not directly label the Letter to Theodore a forgery, nor did he accuse Smith of being a forger. In presenting a portrait for a hypothetical forger, Quesnell reasoned that they would need both 1) the ability and 2) the motivation to convivially manufacture such a counterfeit document. For Quesnell, this would mean: a) b) c) d) e) a copy of Voss’ Ignatius (Amsterdam, 1646) in which to write; samples of 18th-century handwriting to imitate; the skill to imitate the writing; control of the known writings of Clement of Alexandria, sufficient to produce a text without obvious errors in subject matter, vocabulary, phrasing, and general stylistic characteristics; the opportunity to introduce the document into the Mar Saba library.20 Brown is correct in observing that “the notion that Quesnell set out to prove that Smith forged the Letter to Theodore is a long-standing misconception of Quesnell’s article.” But in regard to the possible identity of a supposed forger Brown does confirm that Quesnell suspected Smith to have forged the document (with the aid of “the one who knows”). He concedes however that this went beyond the evidence and was not the article’s purpose.21 Given that Quesnell’s hypothetical forger matched Smith’s apparent ability, opportunity, and motivation, Smith saw and understood that Quesnell was implying that he was the forger. In response to Quesnell’s implied contentions Smith published a brief reply, in which he referred to Quesnell’s article as an “attack”.22 “Quesnell,” he wrote, 18 19 20 21 22 Ibid. 50. Ibid. 67. Ibid. 54. “Did I personally think Smith (in collaboration with ‘the one who knows’) had forged the document? Of course I did. But that was not the point of the article.” See Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 35. Morton Smith, “On the Authenticity of the Mar Saba Letter of Clement,” CBQ 38 (1976), 196. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 360 Hüller and Gullotta “insinuates that I forged the [manuscript],”23 and he retaliated by further articulating his position on the dating of the manuscript, the involvement of experts, and the quality of the photographs. Conversely, Quesnell responded by clarifying that he was not personally accusing Smith of forgery, but that his article was focused on “scientific method”.24 What irritated Quesnell the most was that Smith did not arrange with the Patriarchate for the manuscript to be examined further, when, in his view, it was Smith’s scholarly responsibility to do so. Perhaps most damning is Quesnell’s hypothetical retelling of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, creating a scenario akin to Smith’s discovery of the Letter to Theodore: Imagine that the Dead Sea scrolls had been discovered, not by a Bedouin lad, but by an American scholar making a private retreat in the desert. He photographs some of them and then walks out of the desert, leaving the scrolls where they were. He spends ten years analyzing his photographs and after fifteen years publishes a long analysis of the grammar, vocabulary, and handwriting of the scrolls. He concludes his book with a statement that he is not sure how the scrolls came to be where he found them, for strange accidents are always occurring in the desert, but at least “as far as I know, they are still where I left them.”25 For Quesnell, “The point was—and remains—that a person who introduces an exciting new manuscript find to the world has the basic responsibility to make the manuscript available for scientific examination.”26 The Search for Secret Mark In the years to come, on the topic of forgery and the Mar Saba document, Quesnell’s writing featured prominently in the literature against Smith. Per Beskow, Hans-Martin Schenke, Jacob Neusner, and more recently Craig A. Evans, Stephen C. Carlson, and Peter Jeffery have all referenced Quesnell’s points in making their cases for the Letter to Theodore’s inauthenticity.27 Naturally, Smith was not without his defenders and Quesnell’s 23 24 25 26 27 Ibid. 197. Quentin Quesnell, “A Reply to Morton Smith,” CBQ 38 (1976), 200. Quesnell, “A Reply to Morton Smith,” 202. Ibid. 200. See Per Beskow, Strange Tales about Jesus: A Survey of Unfamiliar Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 103; Hans-Martin Schenke, “The Mystery of the Gospel of Mark,” SecCent Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 Quentin Quesnell ’ s Secret Mark Secret 361 arguments have not gone without criticism.28 Regardless, the fallout between Smith and some of the most noted figures in biblical studies is well known, but what is unknown is most of the manuscript’s life post-Smith’s discovery of it in 1958. While there is a lot of mystery surrounding the various movements of the Mar Saba document, there are a few details that are within the realm of certainty. Thomas Talley learned that the manuscript was moved from Mar Saba and brought to the Patriarchate library in Jerusalem after the publication of Smith’s books. According to Talley, the librarian, Father Kallistos Dourvas, reported that the two pages containing the manuscript had been removed from the book for repair.29 This would later be confirmed and expanded upon by Guy Stroumsa, who traveled into Mar Saba with David Flusser, Shlomo Pines, and Archimandrite Meliton in the spring of 1976 to look for the Voss volume. With the assistance of one of the monastery’s monks, they were able to find the book, complete with the Letter to Theodore attached, right where Smith had left it. It was thought that the book and its contents would be safer in Jerusalem. Thus it was moved. At the time it was hoped that the manuscript could be ink tested, but upon learning that only the Israeli police had the capabilities to do so, Archimandrite Meliton refused to have any testing done.30 28 29 30 4.2 (1984), 71; Jacob Neusner and Noam M.M. Neusner, The Price of Excellence: Universities in Conflict during the Cold War Era (New York: Continuum, 1995), 78; Craig A. Evans, “Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark: Exploring the Grounds for Doubt,” in Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery?: The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate, ed. Tony Burke (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2013), 76; Stephen C. Carlson, The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of the Secret Gospel of Mark (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2005), 13-14; Elizabeth A. Clark and J. Patout Burns (eds.), “Special Issue: The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Discussion,” JECS 11.2 (2003). See John Dominic Crossan, Four Other Gospels: Shadows on the Contours of Canon (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985), 10; Marvin W. Meyer, “The Youth in Secret Mark and the Beloved Disciple in John,” in Gospel Origins & Christian Beginnings: In Honor of James M. Robinson, ed. J.E. Goehring et al. (Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1990), 95; Shaye J.D. Cohen, review of Are There Really Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels? by Jacob Neusner, JAOS 116:1 (1996), 87 n. 9; Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 36-38; Timo S. Paananen, “From Stalemate to Deadlock: Clement’s Letter to Theodore in Recent Scholarship,” CBR 11.1 (2012), 87-125. Thomas J. Talley, “Liturgical Time in the Ancient Church: The State of Research,” Studia Liturgica 14 (1982): 34-51. Pierson Parker, “On Professor Morton Smith’s Find at Mar-Saba,” AThR 56 (1974), 53-57. Guy G. Stroumsa, “Comments on Charles Hedrick’s Article: A Testimony,” JECS 11 (2003), 147-53. Also see Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 83-84. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 362 Hüller and Gullotta Later, Charles W. Hedrick and Nikolaos Olympiou were informed that the manuscript was indeed moved from Mar Saba and it was Father Dourvas who removed the pages.31 Willy Rordorf spoke to another librarian, Father Aristarchos, in 1996 and was able to have the Voss volume produced, but the librarian did not know the whereabouts of the now lost manuscript.32 According to Father Dourvas, who was the Patriarchate’s librarian during that time, the manuscript and the Voss volume were kept as separate items. Color photographs were passed to Hedrick and Olympiou by Father Dourvas who no longer knows where the actual manuscript is, but suspects that it is still in the Patriarchate library somewhere.33 Before and since that time, numerous scholars have sought the manuscript, with no success, including James H. Charlesworth, James Edwards, Shaye Cohen, Guy Stroumsa, and John Dart.34 While the manuscript is now either in the Jerusalem Patriarchate library or is lost or destroyed, at present the only people who have reportedly seen the manuscript in person are Morton Smith in 1958, and David Flusser, Shlomo Pines, Archimandrite Meliton and Father Kallistos Dourvas in 1976. But it can now be confirmed that Quentin Quesnell saw the documents in June of 1983, making him the last known scholar to have seen the physical manuscript of the Letter to Theodore. Knowledge of Quesnell’s Trip to Jerusalem While Quesnell’s skepticism over the Mar Saba document was public knowledge, his journey to Jerusalem in 1983 was virtually unknown to the scholarly world. The first reference to Quesnell’s trip can be found in Adela Yarbro Collins’s 2007 Hermeneia commentary on the Gospel of Mark. She states: “In the early 1980’s, Quesnell was allowed to look at the two folios of the manuscripts. He also obtained permission from the Patriarchate to have color 31 32 33 34 Hedrick and Olympiou, “Secret Mark,” 8-9. See Jean-Daniel Kaestli, “Introduction de l’Évangile secret de Marc,” in Écrits apocryphes chrétiens, ed. François Bovon and Pierre Geoltrain, 2d ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1997), 1:59-60 n. 4. See Hedrick and Olympiou, “Secret Mark.” James H. Charlesworth, Authentic Apocrypha: False and Genuine Christian Apocrypha (North Richland Hills: Bibal Press, 1998), 30-32; James R. Edwards, “Appendix: The Secret Gospel of Mark,” in James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 510 n. 2; John Dart, Decoding Mark (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2003), 138-39. Also see Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 25. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 Quentin Quesnell ’ s Secret Mark Secret 363 photographs made of the folios by a firm in Jerusalem.”35 In correspondence with Collins on this subject she relays (to the best of her memory) that the information was given to her by Quesnell in the summer of 1983 during a conference at the Institute of Theology, a summer program of Princeton Theological Seminary. According to Collins, when it became time for her to work on an excursus of the Secret Gospel of Mark for the commentary in the Hermeneia series, she called Quesnell over the phone to verify the details of the story. Prior to 2007 no book directly or indirectly related to Secret Mark shows any knowledge of Quesnell’s trip. The most noteworthy example of this is Scott G. Brown’s Mark’s Other Gospel of 2005.36 Mention of Quesnell’s 1983 journey is absent in the works of Peter Jeffery and Stephen Carlson as well. After reading Collins’s commentary, Timo S. Paananen held a short interview with Quesnell on the subject in 2011, but Quesnell did not disclose any new information about the manuscript or his scholarly opinions on its presentation and condition. His responses to Paananen are particularly brief. For example, when asked, “Did you notice anything peculiar about the manuscript?” Quesnell answered, “Peculiar? Apart from the general peculiarity of the whole situation? No.”37 The only other reference post-2007 that takes note of this event is the volume edited by Tony Burke, which collects the proceedings from the 2011 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium dedicated to Secret Mark. Quesnell’s inspection of the manuscript is mentioned once with references to Collins’s commentary and the Paananen interview.38 From these few references, it appears that Quesnell’s inspection of the Mar Saba document in 1983 was not common knowledge within the academy (at least in print). All of this is remarkable because, despite the significance of this event, it has only been recorded in a few sources and only as a result of personal correspondence with Quesnell, or from Collins’s reference. Given Quesnell’s lack of details and supposed disinterest in the subject of Secret Mark later in life, one might assume that he did not think much of the manuscript upon inspection. Upon examining Quesnell’s comments relating to Smith and the manuscript, 35 36 37 38 Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary on the Gospel According to Mark, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 491. The reference cited by Collins for this information is listed as “personal communication”. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, ix-x. Timo S. Paananen, “A Short Interview with Quentin Quesnell,” Salainen evankelista [cited 19 Feb. 2015]. http://salainenevankelista.blogspot.com/2011/06/short-interviewwith-quentin-quesnell.html . See Burke, “Introduction,” Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery?: The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate, ed. Tony Burke (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2013), 10. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 364 Hüller and Gullotta however, this is not the case. What follows is a summary of Quesnell’s trip to Jerusalem and his experiences with the Mar Saba document as derived from his journal, notes, and letters. Quesnell in Jerusalem and the Mar Saba Document Wednesday, June 1st It is unknown how and when Quesnell learned the whereabouts of the Mar Saba document, but it is clear that he planned a trip to Jerusalem confident that it would be located in the Patriarchate’s library.39 Smith College funded his trip, and he arrived in Jerusalem on Wednesday, June 1, 1983.40 Upon arrival, Quesnell met with the Pontifical Institute’s Jerusalem branch’s director, William Joseph Dalton, to arrange his accommodation.41 Knowing the intention of Quesnell’s trip, Dalton promised to send a letter to the Patriarchate’s officials to help him gain their confidence.42 Later in the day, Quesnell was informed by the Pontifical Institute’s representatives that he should just “barge in” and “demand” access to the Patriarchate’s library and see the Mar Saba document.43 Thursday, June 2nd Quesnell arrived at the Patriarchate in the morning and was directed to see the librarian, Father Kallistos Dourvas. Dourvas instructed him to return on 39 40 41 42 43 It is difficult to understand how Quesnell managed to convince Smith College to trust that he would manage to see a manuscript which seemed to be off-limits to outsiders. Smith College has not released the original request for funding for the trip. But his confidence seems to leap off the first few pages of the diary. It seems to be a reasonable inference that he learned that it had been moved from Mar Saba to the Patriarchate’s library from the article by Smith published in 1982, although we cannot be sure. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 2 Folder 15, Smith College Archives. In a letter written presumably to Elena Bales, the Grants Officer, with whom he was previously corresponding on December 1, 1987 (same folder), he recalls: “In 1978 I reported that the ms. had been retrieved from Mar Saba and would henceforth be stored in the library of the Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem. In 1983 with the help of Smith College, I was able to go there to examine the manuscript.” It is difficult to know what Quesnell means by “reporting” the movement of the manuscript to the Jerusalem Patriarchate other than he made reference to it in an attempt for funding from Smith College in that year. It is unclear who Quesnell’s source of information was. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 8, Smith College Archives. Ibid. Ibid.: “Talked to M Arnand (Vatican representative for pilgrimages) he says just barge in on the Patriarchate and demand (ask) to ‘le secrétaire en chef.’ That’s the only way to get results from them.” Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 Quentin Quesnell ’ s Secret Mark Secret 365 Monday (June 6th) between 8:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., at which time the Mar Saba document would be made available to him.44 Dourvas also requested that no one else accompany Quesnell to inspect the manuscript and that Quesnell not remove it from the library. According to Quesnell, the Patriarchate’s officials “are not very keen on testing that would require the involvement of other persons.”45 In conversation with Dourvas, Quesnell recounts that “the librarian himself is quite convinced that the writing is old and was done in the late 18th c.”46 Father Dourvas went on to assure Quesnell that he would become convinced of its authenticity when he finally saw and held the manuscript in person. Dourvas also discussed with Quesnell the presence of numerous “heretics” over the centuries at Mar Saba, but he insisted that, to the best of his knowledge and experience with the books of Mar Saba, the manuscript did feature handwriting similar to other texts within the monastery.47 Dourvas reported that the manuscript is mentioned in one of the books at Mar Saba, as he remembered that a “monastic publication of some [monks] did report seeing” the text in the 16th or 17th century.48 On the subject of the document’s Clementine authenticity, Dourvas stated that he did not believe that it was written by Clement, but rather was a work of pseudepigrapha.49 Quesnell presented his ideas about the Letter to Theodore being used for anti-Christian purposes, but Dourvas was not convinced.50 The pair made plans to visit the Mar Saba monastery’s library and Dourvas confirmed that there are other 18th century notes written in the back of books which Quesnell would be able to view.51 Later on Quesnell looked up David Flusser (1917-2000) in a directory and met him at Hebrew University in the afternoon.52 It is noteworthy that Morton Smith and Helmut Koester were also in Jerusalem during this week. Hebrew University was hosting a lecture by Koester on Secret Mark, co-chaired by 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 Ibid. Quentin Quesnell papers, “Letter to his wife dated June 2,” Box 1 Folder 6, Smith College Archives. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 8, Smith College Archives. Ibid.: Dourvas says “there were heretics, heretical schools often at M[ar] S[aba] and this is fragment [sic] in part of a response to one of their books.” In other words, the fragment was written by monks in the name of Clement in the fifth or sixth century. Ibid.: “He does not think it is from S. Clement. He remembers someone noting in some [monastic] publication that some did report seeing this in the 16th-17th century.” See fn. 47. Ibid. Ibid.: “Asked if there are other books with 18th c. notes written in. He says no, not here; perhaps at Mar Saba. I could go and look.” Ibid.: “Called David Flusser. His name was in the book.” Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 366 Hüller and Gullotta Guy G. Stroumsa,53 coinciding with Smith and Koester’s filming for the documentary, Jesus the Evidence. Stroumsa writes: I met Smith a few times in the United States, but only once in Jerusalem. That was in the spring of [1983] … He was in town for a few days … The same week, Professor Helmut Koester, from Harvard University, was giving a lecture on the Secret Gospel of Mark at the Hebrew University. Professor Flusser invited Smith to lunch, together with Koester, before the latter’s lecture. Quentin Quesnell was also in town, and Flusser had also invited him to lunch. Smith, naturally, refused to have lunch with a man who had accused him of forgery. Quesnell never told Koester or Stroumsa the purpose of his visit to Jerusalem.54 On the same event, Koester reports: I gave a lecture at the Hebrew University about the Secret Gospel of Mark, was told by Professor David Flusser that I had been the victim of the intrigues of “that evil man”, was informed by an American colleague, who happened to be present, that Morton Smith had actually forged the document himself, then returned to the American Colony Hotel, where the first person I ran into was nobody else but Morton Smith himself. We had dinner together—most enjoyable, witty, sarcastic, licking our wounds and reassessing the evidence in view of the data, with good drinks and good wine. At this occasion, as well as in numerous other instances, I profited immensely from Morton’s unmatched learning, knowledge of sources, critical judgment, and helpful advice.55 53 54 55 Stroumsa dates the lecture given by Koester in the spring of 1982 in his article “Comments on Charles Hedrick’s Article: A Testimony.” However Koester and Smith were transported to Jerusalem in 1983 for the filming of the documentary, Jesus the Evidence. According to the producers of Jesus the Evidence, the documentary’s principal filming took place in Israel between May 31st and June 19th, 1983. They also report that Smith and Koester stayed at the American Colony, and this date and location matches with Koester’s testimony. Also, following personal correspondence, Stroumsa has since acknowledged that the year of Koester’s lecture on SMark was 1983. Stroumsa, “Comments on Charles Hedrick’s Article: A Testimony,” 147-53. Personal email correspondence with Stroumsa and Pantuck. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 Quentin Quesnell ’ s Secret Mark Secret 367 While it has not been possible to retrieve an exact date for this encounter and the lecture from Stroumsa or the archives at Hebrew University, Thursday, June 2nd seems the most likely date.56 From Quesnell’s writings it is clear that this was his first meeting with Flusser.57 During their meeting Quesnell and Flusser discussed all the possibilities for the origin of the Mar Saba manuscript. Quesnell writes that Flusser confirmed by “intuition” what he laid out in his own research, that Smith was indeed the forger behind the manuscript. Flusser agreed that Smith’s seeking 56 57 In a personal email Jean Claude Bragard, who reached out to David Rolfe and the Production Assistant at the time involved in the Jesus the Evidence production to get additional information, writes that all participants “would have stayed at the American Colony, and so would our contributors. We would have paid for their flights and for their accommodation for the duration of the filming—so a maximum of two or three nights.” Flusser and Quesnell had never met before (Box 1 Folder 8) and Quesnell reports only one visit to the Hebrew University. Koester remembers Quesnell being very quiet during the lunch owing to all the participants engaging in discussion in German. At one point, Koester remembers, Quesnell complained about being excluded from the discussion because of his inability to speak German, to which Flusser jokingly replied: “That’s your problem”. Stroumsa and Koester, when shown the evidence, acknowledged the 2nd as the likely date, although there are no records of the lecture in the archives at the Hebrew University. Michael Vinegrad, archivist at the Hebrew University, writes in a correspondence dated February 18th, 2015: “After not finding anything in our files (which mainly contain material received from the offices of the University’s President, Rector, Academic Secretary and Director-General) I forwarded your email to the Teaching Secretariat of the Humanities Faculty which contacted the Department of Comparative Religion; neither office had any course details.” Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 8, Smith College Archives. Quesnell learned that Flusser was one of the original Jewish professors who assisted Archimandrite Meliton in moving the manuscript in 1976. He writes: “I must find Flusser and Meliton.” Later that day he called David Flusser, whom apparently he had never met before, and comments on the encounter: “Exciting conversation with this extraordinarily learned man. By ‘intuition’ he perceived at once that the Clementine thing was a hoax or forgery.” In a letter to his wife Jean written the same day (Box 1 Folder 6) he adds: “But the really good news [today] was a long conversation with Prof. David Flusser of Hebrew U.—an enormously learned old man—Catholic [with later addition ‘NO’ circled in bold later added with a line as correction] colleague of Werblowsky (the guy in my group at the Moonie conference) and he Flusser is also absolutely convinced that Smith engineered the whole thing.” Apparently Quesnell was personally unfamiliar with Flusser as he did not know that he was Jewish. Koester noted that Smith detested Flusser. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 368 Hüller and Gullotta out experts to examine his discovery was suspicious given that he was a talented scholar.58 Smith’s alleged homosexuality came up in conversation. Flusser discussed various “psychological explanations” for why a gay man—if rejected by a Catholic woman who discovered that he is gay—would have resorted to forging a text like this.59 Quesnell, for his part, could not believe that Smith did not confess that he forged the text once his article was published, if only to raise methodological concerns.60 As he describes it: “My sincere expectation [was] that he would confess his hoax when I exposed it—confess that he had set a trap for NT scholars & laugh that so many had fallen into it & rejoice that at least one hadn’t. But instead, he didn’t and carried his indignation up & down the country.”61 In discussing his 1976 journey with Pines, Stroumsa, and Meliton, Flusser confirmed that there were other books at Mar Saba with similar writings in them.62 Flusser informed Quesnell of the details behind the moving of the document from Mar Saba to the Patriarchate a few years earlier. Flusser told Quesnell that “the library was a mess. They did not find the book. And then they did—in the middle of a pile of books carelessly thrown on the floor, all covered with dust.”63 The fact that Smith did not take the document or requested to have it removed for better preservation raised Quesnell’s doubts about Smith’s credentials as a scholar. As he ponders in his journal: “What kind of a scholar could have permitted this? Walked off, leaving his great discovery to such a fate?”64 Apparently the document was originally only loaned to the Patriarchate, the monastery clearly considering it their valuable property. A certain abbot named Seraphim only reluctantly gave it away. As Quesnell records it: “They were about to bring it back when Abbott Seraphim raised hell, said they had 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folders 6 and 8, Smith College Archives. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 8, Smith College Archives. Ibid.: “Then he (Flusser) concluded—what if Smith is himself a homosexual? And he knows a woman who almost married Smith, but whom Smith finally refused to marry on the grounds that he—then a Protestant—could not marry a Catholic. Was this a coverup? (All thru Flusser played Fr Brown looking for deeper psychological motivations).” Ibid. Ibid.: “[Flusser] says there are other books at Mar Saba with writing in them which could serve for comparison.” Ibid. Ibid. under entry June 3rd: “École Biblique—all day. Checked all indexes etc. for any recent references to this problem. Found a couple & copied the Dutch NTh & ThLZ pages summing up present state of problem (including my part in it).” Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 Quentin Quesnell ’ s Secret Mark Secret 369 to request it, & he would send it. They did & he did.” But Flusser was surprised to see that “it [the Mar Saba document] was still in Jerusalem—thought surely Seraphim would have demanded it back by now.”65 The two agreed to meet again on Saturday. Friday, June 3rd Quesnell spent the day at the École Biblique researching manuscripts.66 Saturday, June 4th Quesnell passed the morning at the École Biblique researching manuscripts.67 He met with Flusser again in the evening and they stayed together until midnight. Flusser promised to call Magen Broshi, Director of the Scrolls Museum.68 While Quesnell appears to have looked forward to his assistance in this endeavor, Flusser doubts that the Greek Orthodox monks will welcome a “Jew” handling their manuscripts.69 Sunday, June 5th Quesnell spent the day in his room studying Smith’s photos with a magnifying glass and spoke to Broshi who said that “Israel has no non-destructive technique” to study manuscripts. Broshi instead gave Quesnell the advice on how to use blown up photos.70 Monday, June 6th At 8:30 a.m. Quesnell saw the Mar Saba document and proceeded to describe the event as “a rather sensational day.”71 It took the librarians “only seconds to produce it,” and it was on a plastic reading stand roughly two feet in height.72 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 Ibid. Ibid. under entry for June 4th: “EB in the a.m.” and “Yadin”. Ibid. Ibid.: “Flusser says he’ll ask Magen Besky [Quesnell consistently misspells ‘Magen Broshi’ curator of the Shrine of the Book museum throughout] for help—Director of the Scrolls Museum. Broshi was contacted and has no recollection of the meeting, but is very old and frail. Ibid.: “But [Flusser] aware that Orthodox probably won’t want Jews in on this.” Ibid.: “Continued my private magnifying study of Smith’s photos, picking out suspicious spots. Talk to Magen Becky he says Israel has no non-destructive technique for what I want. Explains something of how to have blown ups done.” Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 6, Smith College Archives. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 1, Smith College Archives. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 370 Hüller and Gullotta According to Quesnell, he later thought the book itself was black.73 There was no agreement on how long he would be allowed to keep coming into the library.74 During the entire time he and Dourvas worked together, Quesnell never saw the library. The books were all stored elsewhere and were brought to Quesnell by Dourvas in his assigned work area.75 Quesnell examined the manuscript until 11:30 a.m., which was the daily limit at the Patriarchate.76 He comments that he was astonished to see the “practise” that went into the handwriting.77 He describes the manuscript as “two free sheets that they have removed from the printed volume they were a part of … kept in a plastic binder which you are asked not to open.”78 The first thing he looked at was the book itself, which they handed to him separately. He was not permitted to personally handle the Voss book but he was allowed to examine it under supervision.79 Quesnell told Dourvas that he wanted to see if it contained any notes, but the librarian told him that it did not. But Quesnell discovered that it did and concluded: “I don’t think the same person wrote both” the scribbles on page 11 and the manuscript at the back.80 The writings on page 11 were “too amateurish” for the person who wrote the manuscript at the back. Given Quesnell’s suspicion of Smith, he concluded that the forger “more probably would have hired a Greek” to complete the forgery.81 The three pages of the letter of Clement had to remain in the plastic bag in which they were preserved. Examining the manuscript with a magnifying glass, Quesnell notes that the ink never penetrated the page “not even where the ink of the [manuscript] is laid on heavily, as it is in a couple of places, is 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 Ibid.: The later handwriting is particularly cursive but we read: “I think the book itself was black. I recall thinking to [‘check’ crossed out] match the features of the book with this (?).” Ibid.: “There was no agreement how long I would be allowed to stay. Perhaps this (2 hrs?) This was my visit was my last? Kallistos had also talked with me about the pages & their contents.” Ibid.: “Mention I saw no staff except [illegible word] Kallistos who was very careful to stay in the same room with me (a kind of anteroom, porch or even garage (?)” [illegible words]. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 6, Smith College Archives: “I did get to see the manuscript at 8:30 and worked on it till 11:30 (their daily limit at the Patriarchate).” Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 8, Smith College Archives. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 6, Smith College Archives. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 2, Smith College Archives. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 6, Smith College Archives. Ibid. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 Quentin Quesnell ’ s Secret Mark Secret 371 there any notable penetration.” Additionally, there was “no spreading out of the letters from ink soaking in, as in all my other examples.” Quesnell comments that it is a “sharply black colored ink.” It is important to note that Quesnell acknowledges that he is “no expert” but proceeded through his investigation “just trying to remember what I read about forgeries in detective stories.”82 Owing to his familiarity with these books, he anticipated that “under magnification” he would find “the usual signs of someone trying to write in a style other than his own: breaks where there should be smooth loops linking the letters; wobbles at unusual & tricky places; and dots indicating the pen is resting while the writer is thinking where to move it next—dots at the beginning & end of words, syllables, letters … [a]nd finally changes in the way letters are made as the text goes on as if he’s learning on the job.”83 Quesnell added that usually in fictional stories there is “evidence that some letters are made with different motions of the hand in different places.” Applying this knowledge to his current situation, Quesnell expected that “under magnification, you can tell which direction the pen was moving when it wrote, whether an α was made ά or α etc. The differences indicate that the writer is thinking about what the result will look like and not about what he is writing.”84 In a separate page which has now been moved to another box in the collection (but which is clearly marked 6/6 and has the number 2 circle to indicate it was originally made on the same day), Quesnell states that “there is a note written on a separate slip”—written on top of the word “sheet” which is crossed out—“in the [manuscript] folder saying 1672.”85 This certainly intrigued Quesnell, given that Dourvas had been trying to persuade him that the manuscript was authentic. Quesnell wrote beside this comment another note in block letters with an arrow pointing to the 1672 “BY WHOM?” Yet Quesnell certainly knew “who” wrote the note—the authorities in the Patriarchate or Dourvas—in short, someone who had better access to information which wasn’t available to him at the present moment. He might have wondered whether it meant that someone in the Patriarchate knew an exact dating for the manuscript. Many thoughts must have been racing through Quesnell’s mind. 82 83 84 85 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 2, Smith College Archives. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 372 Hüller and Gullotta While Quesnell spent a great deal of time making notes on each ligature, perhaps the most interesting notes simply reflect what it must have been like to hold in his hand the very object he was so intent on proving a fake. He goes on to mistake a wormhole for “a Greek ligature written in ‘light brownish ink’ whose ink has penetrated the page in a way the ms has not.”86 He writes of this “mark”—“spreading is apparent, all over.” Realizing his mistake, Quesnell crossed out the entry and wrote “dope” beside the claim and “wormhole” in rather prominent letters. This error demonstrates that Quesnell did not have sufficient knowledge to determine whether or not the document was a forgery. It also shows that he let his expectation that it was a forgery cloud his judgment. Yet he did correct his notation, which shows that he was not totally hardened in this thinking. The fact that the ink of the manuscript did not “soak through” the page became an obsession of Quesnell’s.87 Apparently, these were the sort of things that revealed forgeries in the detective fiction of Dick Tracy. Thus he writes in the same entry: There is no soaking thru to be found on the other folio r[ecto] or v[erso]. Traces of [page] I can be seen on [page] II, but none of II on I. I shows thru esp. in the margin where several lines are longer than those of II. But the lines usually do not overlap vertically, there would be plenty of places to show them clearly. None would be remotely legible from the opposite side. These pages are all discolored at the outside edges, quite brown around three sides of I, II and at the top and bottom of III (side edge of III very wrinkled up, torn?) The tint of III is somewhat pale brownish but almost white in comparison with II and I. I, but not II also has several 86 87 Ibid. After Smith College rejected his proposal for a second visit to the Jerusalem Patriarchate Quesnell’s last known request for information related to the Mar Saba document is found in Box 1 Folder 8 a letter to Father J.J. Murphy-O’Connor dated October 3, 1994, requesting a new set of photographs be taken of books he had been studying at the École Biblique specifically for examples of ink soaking through the blank pages at the beginning and end of old books. For instance he asks for Murphy-O’Connor to arrange for Garo Nalbandian to take photos of “École Biblique #345.20. Isaac Vossius De LXX Interpret. Hagae Comitum.1661 ex typographia Adriani Vlacq”, and specifically the reverse side of the first page, “where almost all the letters have soaked through from the front side.” Another photo is requested for a book from the same period, “[t]he first right hand page: the one against which the cover presses which has been blotted from the writing on the cover” as well as “the reverse side of that same first right-hand page where some of the blotting has soaked through.” Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 Quentin Quesnell ’ s Secret Mark Secret 373 brownish spots at various places on the page, but they seem to bear no relation to the writing (i.e. are not the “aura” noted on the other samples at E[cole] B[iblique]). Only a carefully done color photo could present them accurately. They seem random, some smaller, some larger; & none have refined edges. Most of the same ones can be identified on II as well, but might not be discovered from II alone.88 Thus Quesnell would spend the rest of the morning examining each word on the written page looking for any sign which would confirm his belief that the text was forged. According to Quesnell’s diary there are dozens of Greek words identified as having potential signs of forgery, and he indicated these by writing short notes beside the words, like “strange”, “funny”, “suspicious”, and “overwritten”.89 It would seem that by the end of the day Quesnell was debating with himself what the evidence actually proved. “But!” he writes in bold letters at the top of the page, “if he is writing fast why does he use so many flourishes … why in a printed book, when there is plenty of paper of the many handwritten volumes in that time?”90 Apparently Dourvas suggested an explanation: “The handwritten volumes were public, whereas the printed Voss may have been [the author’s] private property.”91 Additionally we can assume that very close to the time when Quesnell was holding the manuscript, Smith and the Jesus the Evidence film crew called at Mar Saba. It is undoubtedly to this situation—Smith standing at the door of the monastery with a large entourage and camera crew asking for access to the library—that the contemporary librarian Father Aristarchos was referring when he reportedly said that “the whole affair of the ‘so-called’ discovery of the letter raised by Smith himself [was] in the purpose to create noise around his name and thus become known.”92 The sequence was ultimately filmed in London with a mock manuscript made for TV.93 While Smith knew where the 88 89 90 91 92 93 Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 2 Folder 21, Smith College Archives. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 21, Smith College Archives. Ibid. Ibid. Agamemnon Tselikas, “Handwriting Analysis Report: Did Morton Smith Forge ‘Secret Mark’?” Bible History Daily, 14 October 2009, section “The Presence of Morton Smith”: http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-interpretation/agamem non-tselikas-handwriting-analysis-report/ Correspondence with Jean Claude Bragard, February 23, 2015: “The drama shoot with the mss would have been done in our studios at London Weekend Television. All we can recall about our Israeli fixer is that his first name was Danny, and that he would have been the Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 374 Hüller and Gullotta manuscript had been moved, he did not know that Quesnell had been given access to it. Later in the day, Quesnell stayed at the École Biblique comparing various manuscripts to his notes on the Mar Saba text.94 Tuesday, June 7th and Wednesday, June 8th Quesnell spent more time comparing manuscripts from the period to the Mar Saba text and acknowledges that “some [ligatures are] quite close to” those of the Letter to Theodore.95 Quesnell listed these manuscripts in a letter to Dourvas dated June 20, 1983, in Box 1 Folder 8 of the collection, requesting that they be photographed and mailed to him later. The photographs and slides are still preserved in the collection at Smith College. The manuscripts were presumably first shown to Quesnell on this day because a few notes scribbled with the heading “Tuesday” appear in Box 2 Folder 21. They are a result of Dourvas trying to demonstrate how closely the handwriting of the Clementine letter resembles those at Mar Saba. For instance, with one text, Dourvas “says that this is very close to the ms …” Quesnell acknowledges that “many similarities” exist with our text, with regards to another text brought forward by Dourvas; “pages 62-63 are very like” ms 76.96 Aside from Quesnell acknowledging their similarities, he made detailed notes in order to instruct Dourvas which ones to arrange a photographer to take pictures of and mail to him later. Dourvas continued to present manuscripts to Quesnell in order to convince him of the Letter to Theodore’s authenticity. With respect to manuscript 440, Quesnell records: Dourvas “says [it] is very similar” to the Clementine epistle.97 This is the period in Quesnell’s journal which marks a turning point within his confidence. Quesnell notes that attempting to demonstrate that the Letter to Theodore was a forgery through a comparative analysis with other 18th century manuscripts at the monastery “wasn’t quite as easy as I thought the other day.”98 Dourvas brought him “loads of other writings from Mar Saba itself from the 18th century” and Quesnell has to acknowledge in his diary that “some” were 94 95 96 97 98 one to negotiate access to film in Mar Saba. We were completely unaware at the time of anything going on behind the scenes in regards of the secret gospel.” Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 8, Smith College Archives. Ibid. Quesnell cites the “ms” as “MS 76” even though it was originally cataloged as “MS 65”. It is unclear whether this is a mistake or if the manuscript was given a new catalog number by the Jerusalem Patriarchate once it was retrieved from Mar Saba or once the manuscript was separated from the main book. Ibid. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 6, Smith College Archives. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 Quentin Quesnell ’ s Secret Mark Secret 375 “quite close to Smith 76”. He adds that “many” of these new manuscripts also “have breaks and squiggles and perhaps hesitations” like Smith’s discovery.99 He admits that “they’re not all forgeries” and that “it’s not as easy to prove as if they just had none at all. And some of them don’t seem to have soaked into the pages very much either.” As a result of this apparent difficulty Quesnell seems to admit defeat—“so experts are going to have to be consulted.”100 Quesnell reports that Dourvas “shudders” every time he suggested bringing more people to help with the project.101 Nevertheless, Quesnell believed that they were “getting to be pretty good friends.”102 They planned a trip to the Mar Saba monastery where “[Dourvas] is convinced there is another secret door there which will lead to a cache of manuscripts like the door & [manuscript] they found in 1887.”103 He also described the study room where he worked: “I enter a tiny dark office next to a tiny dark study-room. He occupies the office, I the study-room; we are the only two. But just outside is a small courtyard, about 20 feet in each direction. And out there just a few feet from us, Greek Orthodox monks and workmen (and women occasionally) shout at each other at the top of their lungs.” He also notes that Dourvas “was very careful to stay in the same room with me.”104 Thursday, June 9th Quesnell practised the ligatures associated with the text eventually making a “replica”.105 June 10th—17th At this point, given the lack of information provided by Quesnell within the diary, it becomes difficult to know what occurred from this date onwards. While we cannot be certain, it seems that Quesnell lost his confidence that he could easily prove that the text was forged by Smith. The journal entry coincides with the exasperated recognition that “this wasn’t going to be easy,” marking a divorce from the sureness displayed in earlier parts of the journal. 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. A note written by Quesnell sometime after 1983, while organizing his files on what is now Folder 21 Box 1, declares: “I wrote this page in Jerusalem after 2-3 days study of the original.” He first saw the ms. on Monday June 6th. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 376 Hüller and Gullotta It is from his last letter to his wife Jean, dated June 8th, that most of the melancholic reflections on the impossibility of the task are gleaned. He specifically referenced visiting Mar Saba during one of his phone interviews, so the promise of a visit mentioned in his June 8th letter to Jean was almost certainly realized. He also mentioned that it was “impossible” that Smith could have smuggled a book from outside of the monastery into the library owing to the tight scrutiny of his overseers.106 Sometime during the week before his departure, Quesnell visited with the police and learned that they had the ability to test the manuscript, but it would destroy a small piece of the manuscript.107 The Police Chief said that he needed authorization from the owner of the property to take it away from them for testing. Permission was needed unless a crime had been committed (not forgery, unless for purposes of fraud involving money). In some phone interviews Quesnell indicated that the police visit occurred while the photographer was being secured.108 June 18th—19th Quesnell reports that he did not get an answer about photographing the manuscript “until the second last day.”109 “One of the hardest moments” of his trip was arranging for the photos. “The librarian Kallistos Dourvas” went out with him into Jerusalem and “did all the bargaining with the photograph[er].” Dourvas put him in touch with Garo Nalbandian, an Armenian photographer and owner of Photo Garo.110 June 20th and Beyond Quesnell left a letter with Dourvas thanking him for his work with the text “these last three weeks.”111 In terms of the photographs, he asked for multiple photos of the three pages of the Clementine letter be taken. His specific requests included: close-ups of the individual letters, photos of page 11, an image of the spine of the book “focusing on the Latin letters visible there,” and 106 107 108 109 110 111 A phone conversation with Quesnell before his death, also corroborated by Agamemnon Tselikas (who has an office in the Patriarchate), confirmed that since 1923 no one was allowed “to have access to the books and if he had, he was under the constant supervision (as now). No one could easily use an old book to write on white leaves [in] such a text” at the monastery. Tselikas, “Handwriting Analysis Report.” Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 2, Smith College Archives. Phone conversations with Quesnell before his death. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 2, Smith College Archives. Ibid. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 1 Folder 8, Smith College Archives. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 Quentin Quesnell ’ s Secret Mark Secret 377 photos of a number of the manuscripts that Dourvas brought him after June 8th. He left $200 to take care of the details.112 Dourvas would later send the photographs to Quesnell in September of the same year, with a note apologizing for his tardiness.113 Later, in 1988, Quesnell applied for funding for a second trip to Jerusalem, but was not approved. In his draft to request the funding, he writes: “My set of photographs is the only one that exists. I now wish to go on to the next step: an analysis of the photographs for signs of a contemporary forger imitating an eighteenth-century cursive hand … I am requesting funds for the enlarged photocopies of some of my slides and negatives … I am working with the Development Offi[c]e in seeking outside funds to find and employ persons skilled in this kind of detective work … regularly and professionally— e.g. in the FBI.”114 This demonstrates that while Quesnell had given up on his idea that the task was easy, he remained certain that further testing would vindicate him. Conclusion Smith’s and Quesnell’s different experiences with the same manuscript provide an excellent case on how scholars grapple with the handling of ancient artifacts, academic ethics, and publishing practices. This is particularly important as Smith believed that the Letter to Theodore remained in the Mar Saba library for an extended period of time until he learned of its whereabouts from Thomas Talley.115 Given that Smith passed away in 1991, and no other photos of the Letter to Theodore would surface until the 2000 publication by Hedrick and Olympiou (which were the same photos requested by Quesnell), Quesnell’s possession of additional and more detailed photographs should give us pause. Because of the time and energy Quesnell put into traveling to Jerusalem, studying the manuscript, and attempting to replicate its handwriting for analysis, 112 113 114 115 Ibid. Ibid. Quentin Quesnell papers, Box 2 Folder 15, Smith College Archives. “Fr. Talley reports that he asked about the manuscript of the letter of Clement when he was in Jerusalem in January 1980. The Archimandrite Melito told him that he had himself brought it from Mar Saba to the Patriarchal Library. Fr. Kallistos, the librarian there, said that it had been received, but it had been taken out of the volume of Ignatius, was being studied, and was not available for inspection.” See Morton Smith, “Clement of Alexandria and Secret Mark: The Score at the End of the First Decade,” HTR 75.4 (1982), 458-59. Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378 378 Hüller and Gullotta two questions emerge: why did Quesnell not share this experience and his research, and was he obliged to do so? While Quesnell’s choices remain a mystery, in looking at his determination during his inspection of the document, it is most likely that he simply lacked the funds and the resources to do further and more detailed research. It seems that Quesnell never waived in his belief that Smith was behind the Letter to Theodore but knew that proving such a claim was impossible without more solid evidence. Despite the setbacks, the alternative theories, and the input offered by others, Quesnell remained confident that the Letter to Theodore was a fake and Smith was the forger despite that he died denying he was. While these questions remain, because of this discovery from Quesnell’s archives, a few, but significant, details can be gleaned. Quesnell’s witness to the Mar Saba manuscript in 1983 provides us with new details about the document’s condition and appearance, and photographs of the Voss edition from which the Letter to Theodore was discovered can now be accessed and studied by scholars. Quesnell’s personal experience also adds important details about the manuscript’s life in the Jerusalem Patriarchate and its reception from multiple perspectives. All of this information should be vital to scholars interested in assessing Secret Mark’s authenticity or inauthenticity and learning more about the life of this enigmatic document. Isaac Voss’s Epistolae geniunae S. Ignatii martyris (1646) from the Mar Saba Monastery Vigiliae christianae 71 (2017) 353-378