Messianic Secret - Wrede's Theory

Wrede's Theory

Wrede proposed that the author of Mark invented the notion of secrecy to reduce the tension between early Christian beliefs about Jesus being the Messiah, and the non-Messianic nature of his ministry. However, Wrede's notion of secrecy did not simply rely on the commands of Jesus but also involved the "Markan parable theory" of why Jesus spoke in parables.

Wrede recognized the inherent inter-relationship of his approach with the hypothesis of Markan priority – namely that Mark was written first and influenced the other Gospels. However, after re-examining his initial theory, Wrede suggested that his theory would work best if the Markan priority hypothesis turned out to be false and wrote: "it would be 'most highly desirable' if such a gospel as Mark were not the oldest gospel". Yet, the followers of the Messianic Secret hypothesis were later forced to assume Markan priority – an issue that has resulted in various forms of criticism by other scholars.