Saturday Book Review: Jeremy Bouma

This review is by Jeremy Bouma, who blogs at Novus Lumen, and this review is of Thomas Oden, The African Memory of Mark: Reassessing Early Church Tradition.

The African Memory of Mark: Reassessing Early Church Tradition by Thomas Oden is an epic tale that challenges the Western understanding of one of the most important figures in the Church: the writer of the Gospel of Mark and founder of African Christianity, John Mark. For 2,000 years, Christian memory and scholarship and exegesis from the Nile Valley, Libya, Ethiopia and the Maghreb have remembered Mark as the apostle who was born in and later returned to Africa, bearing the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ.They have remembered Mark as “the son of Libya, the first Christian martyr in Africa, and as the apostolic father of every believing Christian in Africa, then and now.” (232)

Western tradition, however, holds the African memory of Mark as a mere legend (233), as unreliable hagiographical oral tradition “received with a yawn” (222). As the Western tradition holds, which is what I was taught in my NT2 Gospels class, Mark was Palestinian in origin—born, raised, lived, and died. The African memory is very different, however, and this book sets out to “de-mythologize” the Western myth construct.

This memory contends a boy was born to a Jewish family—that was part of the diaspora living there since fleeing their harsh lives during the time of the Maccabees—living in Cyrene, Libya. They were of the tribe of Levi and that boy was John Mark, the later gospel writer. This memory contends this boy and his family were forced to move from Africa to Palestine, where young man Mark and his mother joined the followers of Jesus. And this memory contends this boy who grew up in Africa was the first one to take the gospel of Jesus back to Africa. (21-22)

Oden contends, “Those who look at the world only through modern Euro-American eyeshades will easily bypass and miss Mark’s African identity.” (31) This Euro-American centric interpretation of the early church is just was is confronted in this book, which sets out to reassess the value of the tradition surrounding Mark as gospel writer, interpreter of Peter and evangelist to Africa. (14) Why is such a reassessment necessary? As Oden argues, “Because it has not been told in the west…The story has hardly been factored in, even modestly, in the current Euro-American literature concerning either Mark or Africa.” (53) A stronger contention is this: “The historical critical questions surrounding Mark, even if urbane and fascinating, will not be complete if they do not grasp the primal story itself. It will be seen only from a Western evidentiary point of view, not from an African point of view as a story of a saint.” (53) Having read through Oden’s striking, compelling read, I wholeheartedly agree!

Just what is meant by “African memory?” As Oden defines it, “The African memory is the characteristic way of looking at history from within the special experience and outlook of the continent of Africa.” (28) Memory refers to a 2,000 year history of a way of remembering. To qualify as such a memory an event must have 5 characteristics:

•the event must be commonly remembered on the continent of Africa.
•the event is remembered in the same or similar way.
•consent to the event is uncoerced.
•the event has been remembered over many generations in Africa.
•the narrative has been retold in many indigenous languages of Africa.

In the case of the identity, birth, life and death of Mark as an African memory, it is well known throughout Africa, similarly remembered, has garnered full and free voluntary consent to the memory, has existed in memory for nearly 2,000 years (even 6 centuries prior to Islam), and has been remembered in virtually all of the major indigenous languages to Africa. In other words: the tale of African Mark isn’t merely myth, but deeply embedded memory in the fabric of the Church of Africa itself.

The sources of this identity is apparently wide and deep, including: Coptic liturgies, especially its synaxaries (accounts of martyrs), which have appeared in languages of both upper and lower Egypt, Coptic, Ge’ez, Amharic, later Arabic, and other languages; the primitive text of Martyrium Marci, a 2nd to 4th century document that contains the “acts of Mark,” the core of which is found in pre-Nicene Orthodox synaxaries; an important History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria written by the scholar-bishop Sewirus Ibn Al-Muqaffa, which was a catalogue of extant (still surviving) sources from a variety of ancient accounts that existed in the 10th century, including pre-Eusebian documents, sources that we do not have now.

Historically, the picture becomes a bit clearer still, though it was attacked by the modern academy. The original picture-memory of African Mark was severely distorted and darkened with Adolf von Harnack and Walter Bauer. Harnack dismissed the ecumenical consensus that existed prior to Eusebius as worthless hagiography: “The worthless character of this history is now recognized…Whatever item from the apocryphal Acts, the local and provincial legends of the church, the episcopal lists, and the Acts of the martyrs, has not been inserted or noticed in these pages, has been deliberately omitted as useless.” (183-184) Bauer followed suit and so did most of the Western academy.

Oden makes a compelling case that our African memory of Mark was well intact and preserved early on, well before even Eusebius, including: John the Elder, Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria, one of the strongest source who testifies to the tradition before 200 AD that Mark was the first apostle to be sent to Egypt and established churches in Alexandria (193) Eusebius—the most widely trusted early historian of Christianity of the time of Constantine—is another strong source who testified that Mark preached in Egypt, the first apostle to do so; wrote his gospel before his mission to Africa, likely in Rome; and was the first to organize churches in Alexandria. (209) As Oden writes, “Eusebius ascribed the beginning of Christianity in Africa to Mark.” (209) I think the case has been made.

While I’ve never given thought to the story behind Mark the gospel writer—falling victim to typical Euro-American retellings of Mark’s story and never even knowing of an alternative—I was intrigued and, at the end, grateful for Oden’s work in recapturing the African memory of Mark, one that’s been lost and tossed by the Western academia. It is commonly believed by such Westerners that there were no Christians in Egypt until the 2nd century and Libia before the 3rd. (245) Furthermore, the martyrdom memory of Mark is thought to have been invented by 4th century Alexandria to bolster the shaky church. (235)

Oden seems to think and believe otherwise, and so does Africa.

While Oden does to some extent grant the common objection that holding to the African memory “requires many hypotheticals to elicit a clear judgment,” (253) there is still much evidence to suggest the memory isn’t false and certainly enough plausibility to require active engagement, rather than neglect or simple dismissal. After reading this book I tend to agree. I agree with Oden’s final assessment that treating 2,000 years of testimony and tradition as myth is downright bad historical method. (256) And reducing the African memory to a hypothetical “invention” “puts in bold display the temptations of the hermeneutics of suspicion.” This suspicion seems to be especially acute whenever non-Western ideas and sensibilities crop up within the church, which I believe this suppression of the African memory illustrates.

I believe Oden has done a good service to the academy for bringing to the light of day the living, real memory of Africa regarding who appears to be the founding apostle of African Christianity. The arguments were clear, compelling, and convincing, though foreign. While the evidence does seem like a strand of popcorn Christmas garland, the kernels do seem to add up. I only wish Oden would have contrasted his evidence more with his detractors and the prevailing attitude regarding Mark and the African memory. There were times when I thought, “OK this seems right, but why care?” I think providing more background to the African memory issue—in terms of the prevailing Western view; how the break occurred from the African memory; and the arguments made by the Euro-American academy against the African memory—would have provided a more concrete answer to the “why care” question, while also making the argument even stronger.
Nonetheless, Oden’s effort with this book to counter the Euro-American centricity of Christianity by recapturing a very important part of our history—the African memory of Mark—is much appreciated, both as a historic theologian and as a Western Christian. We’ve forgotten how and where and who our 21st century faith originated, and it’s a book like The African Memory of Mark that will go a long way in helping the 21st century Church rediscover the ancient personal roots to our contemporary faith. In fact, I am grateful for the host of books that have and will be coming from Oden and his colleagues who have launched the Center for Early African Christianity at Eastern University. If this book is any indication of what is to come, I’m excited and grateful!