Kata Markon

["Dennis MacDonald" <dmacdon AT cst.edu>]

I've responded to some of these concerns in another message. Let me comment 
on Mark and education. I wish I could direct you to an article by Ron Hock 
on Homer in education that demonstrates how thoroughly ancient Greek and 
Latin education was suffused with Homer. It will be published this spring 
in a volume I edited entitled Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and 
Christianity. Students did not encounter Homeric epic only in advanced 
studies: they encountered the epics immediately. Let me quote a 
contemporary of Mark: (Ps.-Heraclitus Quaestiones Homericae 1.5-6) "From 
the earliest age, children beginning their studies are nursed on Homer's 
teaching. One might say that while we were still in swathing  bands we 
sucked from his epics as from fresh mild. He assists the beginner and later 
the adult in his prime. In no stage of life, from boyhood to old age, do we 
ever cease to drink from him." Physical remains of ancient educational 
exercises amply demonstrate this (contra a claim made by a review of my 
book by Douglas Geyer, to which I soon will respond). I think it nearly 
impossible to overestimate the significance of Homer on ancient letters; 
and the ancients themselves recognized it.
Dennis MacDonald

-----Original Message-----
From:   L. J. Swain [SMTP:l9swain AT wmich.edu]
Sent:   Monday, January 29, 2001 10:28 PM
To:     Kata Markon
Subject:        [gmark] Re: Mark and Homer



Dennis Ronald MacDonald wrote:

> Homer was the basis of ancient education. Mark did not have to do 
advanced
> studies to have been exposed to mimesis of the epics. In fact, paraphrase
> of the epics would have taken place early in one's studies.

Possible, but is it probable?  That is to say, the fact that Mark could 
write,
and even compose and read, does not automatically lead us to the conclusion 
that
he had an education which included the classics.  In fact, (and I tremble 
as I
say this for 2 of the 5 men I hold in the highest esteem on the planet seem 
to
disagree with me) Mark's Greek, even if more reflective of his sources than 
his
own skill, nonetheless points to an unfamiliarity with the epics and other
literature.  We must also remember that the ability to read and write were 
viewed
as skills to be mastered, not necessarily as the first step in everyone's
education.  Thus, Mark's ability to read and write is not a clue to his 
knowledge
of Homer or Virgil, his usage however would be, and I don't detect anything 
in
his usage that would indicate such intimacy with the classics.

> Some have said that Mark's "flags" to the epic are weak. I say that, too,
> but they are even weaker for us insofar as we know the epics so poorly. 
We
> should expect that ancient readers would have caught allusions that 
escape
> nearly all of us.
>

This assumes that they exist.  But further, while the point is well taken, 
not
all of us know the epics so poorly, some of us teach them and have read 
them a
few times.  If they did catch the allusions, I would have expected some 
sort of
comment from other writers, but this is exactly what we don't find.

> What is most important for my argument is the bulk of parallels. I agree
> that some of the parallels are faint; they might be products of my
> imagination, but surely not all of them are. Furthermore, one cannot find
> the bulk of such parallels elsewhere, not even in the LXX. Dennis
> MacDonald
>

But again this assumes that the parallels are valid, if you'll pardon me 
saying
so.  Let's take the case of Mark 6 and John the Baptist: To my mind the
differences between the two tales  seem to me to show that if Mark is 
indeed
using Homeric structure, that he used it so badly as to be unrecognizable. 
 And
I'm not convinced by the parllels:  let's take the dinnerware parallel with
heads.  In the Clytemnestra case, the scene is active, violent, she wields 
the
axe cutting Agamemnon's head off and it falls amok among the scattered 
dishes of
the feast.  But the scene in Mark is utterly different.  The feast carries 
on,
there is no on scene violence, and a woman certainly does not wield the 
axe.
John is beheaded by a soldier off stage and his head brought on a platter 
BY
REQUEST.  So sure, we have two apparent parallels, a woman protaganist and
beheadings, but next to those two parallels we have a fistful of 
differences that
seem to me to negate any possible parallel.  Perhaps I've missed something.

So, I appreciate your call for literary antecedents, and I appreciate your
comments, but at least in this pericope, I'm unconvinced.

With Respects,

Larry Swain


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