The Hidden Wisdom of God and the Mystery of the Kingdom of God
The Exoteric Content of the Kingdom Mystery
In Mark’s Gospel, the mystery of the kingdom of God is never explicitly defined. Instead, Jesus’ use of parables serves to reveal deeper meanings to those willing to seek them. This is established early in Mark 4, where Jesus explains the purpose of parables to his disciples: “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven” (Mark 4:11-12). This theme is echoed throughout Mark, highlighting the disciples’ initial blindness to Jesus’ true identity and mission, a blindness that mirrors the spiritual immaturity Paul addresses in his letters.
The Conflict Between Divine and Human Wisdom
Both Mark and Paul contrast divine wisdom with human wisdom. This is vividly illustrated in Mark’s Gospel through the disciples’ misunderstandings of Jesus’ predictions of his passion and resurrection. For instance, when Peter rebukes Jesus for predicting his suffering, Jesus responds sharply, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Mark 8:33). This rebuke underscores the clash between human expectations of a triumphant messiah and the divine plan of a suffering savior.
Similarly, Paul contrasts the wisdom of God with human wisdom in 1 Corinthians. He describes the message of the cross as “folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). Paul’s assertion that God’s power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9) echoes Jesus’ teaching that true greatness comes through servitude and self-sacrifice.
The Way of the Cross
Jesus’ teachings on discipleship in Mark further illustrate the divine inversion of worldly values. After the disciples argue about who among them is the greatest, Jesus teaches, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). He then uses a child to illustrate this point, emphasizing humility and servitude over status and power.
This theme of servitude and self-sacrifice is reiterated in the final cycle of discipleship teaching in Mark 10, where Jesus explains, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:42-45).
Paul mirrors this teaching in his writings. He describes himself and his fellow apostles as “last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world... We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute” (1 Corinthians 4:9-10). This self-description underscores the paradox of divine wisdom: true power and glory are found in humility and weakness.
The Esoteric Teachings and Spiritual Maturity
Both Paul and Mark reserve their esoteric teachings for a select group capable of understanding the deeper spiritual truths. For Mark, this involves recognizing the hidden meanings in Jesus’ actions and words, which are essential for salvation. This recognition often requires discerning the scriptural allusions and their Christological implications.
For Paul, the mysteries are truths about Christ hidden within the Scriptures, revealed through the Spirit. He writes, “These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10). Paul’s emphasis on spiritual revelation aligns with Mark’s depiction of divine illumination, where hidden things come to light through God’s activity (Mark 4:21-25).
Transformation Through the Cross
The heart of Paul’s hidden wisdom is the transformative process of becoming conformed to the image of the risen Christ through suffering and death. This transformation is a present reality, as believers are gradually being changed into Christ’s likeness, from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18). Paul’s teaching that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18) underscores the eschatological hope that sustains believers through their trials.
In Mark, the disciples’ journey with Jesus toward Jerusalem and the cross serves as a metaphor for this transformation. Their gradual enlightenment, symbolized by the healing of the blind man in Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26) and Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52), represents the process of spiritual awakening and understanding.
Esoteric Dimensions in Mark’s Gospel
Is there a deeper esoteric dimension in Mark’s mystery of the kingdom of God, similar to Paul’s esoteric wisdom? The canonical Gospel of Mark does not provide enough information to clearly understand how the other narratives connected to this theme, such as the parables of the seed and the stories of the sea and miraculous feeding, relate to it. However, if we consider the mystical Gospel of Mark, the situation changes. Its purpose, as best determined from the Letter to Theodore and the two excerpts of the gospel contained within it, was to help advanced readers gain a more profound esoteric understanding of the theology of the canonical gospel. It does this not by explicitly revealing secret teachings but in the same indirect way that the canonical gospel of Mark imparts the exoteric content of the kingdom’s mystery, using the same Markan literary techniques such as intercalation, verbal echoes, and paired stories.
The phrase “the mystery of the kingdom of God” appears at least once in this longer version of Mark’s gospel, but again nothing explicit is said about its content. According to the Letter to Theodore, Mark adds to his gospel, after the statement “And they were on the road going up to Jerusalem” and the subsequent passion prediction, the following account:
“And they come to Bethany. And there was a certain woman whose brother had died. And coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and said to him, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me.’ But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was. And immediately a great cry was heard from the tomb. And approaching, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb, and immediately going in where the young man was, he stretched out his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the young man, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out from the tomb, they went into the house of the young man, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do; and in the evening the young man comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body, and he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God.”
The story continues with a return to the other side of the Jordan. Then, after the phrase “And they came to Jericho” in Mark 10:46, the text adds:
“And there was the sister of the young man whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome, and Jesus did not receive them.”
In its current form, the story raises numerous questions. Why do the disciples rebuke the woman? What angers Jesus? Whose is the voice crying from the tomb? Why does Jesus stay at the young man’s house for a week? What does Jesus command him to do after six days? What is the significance of the linen cloth? What is the mystery? What do the women want from Jesus the next day? Why is Salome among them? And why does Jesus not receive them? We see an event unfolding, but we have no access to the characters’ thoughts and motivations, and the narrator provides no explanation of what exactly happens inside the house between Jesus and the young man. How does this story develop the mystery of the kingdom of God? Apparently, it does so significantly, but entirely implicitly.
First, the instruction occurs privately inside a house. Elsewhere in Mark, when such private teaching episodes occur, the subject matter is provided by a preceding public event. Thus, the reader can assume that the mystery has something to do with the miracle the young man received—his resurrection from death—described as evidence of Jesus’ power to defeat death. The young man’s linen cloth has a singular parallel in the rest of the gospel: the narrative of Jesus’ burial in a similar tomb, when Joseph of Arimathea buys a linen cloth to wrap Jesus before placing him in the tomb (Mark 15:46). In the mystical gospel, these two evocative narratives function as a pair of stories framing the Jerusalem section of the gospel, amplifying an existing inclusio created by the image of Jesus walking ahead of his astonished followers (Mark 10:32 and 16:7-8). In fact, at the end of the story, the same unnamed young man Jesus resurrected appears inside Jesus’ tomb, again described by what he is wearing (peribeblēmenon). The significance of the young man’s linen cloth should thus become evident to a reader who reflects on the story long enough: it is the shroud of his own burial, which Jesus instructed him to put back on.
What Does Jesus Teach the Young Man?
Once again, there are various indirect indications. By adding to Mark 10:46 an addendum about the sister, the mother of the young man, and Salome, the author of the mystical gospel has “sandwiched” within this story the episode of 10:35-45, where James and John try to convince Jesus to let them sit at his right and left when he enters his glory, and the ten react with indignation. Mark liked to place one story within another to imply that the intercalated stories are mutually interpretive. In this case, Jesus’ response to the sons of Zebedee provides a clue to what he taught the young man: “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (Mark 10:38). The imagery is drawn from Christian baptism and the Eucharist, but in this context, what Jesus asks them is if they are willing to participate in his sufferings and death. The brothers assure him they are (10:38-39), but when the time comes for Jesus to accept his cup in Gethsemane (14:36), they flee with the other disciples (14:50). It is here that the young man, again dressed only in his linen cloth, returns to the narrative, trying, unsuccessfully, to follow Jesus (14:51-52). In doing so, he attempts to fulfill the main teaching of the discipleship section: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (8:34-35). He does this symbolically, being dressed for death in his own burial shroud. This is something only a reader of the mystical gospel could understand.
The Esoteric Nature of the Kingdom Mystery
What, then, is the esoteric way the kingdom of God is depicted in the mystical gospel? When I wrote my doctoral dissertation, I summarized this teaching as “the way to life through death.” In the mystical gospel, the young man essentially becomes the ideal disciple undergoing initiation into this mystery, receiving Jesus’ esoteric teachings and then trying to follow them. This becomes clearer when considering how the author links the young man’s private instruction on the mystery of the kingdom of God with the Transfiguration account. Both episodes begin with the words “And after six days” (καὶ μετὰ ἡμέρας ἕξ), drawing the reader’s attention to a change in a character’s clothing. For the young man, the change of dress symbolizes his readiness to accept death (Jesus’ cup and baptism), while for Jesus, it represents his future transformation into the risen state.
The intercalated narrative involving James and John alludes to the Transfiguration in the last words of their request: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” This glory is what James and John privately witnessed with Peter on the mountain (Mark 9:2-3). They desire to be “glorified with him,” as Paul says in Romans 8:17. The transformation of Jesus into a glorified state is essential in both the intercalated pericope and the Transfiguration account, so it must be an element of what Jesus teaches the young man about his rising from the dead. The young man’s clothing and the private, nocturnal context evoke initiation into the mystery, suggesting a transformative epiphany and insight. Such initiations function as rites of passage, marking a change from one ontological state to that of the saved. Thus, through a change of dress, both Jesus and the young man are depicted as undergoing ontological transformations, which become effective for both at the end of the gospel when the young man appears in Jesus’ tomb, dressed in a white robe (στολή), the color of Jesus’ garments (ἱμάτιον) on the mountain.
This blog post is based on content from Scott Brown's paper, L'esoterismo in Paolo: La sapienza nascosta di 1 Cor 2,6-3,4.
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