3

Carpocratianism in the Epistle to Theodore

Introduction

The Epistle to Theodore (hereafter EpThdr) contains two excerpts from a supposedly ancient document that I will call Mystic Mark.¹ The authorship of EpThdr has long been disputed.² The attributed author is Clement of Alexandria. Nevertheless, a significant number of scholars suspect a forgery, usually perpetrated by Morton Smith, who by his own report discovered the letter in the monastery of Mar Saba, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Jerusalem. In all fairness, however, any number of writers between the third and twentieth centuries could have been responsible for the letter. (A recent author, for instance, argues that Origen composed it.³) Some scholars reject EpThdr as a forgery, wishing to lay the matter “beyond suspicion.”⁴ Other scholars defend the authenticity of EpThdr, with criticisms against the forgery hypotheses.⁵ Still other scholars accept Mystic Mark, at least tentatively, and engage it in their scholarship.⁶ Most scholars, it seems, remain uncertain, preferring not to work with EpThdr or Mystic Mark until these disputes are resolved.⁷

In this kind of debate, it is insufficient to cite only the arguments of a single side. There are preconceptual biases leading both sides to accept or reject new and noncanonical literature such as EpThdr. It is important to attempt, at least, a neutral approach. If the letter is genuine, it has significant value for reconstructing Carpocratian Christianity in the second century.

The letter was written on the originally blank end pages of a book by Isaac Voss on the genuine epistles of Ignatius (Epistolae genuinae S. Ignatii Martyris, 1646). Smith cataloged this book in the Tower library at Mar Saba in 1958. After the volume was moved to the Patriarchate library in Jerusalem (1976), its end pages were removed. These end pages are now missing, perhaps not by accident. All we possess are photographs, the best ones published by Charles Hedrick with the help of Nikolaos Olympiou in 1999.⁸ This means that none of the normal scientific tests on the paper and ink of the manuscript can be performed to judge, in contested cases, whether the text is a forgery.⁹ From the photographs, we can examine the handwriting, and experts on handwriting disagree regarding its authenticity.¹⁰ Yet even if we agreed that the handwriting looks like it came from around 1750, that might only confirm the skill of the forger. Likewise with the browning of the ink: that effect can be produced by a skilled forger who can hasten the ink’s oxidation.¹¹ Attempts to prove EpThdr a forgery based on (digitized) photographs of the manuscript have been largely refuted.¹² If we are going to prove the authenticity or inauthenticity of the EpThdr we must, for the present, analyze the letter’s content.

Based on the evidence of the photographs, we have no reason to reject Smith’s transcription of the Greek text printed in his book Clement of Alexandria.¹³ The versification of EpThdr (page and line number) comes from this edition. I have introduced some new punctuation, capitalized personal names, and have made one text-critical change, explained below (EpThdr 1.19).

In the commentary that follows, I will not provide an exposition of every word or phrase of the letter. Instead, I will comment on select words and phrases to focus on the overall question of the letter’s genuineness. Without resolving the dispute regarding authenticity, we can make no progress, whether in the study of Carpocratianism, of Clement, the gospel of Mark, or of anything else related to the document.

The Epistle’s introduction

Text and translation

(1.1) ἐκ τῶν ἐπιστολῶν τοῦ ἁγιωτάτου Κλήμεντος τοῦ στρωματέως Θεοδώρῳ. (1.2) καλῶς ἐποίησας ἐπιστομίσ-ας τὰς ἀρρήτους διδασκαλίας τῶν Καρποκρατιανῶν·

From the epistles of the most holy Clement the writer of the Stromata to Theodore: You have done well by muzzling (Tit 1:11) the unspeakable teachings of the Carpocratians.

Commentary

The phrase ἐκ τῶν ἐπιστολῶν implies some sort of letter collection, and the ἐκ τῶν excerpts from that collection.¹⁴ Ancient authors either published their own letters (e.g., Seneca) or they were gathered and published soon after their deaths (e.g., Cicero and probably Paul). If so, this epistle was published in roughly the same sense as Clement’s other works. Smith supposed that a collection of Clement’s letters existed at Mar Saba when John of Damascus worked there between 716–749 CE. Reportedly, John quoted three passages from Clement’s letter collection in his Sacra Parallela.¹⁵ Thus Smith’s attempt to distinguish what Clement would say in a public work versus a private letter rings hollow.¹⁶ Clement’s letters were not private like modern ones. As Clement himself observed, quoting Plato (Ep. 2.314c), “for there is nothing written that does not fall out of one’s control” (quoted in Strom. 1.1.14.4; cf. Plato, Ep. 2.312d; Phaedrus 274e–275a).¹⁷

The fact that Clement is called “most holy” (τοῦ ἁγιωτάτου) indicates that the epigraph comes from a time when Clement was considered a saint or of saintlike status. Smith could cite passages where Clement was called “most blessed” (μακαριώτατος), “holy and apostolic,” (ἱερὸς καὶ ἀποστολικός), and “most pious” (ὁσιώτατος) in the seventh and eighth centuries, but not “most holy.” From the time of Photius in the ninth century, it seems, Clement was considered a heretic, and presumably would not have been adorned with any honorific title by an Orthodox writer.¹⁸

Clement is specified by one of his best-known works, the Stromata. John Damascene also called Clement the στρωματεύς when he reportedly excerpted Clement’s twenty-first letter.¹⁹ The Stromata is the only work in which Clement mentions the Carpocratians and a portion of this work was commented on in Chapter 1.

“Theodore” is an otherwise unknown associate of Clement. The prefix Θεο- reminds one of the (possibly fictitious) figure in the preface of Luke and Acts: Θεοφιλός (Luke 1:3). Marcellus of Ancyra also wrote letters to “Theodore,” in one of which he mentions Carpocrates and Epiphanes (On the Holy Church 6). John Chrysostom wrote a Letter to Theodore as well. It was a common name among Jews and Greeks. Smith’s opinion that Theodore was in Palestine must be judged uncertain.²⁰ We are given to believe that Theodore interacted with Carpocratian Christians, but we have no evidence of Carpocratians in Palestine.

The adjective ἄρρητος can mean “unable to be spoken about” (a common epithet of God) or “too horrible/shameful to speak.”²¹ (In EpThdr 1.22–3, the author will use a similar term, ἀπόρρητα, to describe Jesus’s teachings.) In the present context, one senses a double entendre, laced with irony—of course, unspoken teachings should remain unspoken. In Stromata 3, however, Clement never accused the Carpocratians of having “unspoken” or secret teachings, and strictly speaking, he did not consider their teachings too horrible to relate. Indeed, he spoke of them at length (in Strom. 3.2). Indeed, the implicit norm to keep silent about Carpocratian teachings was hardly followed by the undisputed Clement. This Clement was more than happy to discuss Carpocratian teachings based on his lengthy citation of Epiphanes’s On Justice. Clement was even prepared to spread baseless rumors about Carpocratian “love feasts” (Strom. 3.2.10.1). Thus there is already an inconsistency in approach between Clement, author of the Stromata, and the author of EpThdr.

The author of EpThdr may have derived his advice from Titus 1:11. In this pseudepigraphical letter, “Paul” advises his “true child Titus” (1:4) to “muzzle” (ἐπιστομίζειν) certain unnamed opponents who are dismissed as “unruly,” “stupid-talkers,” and “deceived in their minds” (1:10; cf. φιμοῦν in 1 Pet 2:15).

It is Irenaeus who portrays the Carpocratians as having a gospel in which Jesus revealed secret teaching to his disciples privately, bidding them to pass it on to those worthy and believing (AH 1.25.5, with commentary in Chapter 2). Perhaps, then, the writer of EpThdr mixed a bit of Irenaeus with Clement. Was Theodore one of those persons Carpocratians took to be “worthy and believing”? How exactly did Theodore come across the Carpocratian version of Mystic Mark? It is ironic that the author of EpThdr, by commending Theodore’s act of silencing, in effect praises him for acting like a Carpocratians in Irenaeus’s report.

Attack on the Carpocratians

Text and translation

(1.3) οὗτοι γὰρ οἱ προφητευθέντες ἀστέρες πλανῆται· οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς στενῆς τῶν ἐντολὼν (1.4) ὁδοῦ εἰς ἀπέρατον ἄβυσσον πλανώμενοι τῶν σαρκικῶν καὶ ἐνσωμάτων ἁμαρτιῶν·

For these are the prophesied wandering stars (Jude 13), who wander from the narrow road (Matt 7:13) of the commandments (Deut 11:28; Wisd 5:6; James 5:19; 2 Pet 2:15; Prov 2:13–14) in an infinite abyss of fleshly and bodily sins.

Commentary

In his Stromata, Clement stated that the Carpocratians were prophetically referred to in Jude 8–16a (3.2.11.2, with Commentary in Chapter 1). These verses include Jude 13, which calls unnamed opponents “wandering stars.” In his other fragmentary comments on Jude 13, Clement called these “wandering stars,” apparently identified with angels, “rebellious” or “apostate” (apostatas). He believed that from these stars apostate angels fell (invoking the Enochic tradition).²²

Wandering from the narrow road (Matt 7:13) of the commandments is apparently a charge of antinomian behavior. Charges of antinomianism against Carpocratians were common, as can be seen from the previous chapters. The authentic Clement accused Epiphanes of scorning one of the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:17, commanding cessation of desire for a neighbor’s wife, Strom. 3.2.9.1). The Carpocratian Jesus, according to Irenaeus, rejected Jewish Law (AH 1.25.1, with commentary in Part I), and Carpocratian imitators of this Jesus likely followed suit. The inference that the Carpocratian rejection of Mosaic law must mean that they engaged in behaviors forbidden in Mosaic law is customary in heresiology, but historically questionable. The accusation of “fleshly and bodily” (apparently sexual) licentiousness is Clementine (Strom. 3.2.10.1), though the specific mention of “sins” recalls Ref. 7.32.7: “They claim that souls undergo transmigration to fill up the full extent of their sins (ἁμαρτήματα).”

Nothing in this passage, it seems, could not have been spoken by the undisputed Clement, even if the collocation ἀπέρατος ἄβυσσος does not otherwise appear until the seventh century.²³ The collocation of ἁρμαρτία, σαρκικός, and ἐνσωματός actually occurs only in Clement, Strom. 4.25.158.2.

Text and translation

(1.5) πεφυσιωμένοι γὰρ εἰς γνῶσιν· ὡς λέγουσι «τῶν βαθέων τοῦ σατανᾶ» λανθ-άνουσιν εἰς (1.6) τὸν ζόφον τοῦ σκότους τοῦ ψεύδους ἑαυτοὺς ἀπορρίπτοντες·

For they are puffed up in gnosis (1 Cor 8:1) of, as they say, “the deep things of Satan” (Rev 2:24), not realizing that they are throwing themselves into the gloom of the darkness (Jude 13) of falsehood.

Commentary

In his undisputed writings, Clement never directly called Carpocratians “gnostics,” or people endowed with gnosis. He did indicate that his generic opponents, “under the name of what they falsely call gnosis, have embarked on the road to outer darkness” (Strom. 3.18.109.2). This claim to gnosis might be taken to include the Carpocratians, but the inference is uncertain. The Christians who explicitly called themselves gnostics, according to Clement, were the Prodicans (Strom. 3.4.30.1; cf. 7.15.91.2–3).

The charge that Carpocratians called themselves gnostics is first found in Irenaeus AH 1.25.6 (“They [Marcellinians] call themselves gnostics”)—and is oft-repeated in later heresiological reports (e.g., Epiphanius, Pan. 27.6.8; cf. 27.2.10). The author of EpThdr seems to have known Irenaean tradition. The specific language, however, is taken from 1 Corinthians 8:1: “gnosis puffs up” (ἡ γνῶσις φυσιοῖ).

Who “they” in “they say” are is unclear. Based on available data, Carpocratians never said that they had gnosis of “the deep things”—let alone “the deep things of Satan.” The tagline “the deep things of God” is Pauline (1 Cor 2:12; cf. Rom 11:33). Clement referred positively to “the depths of gnosis” (τὰ τῆς γνώσεως βάθη) (Strom. 5.13.88.5). Heresiologists could also mock their opponents for knowing “the depths” (e.g., Ref. 5.6.4). Only in EpThdr are Carpocratians said to know “deep things.”

The “deep things of Satan” is a tagline from Revelation 2:24 attributed to the opponents in the church of Thyatira. These opponents were (and still are) often, and probably wrongly, identified with “Nicolaitans.” The grouping of reputedly licentious “Nicolaitans” with Carpocratians already occurs in Clement, Stromata 3.4.25.5–3.4.27.5 (cf. 2.20.118.3). It is Epiphanius, however, who connects the Nicolaitans with gnosis and his network of “Gnostics” in particular (Pan. 25.2.1). In fact, he treats Nicolaitans, Gnostics, then Carpocratians in immediate succession, and contaminates elements from all three reports (Pan. 25–7).

The phrase ζόφος τοῦ σκότους also comes from Jude 13, immediately after ἀστέρες πλανῆται. It forms a kind of inclusio and indicates that the passage as a whole (EpThdr 1.3–6) has the character of a pastiche, weaving together biblical and heresiological taglines.

Text and translation

καὶ καυχώμενοι (1.7) ἐλευθέρους εἶναι, δοῦλοι γεγόνασιν ἀνδραποδώδων ἐπιθυμιῶν·

They boast, moreover, that they are free, when they have become slaves of slavish lusts.

Commentary

The terms ἐπιθυμία and ἀνδραποδωδής do not collocate elsewhere in Clement, but Clement did quote the Cynic Crates who mentioned “slavish pleasure” (ἡδονή ἀνδραποδωδή, Strom. 2.20.121.1). Clement was certainly an advocate of ruling over one’s desires, and he believed that Carpocratians submitted to their lusts (Strom. 3.2.10.1). It is not attested in texts prior to the fifth century, however, that Carpocratians boasted of their freedom (from Jewish law or from lower powers or from anything else). The polemical charge of boasting was often cast in the teeth of opponents (e.g., 1 Cor 3:21; 4:7; 2 Cor 5:12; 11:18; Gal 6:13).

The idea of Christian freedom was in part based on Galatians 5:1: “In freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” The antithetical structure of the phrase here, however, best resembles 2 Peter 2:19: “They promise them freedom, though they are slaves of corruption” (ἐλευθερίαν αὐτοῖς ἐπαγγελλόμενοι, αὐτοὶ δοῦλοι ὑπάρχοντες τῆς φθορᾶς). The undisputed Clement does not seem to have known the letter of 2 Peter, but someone writing in the third century or beyond probably did.²⁴ (The first known person to cite 2 Peter was Origen.²⁵) EpThdr 1.6–7 is, in short, another pastiche fitted to the structure of scriptural speech.

The question of truth

Text and translation

τούτοις οὖν (1.8) ἀντιστατέον πάντῃ τε καὶ πάντως· εἰ γὰρ καί τι ἀληθὲς λέγοιεν, οὐδ’ οὕτω (1.9) συμφωνοίη ἄν αὐτοῖς ὁ τῆς ἀληθείας ἐραστής· οὐδὲ γὰρ πάντα τἀληθῆ ἀλήθεια· οὐδὲ (1.10) τὴν κατὰ τὰς ἀνθρωπίνας δόξας φαινομένην ἀλήθειαν προκριτέον τῆς (1.11) ἀληθοῦς ἀληθείας τῆς κατὰ τὴν πίστιν·

One must resist them in each and every way. For even if they say something true, the lover of truth (Plato, Resp. 6.501d) must not agree with them, for not all true things are truth, nor must the seeming truth of human opinion (Plato, Sophist 229a) be preferred to the true truth which is according to faith.

Commentary

The pastiche character of EpThdr continues to manifest itself, this time with two phrases drawn from Plato (Resp. 6.501d; Sophist 229a), in addition to a phrase pulled from the authentic writings of Clement (see the following).

On not agreeing with one’s opponent, the author of EpThdr seems to advocate obstinacy, if not dishonesty. It is true that the undisputed Clement may have wanted to disagree with Carpocratians in every way he could. At the same time, the undisputed Clement was happy to partially agree with philosophers and even those whom he called “heretics” (e.g., Valentinus and Heracleon) when they spoke the truth (e.g., Strom. 2.5.27.2; 2.11.52.2; 3.7.59.3; 3.14.95.3; 4.9.73.1; 5.11.73.1).²⁶

We also discover a teaching that seems to be in open contradiction with the teaching of the undisputed Clement. Clement was happy to distinguish seeming truth (human opinion) from real truth. Nonetheless, he never taught—despite his sometimes paradoxical style—that some true things were not truth. For Clement the Platonist, there were no untrue truths, which would be a contradiction in terms. All truth is truth, regardless of its source. This is why Clement could regularly find truth in Greek and “Barbarian” philosophies.

To be sure, Clement did distinguish partial or seeming truths of philosophy from truth itself (Strom. 6.10.83.1; 6.16.150.5–7). He could also refer to “Hellenic truth” versus “our [Christian] truth” (Strom. 1.20.98.4). The latter is “the truth according to faith” (ἡ κατὰ τὴν πίστιν ἀλήθεια, Strom. 1.20.100.2)—a phrase also found in EpThdr 1.11. In using this language, Clement did not envision two competing truths; rather, he contrasted truth with sophistical (faked) truth.

Perhaps the most relevant comparandum for our passage comes from Clement’s Stromata 7.15.91.2–3:

For it is clear that obtaining the truth is hard and laborious and that is why there have been many attempts. From these attempts, the self-loving and opinion-loving heresies, not learning or receiving in a true way (μὴ … ἀληθῶς), have received the false notion of knowledge (οἴησιν δὲ γνώσεως). With much reflection, actual truth must be sought (ἐρευνητέον τὴν τῷ ὄντι ἀλήθειαν), which comes about only regarding the truly existent God.

Based on this passage, Clement would not have agreed that some true things are not truth. He was careful to distinguish “seeming truth” (τὸ ἀληθὲς ἀπὸ τοῦ φαινομένου) from actual truth (Strom. 7.15.91.4). All actual truth is true by its very nature, and the true gnostic loves truth (ὁ γνωστικὸς δὲ ἀληθείας ἐρᾷ, Strom. 4.3.9.2).

Morton Smith cited a place in the Stromata where Clement permitted lying for therapeutic reasons—“a principle he justifies by appeal to the example of St. Paul (Acts 16:3; 1 Cor. 9.19f).”²⁷ The passage to which Smith referred was Strom. 7.8.53.1–6, where Clement seems to depend on Philo’s Questions on Genesis 4.204. Philo was explaining Rebecca’s attempt to fool Isaac into thinking that Jacob was Esau (Gen 27:17). Smith’s reading of this passage in Clement will be treated below. For now, it suffices to say that this passage does not indicate that “not all true things are truth.”²⁸

Text and translation

(1.11) τῶν τοίνυν θρυλουμένων περὶ τοῦ θεοπνεύστου (1.12) κατὰ Mάρκον εὐα-γγέλιου· τὰ μὲν ψεύδεται παντελῶς, τὰ δὲ, εἰ καὶ ἀλθηθῆ τινα (1.13) περιέχει, οὐδ’ οὕτως ἀληθῶς παραδίδοται· συγκεκραμένα γὰρ τἀληθῆ (1.14) τοῖς πλάσμασι παραχαράσσεται ὥστε· τοῦτο δὴ τὸ λεγόμενον «καὶ τὸ (1.15) ἅλας μωρανθῆναι.»

Now then, with regard to those touting the God-inspired (2 Tim 3:16) gospel according to Mark, some things (they say) are entirely false, while others, if they contain some truth, do not convey it truly. For the truth, when mixed with fictions, is debased, so that—this indeed is the adage—“even the salt is made dull” (Matt 5:13; Luke 14:34).

Commentary

Θρυλέω in Clement is frequently contemptuous, as Smith noted.²⁹ The undisputed Clement used the same verb in reference to Epiphanes’s On Justice (Strom. 3.2.9.2). Τῶν θρυλουμένων could be neuter (“with regard to the matters touted”), but it is probably masculine, as translated above. Who is doing the touting? Apparently we are meant to think of Carpocratians. But we do not actually know the Carpocratian backstory for how their version of Mystic Mark was produced. Thus the reader cannot tell what, exactly, is false and what is not truly (οὐδ’ οὕτως ἀληθῶς) conveyed—the latter phrase being close to Clement’s μὴ … ἀληθῶς in Strom. 7.15.91.2.

The adjective “God-inspired” derives from 2 Tim 3:16. The usage is Clementine (e.g., Strom. 7.16.101.5; 7.16.103.5). Clement in Who is the Rich Man Who is Saved 5.1 also referred to the gospel κατὰ Mάρκον. It is evident that Clement held Mark to be scripture—so all seems in order.

Then comes the bombshell: the Carpocratians used and corrupted the gospel of (Mystic) Mark. Smith himself noted the problem here: “Nothing is said in the recognized works of Clement, or anywhere else in the heresiologists, about special use by Carpocratians of a peculiar Gospel attributed to Mark.”³⁰ The Carpocratian gospel cited by Irenaeus (AH 1.25.4) seems to have combined elements of what are now canonical Matthew and Luke, not Mark (see Commentary on Irenaeus, AH 1.25.4 in Chapter 2). Smith was nonetheless aware of a comment by a nineteenth-century editor of Irenaeus (W.W. Harvey), who opined that there must have been a secret gospel of Mark in Egypt.³¹ It seems rather convenient that EpThdr uniquely confirms Harvey’s daring hypothesis.

In this context, Smith let fly a false statement that must be corrected: “the Gospel according to Mark was the most popular of the canonical Gospels with the gnostics in general.”³² It was not. Mark was the least used of all canonical gospels in antiquity, and this statement applies to Christians of all kinds, whether in Alexandria or elsewhere.³³ There is no solid evidence outside EpThdr that Carpocratians ever used the gospel of Mark in any version (see Irenaeus, AH 1.25.5 with commentary in Chapter 2).

The undisputed Clement used παραχαράσσω against Carpocratians in Stromata 3.6.27.4, where they are said to “debase the truth,” though not scripture specifically. (In context, Clement critiqued Carpocratian sexual ethics, which he learned from hearsay.)

The process of making salt insipid as a metaphor for (partially) forging a gospel seems unique.³⁴ The point of the phrase seems to be the exploitation of the double entendre of μωρανθῆναι. Carpocratian debasers of Mark are made “dull/stupid,” just as salt is. Salt can indeed be made insipid by admixture with other compounds.³⁵ It is far-fetched to think that Morton Smith was trying to refer to himself by using the verb μωρ[αν]θῆν[αι].³⁶

An account of the composition of Mark

Text and translation

(1.15) ὁ γοῦν Μάρκος κατὰ τὴν τοῦ Πέτρου ἐν Ῥώμῃ διατριβὴν (1.16) ἀνέγραψε τὰς πράξεις τοῦ κυρίου· οὐ μέντοι πάσας ἐξαγγέλλων· οὐδὲ μὴν τὰς (1.17) μυστικὰς ὑποσημαίνων· ἀλλ’ ἐκλ-εγόμενος ἅς χρησιμωτάτας ἐνόμισε πρὸς (1.18) αὔξησιν τῆς τῶν κατηχουμένων πίστεως· τοῦ δὲ Πέτρου μαρτυρήσαντος παρῆλθεν (1.19) εἰς Ἀλεξάνδρειαν ὁ Mάρκος· κομίζων καὶ τὰ [τ] 37 αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ τοῦ Πέτρου (1.20) ὑπομνήμα-τα· ἐξ ὧν μεταφέρων εἰς τὸ πρῶτον αὐτοῦ βιβλίον τὰ τοῖς (1.21) προκό-πτουσι περὶ τὴν γνῶσιν κατάλληλα· συνέταξε πνευματικώτερον (1.22) εὐαγγέλιον εἰς τὴν τῶν τελειουμένων χρῆσιν· οὐδέπω ὅμως αὐτὰ τὰ ἀπόρρητα (1.23) ἐξωρχήσατο· οὐδὲ κατέγραψε τὴν ἱεροφαντικὴν διδασκαλίαν τοῦ (1.24) κυρίου· ἀλλὰ ταῖς προγεγραμμέναις πράξεσιν ἐπιθεὶς καὶ ἄλλας· ἔτι (1.25) προσεπήγαγε λόγιά τινα ὧν ἠπίστατο τὴν ἐξήγησιν μυσταγωγήσειν τοὺς ἀκροατὰς (1.26) εἰς τὸ ἄδυτον τῆς ἑπτάκις κεκαλυμμένης ἀληθείας· οὕτως οὖν (1.27) προπαρεσκεύασεν οὐ φθονερῶς οὐδ’ ἀπροφυλάκτως, ὡς ἐγὼ οἶμαι· καὶ (1.28) ἀποθνῄσκων κατέλιπε τὸ αὐτοῦ σύγγραμμα τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ τῇ ἐν (2.1) Ἀλ-εξανδρείᾳ· ὅπου εἰσέτι νῦν ἀσφαλῶς εὖ μάλα τηρεῖται· (2.2) ἀναγινωσκόμενον πρὸς αὐτοὺς μόνους τοὺς μυουμένους τὰ μεγάλα μυστήρια·

So Mark, in his sojourn with Peter in Rome, wrote up the deeds of the Lord, not, however, announcing them all, nor, to be sure, indicating the mystical ones. Rather, he chose the deeds he considered most useful for the growth of those being catechized in the faith. When Peter was martyred, Mark came over to Alexandria carrying his and Peter’s memoranda. From these, he transmitted into his first book the things corresponding to those advancing in gnosis, (and) composed a more spiritual gospel for the use of those being initiated. Not yet, however, did he reveal what is in itself unspeakable, nor did he inscribe the hierophantic teaching of the Lord. Rather, he inserted into the aforementioned deeds still others. Moreover, he introduced sayings whose interpretation, he believed, would lead like a mystagogue the hearers into the inner chamber of truth veiled seven times. Thus he prepared (his text) without grudging and without negligence, in my opinion. When he died, moreover, he left his treatise to the church in Alexandria, where still today it is now very much safely preserved. It is read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.

Commentary

“The” church in Alexandria, if it refers to a single group (1.28), did not exist when the author of Mark died presumably in the 60s CE. There were, rather, a diversity of Christian groups emerging in the late first century whose origins and membership we do not yet fully understand. The idea that “the” church in Alexandria had a gospel that was not publicly read would be idiosyncratic, to say the least, and not in accord with early catholic claims elsewhere.³⁸

Traditions about Mark the Evangelist in Alexandria do not appear earlier than Eusebius (HE 2.15.1–2.16.1).³⁹ As Johannes Munck saw long ago, whoever wrote EpThdr, seems to have built on Eusebius’s account.⁴⁰ Eusebius told the story in two places of his Ecclesiastical History (early fourth century CE):

So much did the illumination of piety shine upon the minds of Peter’s hearers that they were not satisfied with a single hearing nor with leaving the teaching of the divine preaching unwritten, but with all sorts of exhortations they implored Mark, whose gospel is in circulation, as a follower of Peter, that he leave behind a memorandum (ὑπομνήμα) in writing of the teaching delivered to them through speech. They did not give up until the man performed the work. In this way, they became the causes of the writing called “according to Mark.”

(Eusebius, HE 2.15.1)

Eusebius followed up this remark by saying that his source here was the sixth book of Clement’s Hypotyposeis, with Papias of Hierapolis “co-witnessing” (HE 2.15.2).⁴¹ Yet when Eusebius turned to Mark’s later history in Egypt, he did not cite Clement or Papias as a source. He only offered the vague φασίν (“they say”) which probably designates another source, whether written or oral (HE 2.16.1).⁴² This is important, since one cannot assume that Clement is the source of the reports for Mark in Alexandria.

Eusebius returned to the composition of Mark in HE 6.14.6–7:

The (gospel) according to Mark obtained this dispensation: when Peter was preaching the word publicly in Rome and announcing the gospel by spirit, those present, who were many, exhorted Mark, as the one who followed him from afar and recalled what he said, to record his words (ἀναγράψαι τὰ εἰρημένα). When he did so, he gave the gospel to those who asked him.

(Eusebius, HE 6.14.6–7)

According to a recent study by Luke J. Stevens, both of these Eusebian renditions go back to the sixth book of Clement’s Hypotyposeis. The Hypotyposeis was apparently translated, though selectively, into Latin in the sixth century as part of a work called Adumbrationes.⁴³ The relevant passage in this work reads:

Mark, Peter’s disciple, when Peter was openly (palam) preaching the gospel in Rome before certain knights of the imperial house (Caesareanis equitibus), and offering many testimonies of Christ, was asked by them, that what was said be memorialized (memoriae commendare). From the things which Peter said, he (Mark) wrote the gospel commonly called According to Mark

(GCS 15.206.17–21)

Thus while it is true that Clement witnessed to the composition of Mark, it seems that the author of EpThdr depended specifically on the Eusebian rendition of Clement. According to the evidence we have, it is Eusebius, not Clement, who connects the person Mark to Alexandria. Neither Clement nor Origen, for all their voluminous writings, ever mentioned that Mark the evangelist came to Alexandria. Even though some of their works are lost, their silence over the course of hundreds of pages is at least significant. It was Eusebius who was eager to make Mark the first “bishop” of Alexandria, even though his episcopal succession list probably started with a man called Annianus, the “first” (τὸν πρῶτον) to preside over the Alexandrian church (HE 3.21).

Furthermore, as J. Munck noted, the author of EpThdr used Eusebian terms from two passages in the Ecclesiastical History, namely ἀναγράπτω (1.16; HE 6.14.7) to refer to Mark’s recording the gospel, and ὑπομνήμα to refer to the notes for the gospel (1.19–20; HE 2.15.1). But the use of ὑπομνήμα is different, since in Eusebius it refers to the gospel of Mark itself (cf. the use of Ἀπομνημονεύματα in Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 67.3; Dial. 100.4; 101.3; 102.5; 103.6, 8), but in EpThdr it refers to the notes in preparation for writing the gospel (or in this case, gospels).⁴⁴ It is true, furthermore, that ἀναγράπτω in EpThdr has a different object, namely the “deeds” (τὰς πράξεις) of Jesus (1.16); yet this term could have also been drawn from Eusebius who, in offering Papias’s rendition of Mark’s composition, referred to τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ λεχθέντα ἤ πραχθέντα (HE 3.39.15).⁴⁵

Despite some agreements between EpThdr and known traditions, EpThdr goes beyond both Clement and Eusebius. According to EpThdr, Mark had an extra set of memoranda—his own—which apparently contained additional deeds of Jesus and “mystical (matters)” (1.16–17). From this extra set of notes, we are informed, Mark composed Mystic Mark after Peter had died. Mystic Mark was not an entirely new composition, but an interpolated version of canonical Mark—and one interpolated, according to EpThdr—by Mark himself. The interpolations were intentional and designed to instruct those “advancing in gnosis” (i.e., “gnostics” in Clement’s sense, or baptized believers on their way to perfection and deification). These traditions about Mystic Mark are unknown from any other source.

One suspects that the author of EpThdr added the new information about Mystic Mark in order to harmonize two apparently contradictory traditions about Mark: that Mark wrote before the death of Peter (so Eusebius and Clement in the above quotes) and after it (so probably Irenaeus AH 3.1.1 and the Anti-Marcionite Prologue to Mark’s Gospel).⁴⁶ The author of EpThdr solved the contradiction by saying that there were in fact two gospels, one written before, and one written after Peter’s death.⁴⁷ This is an example of EpThdr solving an otherwise unresolvable problem—and one that typically bothers modern scholars as opposed to ancient readers.⁴⁸

Yet in solving this problem, the author of EpThdr created another: that the authentic Clement (of the Hypotyposeis) and the “Clement” of EpThdr differ on the facts surrounding Mark’s composition. The Clement of the Hypotyposeis mentioned one gospel of Mark—that written in Rome, a gospel which can be called Peter’s memoranda, written for the whole church. The “Clement” in EpThdr knew an additional gospel, partially from a different set of memoranda, containing other deeds of Jesus and mystic matters, written in Alexandria and designed only for private use by progressing gnostics. Francis Watson also points out that EpThdr conflicts with Clement by portraying Mark working without Peter’s notes. According to Clement, Mark worked from the memory of Peter’s preaching at the behest of others.⁴⁹

Of course, the new data in the EpThdr can be explained by the fact that Clement, in the Hypotyposeis, kept it secret. Yet why would Clement keep this information secret in his Hypotyposeis—a text that scholars agree was meant for advanced Christians?⁵⁰ It seems unlikely that Clement in his other written works would have kept information about Mystic Mark secret, while revealing it in a letter that could be lost or misdelivered. If the material really was secret, why would “Clement” choose to write it down in a letter, a letter that Smith thought belonged—not many years later—to a collection available in Jerusalem?

And to whom was the information about Mystic Mark secret? If Mystic Mark was not secret to Clement, a Christian of advanced knowledge, then it would not have been secret to Eusebius, an eager consumer of early Christian traditions, who apparently had access to Clement’s Hypotyposeis (among his other writings). Eusebius had also visited Alexandria and was well acquainted with Alexandrian ecclesial traditions. Eusebius also outranked Clement. (In EpThdr 2.5, we will learn that a mere presbyter could get access to Mystic Mark in Alexandria, whereas Eusebius was a bishop.) Surely if any ancient Christian knew anything about Mystic Mark, it should have been Eusebius; but Eusebius never mentioned Mystic Mark and seems to have known nothing about it. Thus this is not merely a case in which we find testimony (in Eusebius) and supplemental testimony (in EpThdr); we have, rather, stories in contradiction. The Clement of the Hypotyposeis said that the gospel of Mark was written in Rome; the “Clement” of EpThdr indicates that it was written in Alexandria. But the data should not disagree if it goes back to the same source (Clement).

Another sign that the author of EpThdr used Eusebius is the fact that he called Mystic Mark a “more spiritual gospel” (πνευματικώτερον εὐαγγέλιον). This sounds like the language used by Clement—who comes to us again, only via Eusebius. Clement called John’s gospel “spiritual” (πνευματικὸν … εὐαγγέλιον, HE 6.14.7).⁵¹ Whoever wrote EpThdr, then, was probably familiar with this fragment of Clement which survives only in Eusebius. He then applied this famous epithet (πνευματικόν in comparative form) to Mystic Mark, thus making it seem that Mystic Mark was a kind of “John before John.”

The author of EpThdr insisted that some material was so secret it did not even appear in “Secret Mark.” This material is referred to as “what is in itself unspeakable” and as “the hierophantic teaching of the Lord.” This “unspeakable” material (αὐτὰ τὰ ἀπόρρητα), Mark did not “dance out” (ἐξωρχήσατο), that is, reveal. This same verb is used by Celsus in reference to Marcellina, Salome, Martha, and other “Sirens” revealing Carpocratian mysteries (ἐξορχουμένας, Origen, Cels. 5.64). “Dancing out” originally referred to acting out ritual activity, but in EpThdr it refers to the process of writing out the deeper mysteries (ἐξωρχήσατο is parallel with κατέγραψε). Thus the usage of ἐξορχέομαι is different, though one still suspects that the author of EpThdr might have known this relatively rare expression connected to Carpocratians by Celsus, or more likely from Origen’s rendition of Celsus (in Against Celsus, published about 248 CE).

We turn to other matters of detail. As Munck pointed out, Christian ἀπόρρητα, according to Clement, were generally entrusted to mature disciples orally, not in writing (λόγῳ πιστεύεται, οὐ γράμματι, Strom. 1.1.13.2).⁵² This remains the case even if certain ἀπόρρητα could be dug out of Clement’s Stromata after much research (Strom. 1.2.21.2). Advanced learning was indeed restricted to those of higher spiritual status (Clement’s “gnostics”), but it was not derived from secret texts, but from spiritual exegesis of available texts—including the gospel of Mark (Strom. 5.4.19.3).⁵³

This point makes it unlikely that Clement would have written—with reference to Mark’s (canonical) gospel—οὐδὲ μὴν τὰς μυστικὰς ὑποσημαίνων (1.16–17). This phrase seems to indicate that canonical Mark does not hint or indirectly point at mystical matters. Clement as a good Christian allegorist would deny that this was the case. As he wrote in his homily, Who Is the Rich Man?:

This is what is written in the gospel of Mark … As we are clearly aware that the Savior teaches nothing in a merely human way, but everything by a divine and mystical wisdom, we must not understand his words literally, but with due inquiry and intelligence we must search out and master their hidden meaning.

(Quis div. 5.1–2, trans. G.W. Butterworth, emphasis added)

In effect, the need for a Mystic Mark would have seemed superfluous to Clement. Canonical Mark was already “mystical” to those who were spiritually mature enough to understand its hidden meanings.

As for truth veiled exactly seven times, the expression is not found in the undisputed Clement. Tracing a Clementine background, Scott Brown sees “six stages of progression” through “three angelic ranks” in Clement, Ecl. 57.5.⁵⁴ Yet this passage does not speak of six stages or three angelic ranks. It only speaks of humans changing into angels who change into archangels after thousand-year periods. Clement also referred to “seven circuits (or fences, περιβόλων) around the old temple” (Strom. 5.6.32.1), but these seven circuits, even if we grant that they represent seven heavens, are still not seven veils.⁵⁵ The seven veils of the temple are apparently not known until the Babylonian Talmud (roughly sixth century CE), Ketubot 106a.⁵⁶ Thus the attempt to find a mention of seven veils in the authentic Clement, although suggestive, is unconvincing. Clement, like Philo (Mos. 2.101) and the author of Hebrews (9:3), knew that the temple in Jerusalem had two veils.⁵⁷

Finally, the undisputed Clement used the phrase μεγάλα μυστήρια metaphorically (e.g., Strom. 1.28.176.1–2; 4.1.3.1–3; 5.16.71.1) to refer to the higher stage of Christian learning and initiation that climaxes in a visionary experience of the divine (ἐποπτεία).⁵⁸ Yet he did not think that different texts were meant for those initiated at a higher level. In the main, Clement was not reading different texts with his students, but interpreting the same Christian scriptures in a higher (“mystical”) way.⁵⁹

The claimed corruption of Mystic Mark

Text and translation

τῶν δὲ (2.3) μιαρῶν δαιμόνων ὄλεθρον τῷ τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένει πάντοτε μη-χανώντων· ὁ (2.4) Καρποκράτης ὑπ’ αὐτῶν διδαχθεῖς καὶ ἀπατηλοῖς τέχναις χρησάμενος· (2.5) οὕτω πρεσβύτερ-όν τινα τῆς ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ ἐκκλησίας κατεδούλωσεν (2.6) ὥστε παρ’ αὐτοῦ ἐκόμισεν ἀπόγραφον τοῦ μυστικοῦ εὐα-γγελίου·

But the polluted demons are always devising destruction for the human family. Carpocrates was taught by them. Employing deceitful arts, moreover, by these means he [Carpocrates] enslaved a presbyter of the Alexandrian church so that he brought to him a copy of the mystic gospel.

Commentary

Speculation about Carpocrates/Carpocratians and demons appears as early as Irenaeus, who wrote that Satan put forward the Carpocratians so that the “divine” name of the church would be insulted (AH 1.25.3, with commentary in Chapter 2). Never in heresiology prior to Clement was it said, however, that Carpocrates was directly taught by demons. Although it might seem natural for a Christian to think that demons taught “magic,” it may be implied that Carpocrates learned more than magic from the demons. The Clement of the Stromata believed that Carpocrates was a teacher in encyclical and Platonic studies (Strom. 3.2.5.3), and Clement did not attribute such teaching to demons.

“Deceitful arts” would apparently refer to “magic,” a charge brought against Carpocrates and Carpocratians by Irenaeus (AH 1.25.3, with commentary in Chapter 2). It is a charge, however, never brought by the undisputed Clement against Carpocrates or any Carpocratian. Smith’s rejoinder that Clement “had no occasion to do so” seems like special pleading.⁶⁰ The charge of “magical” practice was easily aired by the church fathers, often without justification.

The undisputed Clement, moreover, seems to have known almost nothing about Carpocrates himself. Clement only had access to a text of Carpocrates’s son Epiphanes. It never occurs to “Clement” in EpThdr to mention his unique knowledge of Epiphanes, and Epiphanes’s book On Justice. Contrast the “Clement” of EpThdr, who stated that Carpocratian teaching came, not from Epiphanes or Plato (Strom. 3.2.10.2), but from Mystic Mark (EpThdr 2.9–10).

The author of EpThdr hints that Carpocrates used his magic arts to enslave a presbyter of the incipient catholic church in Alexandria. Just as magicians used love charms to force the beloved to come to the lover,⁶¹ Carpocrates evidently compelled a presbyter to bring him a copy of “Mystic Mark.” (Smith’s sense that ἀπόγραφον means something like “debased copy” is probably unwarranted.)⁶²

The presbyter had access to Mystic Mark apparently, because he was a presbyter. It may be implied that, because “Clement” evidently had access to Mystic Mark, he was a presbyter too. The tradition of Clement the presbyter goes back to Eusebius, who cited a letter of Alexander of Jerusalem, which called Clement a “blessed presbyter” (HE 6.11.6). Yet Clement never called himself a presbyter, and most modern scholars view him as a teacher who—even if he worked in a catechetical school—did not hold ecclesial office. (For Clement’s subtle critique of church offices, see Strom. 6.13.106.2). If so, it is unlikely that the historical Clement would have had knowledge and access to Mystic Mark; and reconstructions in which Clement himself was the keeper of Mystic Mark have little to no basis in fact.⁶³

Text and translation

ὁ καὶ (2.7) ἐξηγήσατο κατὰ τὴν βλασφημὸν καὶ σαρκικὴν αὐτοῦ δόξαν· ἔτι (2.8) δὲ καὶ ἐμίανε ταὶς ἀχράντοις καὶ ἁγίαις λέξεσιν ἀναμιγνὺς ἀναιδέστατα (2.9) ψεύσματα· τοῦ δὲ κράματος τούτου ἐξαντλῆται τὸ τῶν Καρποκρατιανῶν (2.10) δόγμα·

He (Carpocrates) interpreted (this gospel) according to his insulting and fleshly opinion. Still more, he defiled the unmixed and holy words by mixing them with the most shameless lies. From this blend is drawn out the teaching of the Carpocratians.

Commentary

These two indictments against Carpocrates are unique in heresiological literature: (1) Carpocrates interpreted Mystic Mark to support his “insulting and fleshly opinion,” (2) he also interpolated Mystic Mark with his supposed “lies.” Irenaeus had of course criticized the Carpocratian allegorical reading of one of Jesus’s parables (AH 1.25.4, with commentary in Chapter 2). The parable did not come from Mark and did not support licentious thinking or behavior from the Carpocratian point of view. As for the interpolations, in no other source are Carpocratians accused of interpolating any text, scriptural or otherwise. We never learn what their “shameless” interpolations are beyond two words: γυμνὸς γυμνῷ (EpThdr 3.13). The only thing “shameless” about these particular words, however, might well be later interpretations of them.⁶⁴

The Clement of the Stromata indicated that at least some Carpocratian teaching derived from (what he considered a misinterpretation of) Plato (Strom. 3.2.10.2, with commentary in Chapter 1). The author of EpThdr is the only writer to claim that Carpocratian teaching came, in whole or in part, from Mystic Mark. We need not accept Smith’s claim that Carpocratians themselves asserted that their doctrine came from Mystic Mark.⁶⁵ EpThdr tells us nothing about what Carpocratians themselves claimed. Moreover, no Carpocratian in antiquity, that we know of, ever mentioned Mystic Mark or showed any knowledge of its contents. In fact, Carpocratians seem not even to have used canonical Mark. They employed a gospel, rather, with mixed elements from what are now canonical Matthew and Luke (Irenaeus, AH 1.25.4 with commentary in Chapter 2).

Once again, the question of truth

Text and translation

τούτοις οὖν καθὼς καὶ προείρηκα· οὐδέποτε (2.11) εἰκτέον· οὐδὲ προτείνουσιν αὐτοῖς τὰ κατεψευσμένα συγχωρητέον τοῦ (2.12) Μάρκου εἶναι τὸ μυστικὸν εὐαγγέλιον· ἀλλὰ καὶ μεθ’ ὅρκου ἀρνητέον·

One must never yield to these, as I said before, nor can it be granted to these people who stretch forth their fabrications that the mystic gospel is (the work) of Mark; it must rather be denied on oath.

Commentary

Here the “Clement” of EpThdr seems more concerned with keeping the reality of Mystic Mark’s authorship secret than speaking the truth. The recommendation of perjury is out of character for the undisputed Clement. Charles E. Murgia suggested that a forger, however, might have put such a strong recommendation into the text to underscore why modern readers have not heard of Mystic Mark prior to reading EpThdr.⁶⁶

One must be clear what is being denied on oath. Scott Brown asserts that “Clement” only wanted Theodore to deny on oath that the “adulterated Carpocratian text” is Markan.⁶⁷ But EpThdr 2.12 indicates rather that one must deny that “the mystic gospel” (τὸ μυστικὸν εὐαγγέλιον)—not the specifically Carpocratian version—is by Mark (Μάρκου εἶναι).⁶⁸ Yet this point is not true; and the “Clement” in EpThdr would have known that, since he had just finished telling Theodore how Mark composed Mystic Mark in Alexandria.

In the text itself, the exhortation that Theodore should lie—even on oath—seems frankly unnecessary. What danger was there if the Carpocratians were confirmed in their knowledge that Mark wrote Mystic Mark (a gospel for more advanced learners)? To be sure, by denying that Mark wrote Mystic Mark, the author of EpThdr could reinforce his view that the Carpocratian version of Mystic Mark was fake. But to make this point he would not have needed to assert that Mystic Mark was completely un-Markan. He only needed to point out, as he already did to Theodore, that the Carpocratians interpolated Mystic Mark. “Clement’s” advice to commit perjury, therefore, comes across as overkill.

Despite Smith’s protests, the directive to lie—especially on oath—is out of character for Clement. Smith himself presented the evidence: “Clement says that the true gnostic will never (or hardly ever) swear, and certainly never swear falsely” (Strom. 7.8.50–1). In Paedagogus 3.11.78.4, Clement “forbids the ordinary Christian to use oaths in buying, selling, and similar transactions.” Moreover, in Stromata 5.14.99, Clement “finds the Judeo-Christian tradition to be the source from which Plato derived his prohibition of oaths.”⁶⁹

Nevertheless, Smith was adamant that Clement approved of lying for therapeutic purposes. Citing Stromata 6.15.124.1, Smith claimed that Clement “approves deception practiced for a good purpose (citing Paul’s claim to have been all things to all men).”⁷⁰ To be accurate, this passage only cites the example of Paul circumcising Timothy (Acts 16:3). 1 Corinthians 9:22 (all things to all people) is not mentioned. Smith was probably thinking of Strom. 7.9.53.2–4, where telling a lie is allowed for the spiritual benefit of the hearer.⁷¹

Nothing in Stromata 7.9.53.2–3, however, would justify lying on oath to undercut a “heretical” view (in particular, a “heretical” view which is not, or not entirely, wrong). True, Clement thought of sound teaching as a matter of (spiritual) health, but one must think hard to imagine how the view that Mark wrote Mystic Mark would be spiritually harmful to a Carpocratian (Strom. 5.9.54.4). The words of Mystic Mark are not said to be harmful; nor is the fact of its Markan authorship. Accordingly, Smith’s statements that “ignorant unbelievers [according to Clement] may be deceived by the gnostic for their own good,”⁷² and that Clement “thought the concealment of truth to be part of his Christian duty” are at best half-truths. The Clementine gnostic is never “willing to lie in uttered speech” (Strom. 7.9.53.6 μηδὲ ἐν τῷ προφορικῷ λόγῳ ψεύσασθαι θέλων).⁷³

Text and translation

(2.12) οὐ γὰρ ἅπασι πάντα (2.13) ἀληθῆ λεκτεον· διὰ τοῦτο ἡ σοφία τοῦ θεοῦ διὰ Σολομῶντος παραγέλλ-ει· (2.14) «ἀποκρίνου τῷ μωρῷ ἐκ τῆς μωρίας αὐτοῦ»· πρὸς τοὺς τυφλοὺς τὸν (2.15) νοῦν τὸ φῶς τῆς ἀληθείας δεῖν ἐπικρύπτεσθαι διδάσκουσα· αὐτίκα φησί (2.16) «τοῦ δὲ μὴ ἔχοντος ἀρθήσεται» καὶ «ὁ μωρὸς ἐν σκότει πορευέσθω»· «ἡμεῖς (2.17) δὲ υἱοὶ φωτός ἐσμεν»· πεφωτισμένοι τῇ ἐξ ὕψους ἀνατολῇ τοῦ πνεύματος (2.18) τοῦ κυρίου· «οὗ δὲ τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ κυρίου» φησίν, «ἐκεῖ ἐλευθερία» «πάντα γὰρ (2.19) καθαρὰ τοῖς καθαροῖς»·

For not to all people can all true things be told (Philo, QG 4.67; Cher 15). For this reason, the Wisdom of God (Luke 11:49) through Solomon exhorts: “Answer the fool from his foolishness” (Prov 26:5), teaching that one must hide the light of truth from those blinded in their minds (2 Cor 4:4). She says, moreover, “from the one who does not have will be taken away” (Matt 13:12; 25:29; Luke 19:26) and “let the fool walk in darkness” (cf. Eccl 2:14). “But we are children of light,” (1 Thess 5:5; John 12:36; Eph 5:8) enlightened from the dawning on high (Luke 1:78) of the spirit of the Lord, “and where the spirit of the Lord is,” it says, “there is freedom” (2 Cor 3:17). “For all things are pure to the pure” (Tit 1:15).

Commentary

Here again we observe in full force the pastiche character of EpThdr. This particular patchwork of scriptures is tightly sewn together to justify the view that one should not answer the Carpocratians truthfully. The authentic Clement was capable of recommending to those who know “the depth of gnosis” to keep their knowledge secret (Strom. 5.8.53–4), but he did not and presumably would not have used scriptural passages to justify what he would have considered a lie (that Mystic Mark is not by Mark; EpThdr 2.11–12).

Beginning in EpThdr 2.16, the scriptural pastiche is used to establish a kind of anthropological dualism: those blinded in their mind (2 Cor 4:4) versus the children of light (1 Thess 5:5). But the authentic Clement did not think of people in these rigidly binary terms. Clement’s Protrepticus, for instance, is an extensive and energetic appeal to convince his non-Christian opponents on their own terms, not to write them off as debased.⁷⁴

The language of “enlightenment” for the authentic Clement, is baptismal (Paed. 1.5.26.1–2, βαπτιζόμενοι, φωτιζόμεθα). Those baptized receive the Spirit. It is very likely that the Carpocratians were baptized as well, by both water and “fire” (Irenaeus AH 1.25.6 with commentary in Chapter 2). Interestingly, the author of EpThdr claims freedom just as he accused the Carpocratians of claiming freedom in EpThdr 1.6–7. The statement “all things are pure to the pure” (Tit 1:15) was used by Clement in Strom. 3.18.109.1.

Excerpts from Mystic Mark

Text and translation

(2.19) σοὶ τοίνουν οὐκ ὀκνήσω τὰ ἠρωτημένα ἀποκρίνασθαι· (2.20) δι’ αὐτῶν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου λέξεων τὰ κατεψευσμένα ἐλέγχων· (2.21) ἀμέλει μετὰ τὸ «ἦσαν δὲ ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ ἀναβάινοντες εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα» καὶ τὰ (2.22) ἑξῆς ἕως «μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἀνασ-τήσεται»· ὧδε ἐπιφέρει κατὰ λέξιν·

To you, then, I will not hesitate to answer your questions, refuting the fabrications through the very words of the gospel. For instance, after the (words), “They were going upon on the road to Jerusalem” (Mark 10:32) and what follows, until “after three days he will rise”(Mark 10:34), he adds the following, literally quoted:

Commentary

The author of EpThdr claims that Mystic Mark had a passage inserted between Mark 10:34 and 35. Yet as Watson points out, Theodore should have already known the place of the insertion since he was familiar with the Carpocratian gospel (which was apparently proffered to him, EpThdr 2.11).⁷⁵

The insertion appears between Jesus’s third prediction of his death and the request of James and John to sit on thrones in Jesus’s kingdom. Brown has shown how this insertion breaks a pattern in the undisputed gospel of Mark. It is a Markan theme to have Jesus’s passion predictions followed by the disciples’ illusions of grandeur, leading in turn to Jesus’s teaching on self-sacrificial discipleship. The insertion of a lengthy resurrection story between Mark 10:34 and 35 wrecks this pattern and should be deemed secondary.⁷⁶

The insertion is also oddly placed if we follow Smith in identifying the resurrected young man with the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17–31; cf. EpThdr 3.6).⁷⁷ This ruler had no faith and was not anywhere close to death just four verses earlier. But in Mystic Mark, we suddenly learned that this young man has died with no preparation in the narrative.

As for the literal citation formula, ὧδε ἐπιφέρει κατὰ λέξιν, it is almost exactly what we find when the undisputed Clement quoted Epiphanes in Strom. 3.2.9.3 (ὧδε πῶς ἐπιφέρει κατὰ λέξιν). This exact four-word sequence (ὧδε ἐπιφέρει κατὰ λέξιν) does not appear elsewhere in Clement (though compare Strom. 2.20.116.3, κατὰ λέξιν ὧδέ πως λέγοντα).

Text and translation

(2.23) «και ἔρχονται ἐις Βηθανίαν καὶ ἦν ἐκεῖ μία γυνὴ ἧς ὁ ἀδελφὸς αὐτῆς ἀπέθανεν· (2.24) καὶ ἐλθουσα προσεκ-ύνησε τὸν Ἰησοῦν καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ υἱὲ Δαβὶδ (2.25) ἐλεήσόν με. οἱ δὲ μάθηται ἐπετίμησαν αὐτῇ. καὶ ὀργισθεὶς ὁ (2.26) Ιἠσοῦς ἀπῆλθεν μετ’ αὐτῆς εἰς τὸν κῆπον ὅπου ἦν τὸ μνημεῖον καὶ (3.1) εὐθὺς ἠκούσθη ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου φωνὴ μεγάλη· καὶ προσελθὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς (3.2) ἀπεκύλισε τὸν λίθον ἀπὸ τῆς θύρας τοῦ μνημείου· καὶ εἰσελθὼν εὐθὺς ὅπου (3.3) ἦν ὁ νεανίσκος, ἐξέτεινεν τὴν χεῖρα καὶ ἤγειρεν αὐτὸν· κρατήσας (3.4) τῆς χειρός· ὁ δὲ νεανίσκος ἐμβλεψας αὐτῷ ἠγάπησεν αὐτὸν καὶ (3.5) ἤρξατο παρακαλεῖν αὐτὸν ἵνα μετ’ αὐτοῦ ᾖ· καὶ ἐξελθόντες ἐκ (3.6) τοῦ μνημείου ἦλθον εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν τοῦ νεανίσκου· ἦν γὰρ πλούσιος.

And they went into Bethany (Mark 8:22) and there was there one woman whose brother had died (John 11:2, 21, 32). So she came, bowed to Jesus (Mark 5:6; John 11:32) and says to him, “Son of David, pity me” (Mark 10:47–48). But the disciples (Mark 2:23) rebuked her (Mark 10:13, 48). Jesus, enraged (Mark 1:41 [some MSS]; 3:5; John 11:38), went with her (Mark 5:24) into the garden where there was the tomb (John 19:41; Gos. Pet. 24) and immediately a loud voice was heard from the tomb (John 11:43; Gos. Pet. 35, 41). Jesus approached and rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb (Matt 28:2). Then, immediately going inside (Mark 6:25; John 20:6, 8) where the young man (Mark 14:51; 16:5) was, he stretched out his hand and raised him, having grasped his hand (Mark 1:31). The young man looked up at him, loved him (Mark 10:21), and began to beg him to be with him (Mark 5:18). They came out of the tomb and went to the house of the young man, for he was rich (Luke 18:23).

Commentary

The pastiche character of EpThdr does not cease whether we are reading “Clement” or “Mystic Mark,” a fact which may indicate that the author of both was the same, insofar as he (or she) used the same literary technique. As a whole, we might call this passage a rewriting of John 11 (the resurrection of Lazarus), but the individual phrases come mostly from other Synoptic gospels, and predominately from Mark. In short, the passage seems to be a melding of rearranged gospel phrases indicating how the story of Lazarus’s resurrection would have been told if the author of Mark had written it.⁷⁸

This passage in Mystic Mark answers the thorny question about the identity of the beloved disciple long before his identity was a pressing issue. (Note the language ἐμβλεψας αὐτῷ ἠγάπησεν αὐτὸν, the exact same language found in Mark 10:20 with the subjects reversed. Yet in EpThdr 3.15, it is Jesus who loves the young man, showing that their love is mutual). The answer to this hermeneutical crux seems all too simple: it was not the disciple and evangelist John, but a rich youth raised by Jesus who became the most intimate and beloved of all his disciples. The story thus resolves one of the most debated questions in modern biblical scholarship.

But the author of EpThdr is not done. He answers a second, otherwise unresolvable question about the identity of the young man who ran away naked the night of Jesus’s arrest (Mark 14:51–2). That young man was the beloved disciple whom Jesus raised, according to Mystic Mark. Thus two exegetical birds are killed with one stone, as it were. Now ancient interpreters were not overly concerned with the identity of the beloved disciple—whom they normally identified with John, son of Zebedee.⁷⁹ They also did not much comment on the naked man in Mark 14:52. Yet scores of modern books and articles have been written on these passages in biblical scholarship today.

There are also, in the present passage, some inconcinnities of detail. Terrence Y. Mullins noted that there “is nothing especially Marcan about [the use of] εἷς μία, ἕν” as a kind of indefinite article, despite Smith’s effort to document the frequent usage by Mark.⁸⁰ The numerical pronoun, according to Mullins, “must be translated ‘one’ not ‘a certain,’” so “the use of μία γύνη to mean ‘a certain woman’ is decidedly not like Mark”⁸¹ Mullins also observed that in Mark,

there are eight specific calls where aid or compassion are requested. Mark indicates that the demons had a standard phrase they used (1,24 and 5,7). But apart from the demons, no two persons asking help use exactly the same language in addressing him.⁸²

Nevertheless, both this unidentified woman in Mystic Mark and Bartimaeus only a few verses later (Mark 10:48) called out to “the Son of David” for help. Bartimaeus, incidentally, is immediately rebuked with the same verb ἐπιτιμάω. Brown, who argues for the authenticity of EpThdr and Mystic Mark, admits that “Elsewhere in Mark’s story, supplicants never petition Jesus using the exact same phrase.”⁸³

Other details reinforce the hypothesis that Mystic Mark is a pastiche. Bowing before Jesus (προσκυνήσις) is banal for those who want him to perform a miracle (e.g., Matt 15:25; John 11:32). Jesus’s (sudden and unexplained) wrath is typically Markan (1:41 [D]; 3:5); the garden tomb is Johannine (19:41). Jesus himself plays the part of the super-strong angel in Matthew who rolls away the stone (Matt 28:2). The line about riches is Lukan (18:23), and Smith’s attempt to say that “Clement” altered the language here is—once again—special pleading. The author of EpThdr evidently had a four-gospel canon, which only became established among early catholics of the late second century CE.

Text and translation

Καὶ μεθ’ (3.7) ἡμέρας ἕξ ἐπέταξεν αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς. καὶ ὀψίας γενομένης ἔρχεται ὁ (3.8) νεανίσκος πρὸς αὐτὸν, περιβεβλημένος σινδόνα ἐπὶ γυμνοῦ· καὶ (3.9) ἔμεινε σὺν αὐτῷ τὴν νύκτα ἐκείνην· ἐδίδασκε γὰρ αὐτὸν ὁ (3.10) Ἰησοῦς τὸ μυστήριον τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ· ἐκεῖθεν δὲ ἀναστὰς (3.11) ἐπέστρεψεν εἰς τὸ πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου·

Then after six days (Mark 9:2), Jesus instructed him (Mark 6:27, 39). When evening came (Mark 1:32, 6:47; 14:17), the young man comes to him clothed in a linen garment over his nakedness (Mark 14:51; 15:46; Gos. Pet. 24). And he remained with him that night. For Jesus taught him (Mark 1:21) the mystery of the kingdom of God (Mark 4:11). He rose from there and returned across the Jordan (cf. John 10:40).

Commentary

Smith, in an attempt to support the authenticity of Mystic Mark, cited a story from Celsus (Origen, Cels. 3.55). According to this account, Christian teachers encourage schoolboys to rebel against their fathers and school masters. They exhort them to go apart with them “privately” (Smith’s term) ἵνα τὸ τέλειον λάβωσι.⁸⁴ The Greek could be translated “that they may learn perfection” (so Henry Chadwick),⁸⁵ but also “to receive the initiation” (so Smith). Now what Smith did not tell his readers was that the location of the “initiation,” according to Celsus, was not a private location, but “the women’s quarters,” “the shoemaker’s shop,” and “the fuller’s shop” (εἰς τὴν γυναικωνῖτιν ἤ τὸ σκυτεῖον ἤ τὸ κναφεῖον). Smith’s inaccuracy indicates, not that Celsus was somehow familiar with Mystic Mark, but that Smith was willing to omit relevant data to argue for the authenticity of Mystic Mark.

In accordance with the signs of pastiche we saw above, the present passage continues to dissect and transpose mostly bits and pieces of canonical Mark. μεθ’ ἡμέρας ἕξ precedes the Transfiguration story in Mark 9:2. Thus the reader of this pericope in Mystic Mark is primed for some significant private event. The phrase ὀψίας γενομένης precedes the Lord’s Supper in Mark 14:17 and Jesus’s revelation that one of his disciples will betray him. It also precedes an account of Jesus’s healings (1:32) and Jesus’s miracle of walking on water (6:47).

On the whole, the story seems designed to explain the events in Mark 14:51–2. In this text, a man was in Jesus’s vicinity within the Garden of Gethsemane at night (while the three of Jesus’s closest disciples were asleep, Mark 14:37) wearing only a linen cloth (σινδών) over his naked body. This young man was the only disciple (so it initially seems) who had the boldness to follow Jesus after he was arrested. When members of the mob arresting Jesus caught hold of this young man’s garment, he ran away naked. Later interpreters identified the young man as John, son of Zebedee, others as James the Just, others as John Mark (the supposed author of the gospel), and still others as Lazarus. The author of EpThdr, in effect, chose Lazarus as well, or the man whom the gospel of John called Lazarus. At any rate, the man who ran way naked is evidently the same man raised and taught by Jesus in Mystic Mark.

This solution creates a problem if we assume that being taught “the mystery of God’s kingdom” while clad in a linen garment was a one-off initiation. How could the man initiated four chapters earlier in Mystic Mark (after Mark 10:34) be the same man—initiated again?—in Mark 14:51–2. There were of course multi-stage initiations in the ancient world (as we see in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses 11), but we have no reason to suppose that Jesus would have required this young man twice to be with him at night clothed only in a linen cloth. If the initiation is related to baptism, we cannot presume that there were two baptisms. (Carpocratians did not support two water baptisms but two levels of initiation, by water and fire [see Irenaeus, AH 1.25.6 with commentary in Chapter 2].) Thus the mystery of why the man in linen was in Jesus’s vicinity on the night of his arrest is still unexplained. One could argue that doubling an initiation story does not need to be explained because Mark was fond of doublets. Yet a forger who knew this point might be fond of producing doublets.

In Mark, τὸ μυστήριον τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ (EpThdr 3:10; cf. Mark 4:11) is often thought to be the mystery of self-sacrificial discipleship, in accordance with Jesus’s own commitment to carry a cross (Mark 8:34–5; 10:38, 43–5). Self-sacrifice is not a theme in the initiation ceremony described in Mystic Mark. I cannot accept Brown’s view that the “sheet [worn by the young man] signifies his readiness to be ‘immersed’ in Jesus’ sufferings and his recognition that the way to life is through death.”⁸⁶ To arrive at this view, Brown must import elements from his reading of canonical Mark—a risky procedure when EpThdr is so disputed. Nothing in the EpThdr says anything about self-sacrifice or suffering with Jesus through death (metaphorical or otherwise).

The description of the nocturnal event in EpThdr—offered in the barest outline—creates more questions than answers, allowing various hypothetical explanations of it to compete in the field of scholarship. I am not concerned here with reconstructing what the ceremony meant. Suffice it to say that Smith’s interpretation involving a magical ascent to heaven and freedom from Jewish law has been widely rejected.⁸⁷

What interests me is how much the author of Mystic Mark knew. Clement claimed that Carpocratians “speak like a hierophant about their fleshly and sexual communion and they think that this leads them into the kingdom of God” (τὴν σαρκικὴν καὶ συνουσιαστικὴν κοινωνίαν ἱεροφαντοῦσι καὶ ταύτην οἴονται εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοὺς ἀνάγειν τοῦ θεοῦ, Strom. 3.4.27.5). I suspect that whoever wrote this section of Mystic Mark knew Clement’s interpretation of the Carpocratian “kingdom of God” and wrote an account that suggested, all too subtly, the supposedly Carpocratian association of sex and God’s kingdom. The author may even have known Epiphanius’s unique charge that Carpocratians engaged in homoerotic ᾶσαν ἀρρητουργίαν καὶ ἀθέμιτον πρᾶξιν) which it is not lawful to pronounce (οὐ θεμίτὸν ἐπὶ στόματος φέρειν), even every form of man-mounting (πᾶν εἶδος ἀνδροβασιῶν)” (Pan. 27.4.6 with commentary in Chapter 2). If there was any “man-mounting” implied in EpThdr it was (wisely) left unspoken.

Text and translation

ἐπι μὲν τούτοις ἕπεται τὸ «καὶ (1.12) προσπορεύονται αὐτῷ Ἰάκωβος καὶ Ἰωάννης»· καὶ πᾶσα ἡ περικοπή (1.13) τὸ δὲ γυμνὸς γυμνῷ καὶ τἆλλα περὶ ὧν ἔγραψας οὐκ (1.14) εὑρίσκεται·

What comes next is as follows: “And James and John come to him” with the whole pericope. But about “naked to naked” and the other things about which you wrote, these are not found.

Commentary

It is surprising how few Carpocratian modifications of Mystic Mark are actually mentioned. The only quoted interpolation consists of two Greek words, γυμνὸς γυμνῷ, although the author of EpThdr gives us to believe that there were (many) other additions. The phrase γυμνὸς γυμνῷ may be a literalization of the undisputed Clement’s metaphorical use of γυμνῶς in Exc. 66 — that the Savior taught a third course of instruction to his apostles “wisely, openly (γυμνῶς), and in private (κατὰ μόνας).”

In CA, Smith opined that Carpocratian water baptism was done with both the baptizer and the baptizand in the nude.⁸⁸ There is, however, no evidence that Carpocratians specifically practiced water baptism naked. When he came to discuss Mystic Mark, Smith thought it “easy to suppose that the Carpocratians took the opportunity to insert in the text some material which would authorize the homosexual relationship Clement suggested by picking out γυμνὸς γυμνῷ.”⁸⁹ Technically, however, “Clement” did not suggest a “homosexual relationship,” nor did historical Carpocratians authorize it. It is Smith who brings in this phrase and interpretation, thinking he could follow the heresiologists and readily associate unlawful sex with the Carpocratians. Interestingly, the undisputed Clement did not associate Carpocratians with homoerotic activity; only Epiphanius did (Pan. 27.4.6).

Smith also believed that “Carpocratians interpreted baptism as a resurrection” from Irenaeus AH 2.31.2. But all that Irenaeus said in this passage was that Simonians and Carpocratians “claim that the resurrection from the dead is the knowledge of what they call truth.” No actual quotes from a Simonian or Carpocratian source are given, and one legitimately wonders if the heresiological reports on “Simon” and “Carpocrates” have not here been simplified and amalgamated. For his part, Tertullian attacked unnamed opponents who identified resurrection with knowledge of hidden matters (arcana) (Res. 19.6). It is not good historical method to identify these unnamed opponents with Carpocratians. Heresiologists tended to blend and contaminate the views of their opponents, a procedure that resulted in inaccurate reporting.

In short, Smith’s baptismal reading of the “mystery of the kingdom” and “naked to naked” turns out to be his own (idiosyncratic) construal. There is nothing in the text which would compel a baptismal reading. Yet if Smith was prepared to use third- or fourth-century sources (like the Apostolic Tradition) on the liturgical rite of baptism to explain Mystic Mark, a charge of anachronism is not far off.⁹⁰ Perhaps anachronism, however, is not in play, and the author of Mystic Mark actually knew the third- and fourth-century sources discussing baptism in the nude.⁹¹

Text and translation

(3.14) μετὰ δὲ τό «καὶ ἔρχεται εἰς Ἰεριχὼ» ἐπάγει μόνον, «καὶ ἦσαν (3.15) ἐκεὶ ἡ ἀδελφὴ τοῦ νεανίσκου ὅν ἠγάπα αὐτὸν ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ (3.16) ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ καὶ Σαλώμη, καὶ οὐκ ἀπεδέξατο αὐτὰς ὁ Ἰησοῦς». (3.17) τὰ δὲ ἄλλα τὰ πολλὰ ἅ ἔγραψας ψεύσματα καὶ φαίνεται καὶ ἔστιν· ἡ (3.18) μὲν οὖν ἀληθὴς καὶ κατὰ τὴν ἀληθὴ φιλοσοφίαν ἐξήγησις...

But after the quote “and he comes into Jericho” (Mark 10:46), he adds only: “and there were there the sister of the young man whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome, and Jesus did not receive them.” But many other things of which you wrote are fabrications in both appearance and in reality (cf. Plato, Hippias Major 294b–c). Now the true interpretation according to the true philosophy...

Commentary

It is true that in Mark 10:46, Jesus comes in and out of Jericho in the blink of an eye. A question logically arises: what did he do while there? “Mystic Mark” provides the otherwise unknowable answer: he was approached by the sister and mother of the young male initiate, along with Salome (who also appears in Mark 15:40; 16:1). One would expect Jesus to accept these women, since he already accepted hospitality from their kin.

But the reader is surprised: the women are rebuffed with no explanation. Jesus accepts the male, but rejects the females. The rejection of Salome is particularly interesting, since elsewhere she accused Jesus of coming up onto her “couch” (Gos. Thom. 61). It is evident from Mystic Mark—though admittedly in a subtle fashion—that Jesus preferred hospitality and intimacy with a male.

These female characters do not come out of nowhere. The “sister” is likely Mary or Martha from the Lazarus story (John 11). Salome was another female character respected by some Carpocratians, as we learn from Celsus (Origen, Cels. 5.62): “He (Celsus) knows … Harpocratians [i.e., Carpocratians] from Salome and others from Mariamme [Mary] and others from Martha” (see commentary in Chapter 2). To have Jesus not receive these women in Mystic Mark does not accord with Celsus’s testimony or the testimony that Carpocratian doctrine derived from Mystic Mark (EpThdr 2.10). Why would there be Carpocratian followers of Salome, Mary, and/or Martha if these women were not accepted by Jesus himself?

It is mystifying, finally, as to why the text would break off just as “most holy Clement” was about to give his own interpretation of Mystic Mark. Presumably a monk or orthodox church writer would be more interested in the interpretation of the “most holy” father, not the anti-Carpocratian polemic. (Carpocratians were not a known Christian enemy in the eighteenth century.) So why would he cease copying the letter right before Clement’s “correct” interpretation? Brown opines that the cut-off ending “makes sense” if Clement’s letter began to disclose “elements of the secret gnostic tradition.”⁹² But this would imply that the scribe who copied the letter was more concerned to hide “secret gnostic tradition” than Clement himself was. If it was written tradition, moreover, it was no longer secret—especially after 16 centuries. Furthermore, Brown himself labors the point that Mystic Mark is not secret in itself, though it can be figuratively interpreted.⁹³ The same could be said of “Clement’s” letter.

I suspect the answer to the abrupt ending has more to it than the interests of the supposedly eighteenth-century copyist. He did not entirely lack paper. He left a third of a page of blank space at the end of Voss’s edition of Ignatius. He could have copied out a few more lines containing Clement’s “true exegesis.” To claim that his archetype was destroyed by some unknown circumstance (i.e., the eighteenth-century fire at Mar Saba) immediately after whetting the reader’s appetite for the “true exegesis” seems like special pleading.⁹⁴ There is more than a suspicion here that the reader is left with something of a “cliff-hanger,” exactly where an orthodox writer probably would not have cared to leave one.

The authenticity of the Epistle to Theodore and its use as a source for Carpocratianism

Scott Brown has argued vigorously against the patchwork character of EpThdr (including Mystic Mark). In my view, however, analyses of the letter’s language indicate that it does, generally speaking, have the character of a pastiche. In the analysis of Watson:

The Markan and other synoptic parallels have contributed 66 of its 157 words [to the excerpts from Mystic Mark], in sequences of between three and ten words … These sentences are full of synoptic language, but they are not dependent on synoptic word-sequences. Their affinities are with the Johannine stories of the raising of Lazarus (John 11) and … with the night-time visit of Nicodemus. (John 3)⁹⁵

Surprisingly, it is Smith himself, not his critics, who has done the best job documenting and studying the lexical parallels (both individual words and phrases) in EpThdr.⁹⁶ Of course, Smith went on to deny that EpThdr, along with Mystic Mark, was a “cento.”⁹⁷

Here, however, it is essential to distinguish between a cento and a pastiche, two forms of literature that Brown seems to identify.⁹⁸ A cento, well exemplified by Irenaeus’s anti-Valentinian taunt in AH 1.9.4, is a collection of quoted phrases artfully rearranged to create a new composition. A pastiche, as I take it, is a less specifically defined piece of literary imitation. It is a work of literature created in the style of some other work, one that can sometimes exaggerate the imitated style for effect.⁹⁹ Occasionally, the author of EpThdr will lift phrases out of Clement or canonical Mark and put them into his new composition, but overall, I would call EpThdr a stylistic imitation of both Clement and the author of Mark’s gospel.

Smith himself called Mystic Mark “an amateurish imitation of Mk full of phrases found in the gospels … Why, when trying to imitate Mk, did he put into his Marcan material several apparently Lucan phrases and many expressions found in Mt and Jn?”¹⁰⁰ It is an interesting question (and admission) because the use of Lucan and Matthean phrases would indicate that EpThdr could not be any earlier than the mid-second century, when Luke at least became widely known in its canonical version.¹⁰¹ This would be later than the date favored by Smith (prior to 125 CE).¹⁰²

But we must push the date still further. Whoever wrote EpThdr cannot be any earlier than the mid-fourth century CE due to the probable use of Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History. In short, I agree with Munck that whoever wrote EpThdr was likely expanding on Clement’s account of Mark’s composition as it was known from Eusebius. Only in Eusebius is it first reported that Mark came to Alexandria. Only in Eusebius, who cited Clement, is the term “spiritual gospel” found (HE 6.14.7). Only in Eusebius is Clement first called a presbyter (HE 6.11.6), as he is seemingly depicted in EpThdr. In short, the unknown author of EpThdr used at least three data points that first appear, and appear together, only in Eusebius.

One might suppose that the author of EpThdr used an earlier source (e.g., Papias, or a lost Clementine work) which included these three data points, or that Eusebius knew EpThdr. But for these hypotheses we have no evidence, and an earlier source would not likely include all three points. (If the source was Papias, it could not contain all three, since Papias wrote a generation or so before Clement.)

By calling Mystic Mark a “more spiritual gospel” (πνευματικώτερον εὐα-γγέλιον), the author of EpThdr made it seem that Mystic Mark was a kind of John before John. This procedure was ironically appropriate because the author of EpThdr likely adapted a story found in John (the resurrection of Lazarus in John 11), leading the reader to think that an earlier, less refined version of it was inserted into Mystic Mark.

I suggest, furthermore, that the author of EpThdr may have depended on Epiphanius for his innuendo about Jesus being involved in homoerotic activity. Epiphanius is the only heresiologist who claimed that Carpocratians were involved in “man-mounting” (Pan. 27.4.6). As known from Irenaeus, Carpocratians were keen to imitate Jesus in all his experiences. If the author of EpThdr combined the reports of Irenaeus and Epiphanius, he could imagine that a Carpocratian would be interested in a gospel that suggested Jesus’s homoerotic behavior. The word “suggested” is important here, since Mystic Mark never openly says that Jesus engaged in homoerotic activity. But of course, for the author of the EpThdr, the Carpocratians changed Mystic Mark so that the homoerotic material was apparently implied. They allegedly added a phrase to the initiation scene: “naked to naked” which apparently refers to the naked body of Jesus juxtaposed to the naked body of his young initiate. If EpThdr is indeed dependent on Epiphanius, it cannot be earlier than the late fourth century (the Panarion was finished about 377 CE). We mentioned before that a monk would probably not have called Clement “most holy” after the ninth century, so a date between the late fourth and early ninth century seems plausible, if one views EpThdr as an ancient composition.

I myself am persuaded that it is a modern one and one written by its “discoverer” Morton Smith. Smith was eager to reinscribe and even emphasize elements of the heresiological portraits of Carpocratianism—in particular libertinism and the use of secret “magical” ritual.¹⁰³ In short, Mystic Mark reinforced not only the standard heresiological portraits, but Smith’s own research interests—as would come out most clearly in Smith’s later work Jesus the Magician.¹⁰⁴ The content of EpThdr shows that it has too many conflicts with the authentic Clement (e.g., anthropological dualism, lying on oath, Mystic Mark as the source of Carpocratian dogma). In no other ancient source—and anti-Carpocratian comments appear as late as the twelfth century—is it reported that Carpocratians used Mystic Mark or even canonical Mark for that matter. EpThdr, furthermore, seems designed to answer questions that have become cruxes in modern biblical studies (the identity of the beloved disciple, the identity of the youth wearing a linen cloth on the night of Jesus’s arrest, and what Jesus did in Jericho [Mark 10:46]).

Above I argued that EpThdr depends on Eusebius. Here I can be more precise: it depends on Smith’s reading of Eusebius. Like any good scholar of early Christianity, Smith knew his Eusebius. Even though he did not cite Eusebius, Smith summarized uniquely Eusebian traditions in his initial review of Vincent Taylor’s, The Gospel according to St. Mark (in 1953):

Taylor sees in the Gospel the work of the John Mark … who was, according to the tradition of Papias, the “interpreter” of Peter. Accordingly, many sections of the Gospel are thought to be based on the tradition of one or more eyewitnesses and some are referred specifically to the recollections of Peter himself. It is admitted that Mark, in compiling the Gospel, used earlier written accounts as the bases of some sections, but it is argued that these accounts were often earlier compositions of Mark himself.¹⁰⁵

I find this comment revealing because it is similar to how Mark, in EpThdr, acted in Alexandria. He compiled a gospel using his own earlier written account—in this case, his own gospel. Here is what Taylor had to say about the place of canonical Mark’s composition:

The testimony of Chrysostom [Proem. in Matt] that the Gospel [of Mark] was composed in Egypt, cannot be reconciled with the words of Clement of Alexandria and Origen, and is probably due to a misunderstanding of an ambiguous statement of Eusebius: “They say that Mark who was sent to Egypt first preached the Gospel which in fact he committed to writing”

[HE 2.16].¹⁰⁶

In other words, Taylor himself did not believe that Mark’s gospel was composed in Alexandria, but he gave a reason for why people in antiquity (Chrysostom) and today might think so by citing none other than Eusebius. Earlier, Taylor cited Eusebius, HE 6.14.6–7 regarding Mark’s composition, as well as the passage in Clement’s Adumbrationes on 1 Peter 5.13 cited above.¹⁰⁷ It is undeniable that Smith knew the key passages on Mark’s composition in Eusebius, and he knew that the traditions could be traced back to Clement.

Smith explicitly cited Eusebius in his later and lengthier review of Taylor in the Harvard Theological Review (1955). He specifically noted that Eusebius did not cite Mark 13:32 in his Ecclesiastical History.¹⁰⁸ This comment indicates that Smith was familiar, apparently, with the entirety of Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History. In a 1956 article, Smith quoted Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History 2.23.3–18, in reference to Hegesippus’s picture of James the Just.¹⁰⁹ In short, Smith indicated that for him, Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History was a well-known text. On the basis of this text, Smith could have imagined that Mark’s gospel, or a version of it, was written in Alexandria and that such a tradition could be connected to Clement.

The case made by other scholars for a Smithian forgery is cumulative.¹¹⁰ I only summarize some of the enduring arguments here. The use of unique Clementine language—including many Clementine single-use words—indicates that the forger was trying to imitate Clement’s distinctive language.¹¹¹ The precise use of Clementine language probably presupposes access to modern lexical tools (e.g., Otto Stählin’s 1936 index of Clement). Smith visited Mar Saba a year after a best-selling novel (The Mystery of Mar Saba) spoke of a forgery discovered at Mar Saba.¹¹² Smith had intimate knowledge of the monastery and seventeen years to plan how to plant a book in its Tower library. He also exemplified intimate knowledge of Mark’s gospel and adequate knowledge of Clementine writings, as can be seen in his articles written before 1958.¹¹³

Jeff Jay recently threw down the gauntlet when he claimed that those who propose that EpThdr is a Smithian forgery must allow that he had expertise in seven areas (I add the numbering, with bulleted points in response):

1. “a solid knowledge of epistolography”

o Smith was a recognized expert in New Testament letters and in the letters of Isidore of Pelusium¹¹⁴

2. “ancient practices of composition and transmission”

o Smith was an expert in ancient religious texts and in the technique of Form Criticism (a theory that explains how texts were composed and transmitted)

3. “the ability to weave a letter with fine generic texture”

o As an expert in ancient letters, Smith could write with attention to ancient epistolary traits

4. “previously recognized competency in patristics”

o Smith had competence in reading Clement and Eusebius in their original Greek

5. “[and competency in] eighteenth-century Greek paleography”

o Smith had considerable abilities in Greek, despite the testimony of some critics, and he knew a great deal about eighteenth-century manuscripts and manuscripts in general. He was a manuscript hunter who sifted through many a monastery and library in search of ancient texts. He also published articles on ancient manuscripts¹¹⁵

6. “[and competency in] Markan literary techniques”

o Insertions into canonical Mark could and have been read as purposeful intercalations. This does not mean that the author of EpThdr intended to use intercalation. Moreover, Smith could have easily imitated Mark’s brusque and unpolished style¹¹⁶

7. “tremendous insight into the psychology and art of deception.”¹¹⁷

o This point is exaggerated. One does not need to have tremendous insight into the psychology or the art of deception to be a good deceiver. Suffice it to say, that Smith tested the opinions of many scholars regarding EpThdr prior to publishing his study on it in 1973. In the 1960s, Smith learned that he could convince most biblical scholars, a fact which must have fostered in him a degree of confidence¹¹⁸

The occasional inaccuracies and special pleading exhibited in Smith’s academic book (CA) indicates that he was, or at least became, something of an apologist for the authenticity of EpThdr. This point certainly became clear as Smith began to answer critical reviews of his work. In one of these reviews, Smith remarked that “anyone who would forge a manuscript would deny that he had done so.”¹¹⁹

The question of Smith’s motive remains a touchy subject, yet a hoax is plausible to demonstrate Smith’s own cleverness or to test his peers.¹²⁰ A hoax can, moreover, be reconciled with the fact that Smith took the letter and research on it seriously (he was defending his own reputation). Smith as perpetrator of a hoax does not imply that he thought little of the people he duped.¹²¹ He fooled his own teachers like Gershom Scholem, for whom Smith had great respect.¹²² During his lifetime, he fooled many excellent scholars (e.g., Helmut Koester) in both biblical studies and early Christianity.¹²³ Interestingly, Smith seemed to savor arguments that used the apologetical trope of consensus gentium—that scholars should accept the authenticity of EpThdr because most scholars (in the 1970s and 80s) did so.¹²⁴

Ironically, Smith’s own “historical” reconstruction of Jesus could in part be called Carpocratian, at least insofar as we accept the Irenaean report that Jesus himself rejected Jewish law.¹²⁵ Smith assumed the heresiological portrait of Carpocrates, agreed with some of it himself, and advanced it in his scholarship. Smith considered Carpocratians to be gnostics, and he dedicated his popular book to “the one who knows.” I do not take this to be a reference to a specific person, but to all persons who know (γιγνώσκω). (What it is they “know” is of course unclear; it was sufficient for Smith to wink at a “gnostic” audience.) To be clear: this is not a psychologizing claim that Smith was a latter-day Carpocratian.¹²⁶ My comment serves only to point out that—like all of us—Smith to some degree used his scholarship as self-discovery.

The suspicion that Smith forged EpThdr, it should be added, does not mean that all his scholarship is worthless or corrupt. He was a truly creative scholar with many brilliant insights.¹²⁷ It seems, however, that with regard to EpThdr he tried to fool the academy—and he was relatively successful when time caught up with him in 1991. But truth, though of plodding pace, discovers all.

I conclude, if somewhat anticlimactically, that EpThdr cannot be used as a source to understand ancient Carpocratian Christianity. Carpocratian Mark was not the origin of “Longer Mark” or canonical Mark.¹²⁸ Far from it. We have no solid evidence, outside EpThdr, for Carpocratians using any version of Mark at all. The EpThdr mostly rehashes and underscores the heresiological portraits of Carpocrates and Carpocratians discussed in Chapter 2 (Carpocrates as a licentious magician).¹²⁹ Yet it supplies additional falsehoods: that Carpocrates was a deceiver and a thief and that he corrupted a version of Mark. There was, however, no Mystic Mark or “Longer Mark,” in antiquity (at least prior to the late fourth century). Despite the arguments of some, EpThdr should be recognized as a forgery. It thus has nothing direct to contribute to the study of Carpocratian Christianity in the second century CE, though it could of course be read and studied for other ends.

Notes

1. I agree with Scott G. Brown that the central idea of μύστικον in the expression μυστικόν εὐαγγέλιον is not “secret” (pace Smith) but “spiritual” or “figurative” (Mark’s Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith’s Controversial Discovery [Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier Press, 2005], 122, 217).

2. Reviews of the literature can be found in Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 486–93; Timo S. Paananen, “From Stalemate to Deadlock: Clement’s Letter to Theodore in Recent Scholarship,” Currents in Biblical Research 11, no. 1 (2012): 87–125; Helmut Merkel, “Das geheime Markusevangelium,” in Antike christliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung, ed. Christoph Markschies and Jens Schröter, Vol. 1.1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 390–9 at 390–1; Michael Kok at www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/secret-gospel-of-mark/.

3. Michael T. Zeddies, “Did Origen Write the Letter to Theodore?” JECS 25, no. 1 (2017): 55–87; Zeddies, “An Origenian Background for the Letter to Theodore,” HTR 112, no. 3 (2019): 376–406.

4. Stephen C. Carlson, The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2005); Peter Jeffery, The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007); Francis Watson, “Beyond Suspicion: On the Authorship of the Mar Saba Letter and the Secret Gospel of Mark,” JTS 61, no. 1 (2010): 128–70.

5. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel; Timo S. Paananen, “A Study in Authenticity: Admissible Concealed Indicators of Authority and Other Features of Forgeries—A Case Study on Clement of Alexandria, Letter to Theodore, and the Longer Gospel of Mark,” (ThD diss., University of Helsinki, 2019). The bulk of Zeddies, “An Origenian Background” is a critique of Watson, “Beyond Suspicion.”

6. E.g., Hans-Martin Schenke, “The Mystery of the Gospel of Mark,” Second Century 4, no. 2 (1984): 65–82; Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (London: SCM Press, 1990), 295–303; Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 603–23; Bauckham, Gospel Women, 225–56; John Dart, Decoding Mark (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2003); Marvin Meyer, Secret Gospels: Essays on Thomas and the Secret Gospel of Mark (Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 2003), 109–78; Hugh M. Humphrey, From Q to “Secret” Mark: A Composition History of the Earliest Narrative Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 32–4.

7. A balanced treatment can be found in the book edited by Tony Burke, ncient Gospel or Modern Forgery? The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate (Eugene: Cascade, 2013).

8. Charles W. Hedrick and Nikolaos Olympiou, “Secret Mark: New Photographs, New Witnesses,” The Fourth R 13/5 (September–October 2000): 3–16.

9. Quentin Quesnell, “The Mar Saba Clementine: A Question of Evidence,” CBQ 37, no. 1 (1975): 48–67 at 52. Quesnell’s own observations on the ink can be found in Stephen Hüller and Daniel N. Gullotta, “Quentin Quesnell’s Secret Mark Secret: A Report on Quentin Quesnell’s 1983 Trip to Jerusalem and His Inspection of the Mar Saba Document,” VC 71 (2017): 353–78 at 370–3.

10. V. Anastasopoulou, “Experts Report Handwriting Examination,” Biblical Archaeology Review 36 (2010): 9, www.biblicalarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/secret-mark-analysis.pdf; A. Tselikas, “Handwriting Analysis Report,” Biblical Archaeology Review October 14 (2009), www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-interpretation/agamemnon-tselikas-handwriting-analysis-report/.

11. Joseph Rosenblum, Practice to Deceive: The Amazing Stories of Literary Forgery’s Most Notorious Practitioners (New Castle: Oak Knoll Press, 2000), 338.

12. Scott Brown, “Reply to Stephen Carlson,” ExpT 117, no. 4 (2006): 144–9; Brown, “Factualizing the Folklore: Stephen Carlson’s Case against Morton Smith,” HTR 99 (2006): 298–306; Brown and Allan J. Pantuck, “Morton Smith as M. Madiotes: Stephen Carlson’s Attribution of Secret Mark to a Bald Swindler,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 6, 1 (2008): 106–25; Brown, “The Letter to Theodore: Stephen Carlson’s Case against Clement’s Authorship,” JECS 16, 4 (2008): 535–72; Roger Viklund and Timo S. Paananen, “Distortion of the Scribal Hand in the Images of Clement’s Letter to Theodore,” VC 67 (2013): 235–47.

13. Smith, CA, 448–53.

14. Charles E. Murgia, “Secret Mark: Real or Fake?” in Reginald H. Fuller, ed., Longer Mark: Forgery, Interpolation, or Old Tradition? Protocol of the Eighteenth Colloquy, 7 December 1975 (Berkeley: Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modern Culture, 1976), 35–40 at 37; Watson, “Beyond Suspicion,” 134; Jeff Jay, “A New Look at the Epistolary Framework of the Secret Gospel of Mark,” JECS 16, no. 4 (2008): 573–97 at 588.

15. Smith, CA, 285. Stählin, GCS 17.lx-lxii, 223–4.

16. Smith, CA, 287.

17. So Murgia: “The rhetoric of urging someone to commit perjury to preserve the secrecy of something which you are in the process of disclosing is ludicrous” (“Secret Mark,” 38).

18. Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski, Clement of Alexandria on Trial: The Evidence of “Heresy” from Photius’ Bibliotheca (Leiden: Brill, 2010).

19. Stählin, GCS 17.lx–lxii, 223.

20. Smith, CA, 285.

21. F. Calabi, ed., Arrhetos Theos. L’ineffabilità del primo principio nel medio platonismo (Pisa: ETS, 2002).

22. Clement, Adumbrationes (Stählin, GCS 17.208.14–18). Cf. the use of Jude in Clement, Paed. 3.8.43.4.

23. John Climacus, Scala paradisi 6.797.17 (PG 88); Theodore Metochites, Carmina 18.123–4. Both references were found using the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.

24. Wolfgang Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus: Studien zum historischen und theologischen Ort des zweiten Petrusbriefes, WUNT 2/353 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 236–60.

25. Origen, Comm. Jo. 5.3 = Eusebius, HE 6.25.8.

26. See further Méhat, Étude, 418–20.

27. Smith, CA, 14.

28. See further David Satran, “Pedagogy and Deceit in the Alexandrian Theological Tradition,” in Origeniana Quinta: Historica – Text and Method – Biblica – Philosophica – Theologica. Origenism and Later Developments, ed. Robert J. Daly (Leuven: Leuven Univeristy Press, 1992), 119–24.

29. Smith, CA, 16.

30. Smith, CA, 16.

31. Smith cited Harvey’s note on AH 1.20.2 (Sancti Irenaei libros quinque adversus haereses, 2 vols. [Cambridge: Academicis, 1857]). This appears to be a false reference.

32. Smith, CA, 16.

33. Kok, Gospel on the Margins, 3–11.

34. See further Carlson, Gospel Hoax, 59–61.

35. Brown, “Factualizing the Folklore,” 306–11.

36. Watson, “Beyond Suspicion,” 154–5. See the critique of Paananen, “Study in Authenticity,” 119–20.

37. I have bracketed the stray τ. Cf. Smith, CA, 28.

38. Tertullian, Praescr. 25-26.

39. In all likelihood, accounts of Mark in Rome and Egypt go back to 1 Peter 5:13, a pseudepigraphical letter probably written in the early second century, in which “Peter” mentions Mark his “son” (i.e., disciple). This “Peter” writes from “Babylon” which Eusebius (HE 2.15.2), along with most later interpreters, understood to be Rome. There was, however, a Babylon in Egypt, and one could see how a native Egyptian might want Peter and Mark to be in Egypt, which came to mean Alexandria. It was in this city, in the late second century, that the Alexandrian bishop sought for validation through a practice of episcopal genealogizing. Tracing the founding of “the” Alexandrian church to Mark the Evangelist—and ultimately to Peter—was a way to validate the catholic bishop’s authority and to connect Alexandria to Rome.

40. Smith, CA, 27.

41. Watson claims that EpThdr depends on Papias here (via Eusebius, HE 3.39.15) (“Beyond Suspicion,” 149–51).

42. Philip Sellew noted the fundamental problem: “In context it might appear that at least the authority of Clement himself is being appealed to for this information about Mark in Alexandria, though unfortunately Eusebius does not actually come out and say this” (“Eusebius and the Gospels,” in Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism, ed. Harold Attridge and Gohei Hata [Leiden: Brill, 1992], 110–38 at 117). Later Sellew observes: “Eusebius’s typical use of the verb φασί seems to be to report traditions for which he has no clear written authority … it would be more precise to say that Eusebius normally cites a tradition with the verb φασί when repeating oral legends” (ibid.). Ilaria L.E. Ramelli argues that since Eusebius did not mention the Alexandria connection in Dem. Ev. 3.5.89–95 (ed. I.A. Heikel, GCS 23 [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1913]), the report about Mark in Alexandria must have come from Clement (“The Birth of the Rome-Alexandria Connection: The Early Sources on Mark and Philo, and the Petrine Tradition,” SPhA 23 [2011]: 69–95 at 77–8). This is neither a necessary nor a plausible inference.

43. Davide Dainesse, “Cassiodorus’ Adumbrationes: Do They Belong to Clement’s Hypotyposeis?” in Studia Patristica 79, ed. Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 87–100; Luke J. Stevens, “The Evangelists in Clement’s Hypotyposes,” JECS 26, no. 3 (2018): 353–79. The specifics of Papias’s report are not supplied until HE 3.39.14–16. We cannot assume that Clement depended entirely on Papias, for Clement had other traditions on the composition of the gospels. See further Stephen Carlson, Papias of Hierapolis, Exposition of Dominical Oracles: The Fragments, Testimonia and Reception of a Second-Century Commentator (Oxford: Oxford Univeristy Press, 2021), 116–17, 136–9.

44. For the gospel of Mark itself as ὑπομνήματα, see Matthew D.C. Larson, Gospels Before the Book (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).

45. Smith, CA, 33.

46. Smith knew of this problem from Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indexes (London: Macmillan, 1952), 31. There is debate as to whether excessionem in the Anti-Marcionite Prologue to Mark (Jurgen Regul, ed., Die antimarcionitischen Evangelienprologe, Vetus Latina 6 [Freiburg: Herder, 1969], 29–30) and ἔξοδον in Irenaeus indeed refer to Peter’s death. See, e.g., Humphrey, From Q, 21–4.

47. Smith, CA, 33. See further James G. Crossley, The Date of Mark’s Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 6–18.

48. Kok, Gospel on the Margins, 119–20, 221.

49. Watson, “Beyond Suspicion,” 137. Cf. Zeddies, “An Origenian Background,” 384.

50. Bucur, “The Place of the Hypotyposeis,” 313–35; Bucur, Angelomorphic Pneumatology: Clement of Alexandria and Other Early Christian Witnesses (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 6–11, 26.

51. Watson, “Beyond Suspicion,” 137–8.

52. See further Eric Osborne, “Teaching and Writing in the First Chapter of the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria,” JTS 10 (1959): 335–44.

53. A.H. Criddle, “On the Mar Saba Letter Attributed to Clement of Alexandria,” JECS 3, no. 2 (1995): 215–20, at 220, who quotes David Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 224–34.

54. Brown, “Behind the Seven Veils: The Gnostic Life Setting of the Mystic Gospel of Mark,” in Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery 247–83 at 269–70. On 272, Brown refers to “seven stages of angelic existence” in Clement, an interpretation of Ecl. 57. In his chart at the end of his essay (283), it becomes clear that Brown asserts two levels of protoctists, two levels of archangel, and two levels of angel. I can see two ranks of protoctists from Ecl. 57.1, but not two levels of the other angelic orders. Bucur (Angelomorphic Pneumatology 36, 38–41, with n.145) more accurately refers to seven protoctists, citing Exc. 10.3–4; cf. Strom. 6.16.143.1: ἑπτὰ μέν εἰσιν οἱ τὴν μεγίστην δύναμιν ἔχοντες πρωτόγονοι ἀγγέλων ἄρχοντες. See further Alain Le Boulluec, ed., Stromate V, tome 2, SC 279 (Paris: Cerf, 1981), 143–4.

55. Andrew C. Itter (Esoteric Teaching in the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria [Leiden: Brill, 2009], 40) notes that “it is difficult to say whether or not these circuits represent actual physical precincts surrounding the tabernacle or have some figurative meaning.” Le Boulluec notes, “The number seven, used of the enclosures around the ancient temple, appears nowhere else.” It appears to be based on a Jewish tradition which conformed the temple structure to the eight-layered cosmos (SC 279:135).

56. Smith, CA, 40–1.

57. Even in Brown’s chart (“Seven Veils,” 283), he lists only two veils: an inner and an outer. See further Annewies Van den Hoek, Clement of Alexandria and His Use of Philo in the Stromateis: An Early Christian Reshaping of a Jewish Model (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 120–4; Judith L. Kovacs, “Concealment and Gnostic Exegesis: Clement of Alexandria’s Interpretation of the Tabernacle,” Studia Patristica 31 (1997): 414–37 at 421. Zeddies cites Origen, Homilies on Numbers 4.2, as a reference to seven veils (GCS 30:22.15–25). Yet this text describes the veiling of seven holy objects in Numbers 4:5–15. It does not refer to temple veils that lead to the Holy of Holies.

58. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 128–30.

59. I leave aside Smith’s speculation about the content of “the great mysteries” (CA 168).

60. Smith, CA, 47.

61. E.g., PGM 4.119–20.

62. Smith, CA, 49.

63. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 70. Ilaria Ramelli observes that, “when Origen adduces examples of philosophers who were Christians and even presbyters (EH 6.19.12–14), he cites Pantaenus and Heraclas, not Clement (“Birth of the Rome-Alexandria Connection” 90).

64. Brown, “The Question of Motive in the Case against Morton Smith,” JBL 125, no. 2 (2006): 351–83 at 365–73; See further Jeffery, Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled 149–239 with the review by Scott Brown in Review of Biblical Literature, Bookreviews.org, September 15, 2007.

65. Smith, CA, 89.

66. Murgia, “Secret Mark,” 38–9.

67. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 30, cf. 139.

68. See further Watson, “Beyond Suspicion,” 138, n.32.

69. Smith, CA, 53.

70. Smith, CA, 53.

71. See further Judith L. Kovacs, “Divine Pedagogy and the Gnostic Teacher according to Clement of Alexandria,” JECS 9, no. 1 (2001): 3–25 at 17–25.

72. Smith, CA, 56.

73. See further Zeddies, “Did Origen,” 63–4.

74. See further Eric Osborne, Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 182–212.

75. Watson, “Beyond Suspicion,” 147.

76. Scott G. Brown, “On the Composition History of the Longer (‘Secret’) Gospel of Mark,” JBL 122, no. 1 (2003): 89–110 at 103–6.

77. Smith, CA, 83, 114, 172; Meyer, Secret Gospels, 122–3, 161; Helmut Koester, From Jesus to the Gospels: Interpreting the New Testament in its Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 50. I owe these references to Brown, “Behind the Seven Veils II: Assessing Clement of Alexandria’s Knowledge of the Mystic Gospel of Mark,” in Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions: Writing Ancient and Modern Christian Apocrypha. Proceedings from the 2015 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium, ed. Tony Burke (Eugene: Cascade, 2017), 95–128 at 101, n.8.

78. Marie-Émile Boismard, A. Lamouille, G. Rochais (Synopse des quatre évangiles en français, vol. III le évangile de Jean [Paris: Cerf, 1977], 279) and Robert Fortna (The Fourth Gospel and Its Predecessor [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988], 94 with n.213) have used Mystic Mark to reconstruct an earlier form of John 11. These references are supplied by Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 281, n.36.

79. James H. Charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John (Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 1995), 127–419; Ismo Dunderberg, Beloved Disciple in Conflict? Revisiting the Gospels of John and Thomas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 116–48; Michael J. Kok, The Beloved Apostle? The Transformation of the Apostle John into the Fourth Evangelist (Eugene: Cascade, 2017), 1–57.

80. Smith, CA, 125.

81. Mullins, “Papias and Clement and Mark’s Two Gospels,” VC 30, no. 3 (1976): 189–92 at 191.

82. Mullins, “Papias and Clement,” 192.

83. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 223.

84. Smith, CA, 282.

85. Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), 166.

86. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 158. Meyer proposed a similar view (Secret Gospels 168–78).

87. Smith, CA, 216–47; Smith, “On the Authenticity of the Mar Saba Letter of Clement,” CBQ 38 (1976): 196–9 at 198.

88. Smith, CA, 65; cf. 175–7.

89. Smith, CA, 185.

90. Smith, CA, 175–6.

91. See, e.g., Alistair Stewart-Sykes, ed., Hippolytus: On the Apostolic Tradition. An English Version with Introduction and Commentary (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), 110, §21.

92. Brown, “Behind the Seven Veils,” 278.

93. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 131–3.

94. Jean-Daniel Kaestli, “L’Évangile de Marc. Une version longue de l’Évangile de Marc réservée aux Chrétiennes avancés dans la Église d’Alexandrie?” in Le Mystère apocryphe. Introduction à une littérature méconnue, ed. J.-D. Kaestli and D. Marguerat (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1995) 85–106 at 101. On the fire, see Smith, CA, 3, 289.

95. Watson, “Beyond Suspicion,” 140.

96. Smith, CA, 97–63, 357–67.

97. Smith, CA, 141–4. Smith attacked the pastiche theory by insulting rather than convincing his critics in “Clement of Alexandria and Secret Mark: The Score at the End of the First Decade,” HTR 75, no. 4 (1982): 449–61 at 453–5.

98. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 6.

99. Oxford English Dictionary online (www.oed.com) accessed August 30, 2021.

100. Smith, “On the Authenticity,” 197.

101. I assume here that there was a proto-Luke used by Marcion, who published his version of Luke about 145 CE. I take canonical Luke to be, at least in part, a response to Marcion’s version of Luke. See further Joseph B. Tyson, Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006); Markus Vinzent, Tertullian’s Preface to Marcion’s Gospel. Studia Patristica Supplement 5 (Leuven: Peeters, 2016); Matthias Klinghardt, The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels, 2 vols. (Leuven: Peeters, 2021).

102. Smith, CA, 90.

103. Smith, CA, 277.

104. This point stands regardless of how little Smith used EpThdr in Jesus the Magician (New York: Harper & Row, 1977).

105. Smith, “Review of V. Taylor The Gospel According to St. Mark,” Journal of Religious Thought 11, no. 1 Autumn to Winter (1953–1954): 64–5 at 64.

106. Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indexes (London: Macmillan, 1952), 32.

107. Taylor, Gospel According to St. Mark, 5–6.

108. Smith, “Comments on Taylor’s Commentary on Mark,” HTR 48, no. 1 (1955): 21–64 at 53, n.45.

109. Smith, “The Jewish Elements in the Gospels,” Journal of Bible and Religion 24 (1956): 90–6 at 95.

110. Watson sees “indications of modernity” in “the possible use of an old introductory formulation as the template for a new one, the homosexuality theme, the detachment of Mark’s gospel from the teaching of Peter, the apparent modelling of the ‘more spiritual gospel’ on Clement’s ‘spiritual gospel’, the appeal to keep Mystic Mark’s very existence a secret, the bizarre compositional technique evidenced in the Secret Gospel fragments, and the attention to issues of provenance as preliminary to exegesis” (“Beyond Suspicion,” 143).

111. Smith, CA, 139; Criddle, “Mar Saba Letter,” whose conclusions are, in the main, confirmed by Andrew R. Solow and Woollcott K. Smith, “A Statistical Problem Concerning the Mar Saba Letter,” American Statistician 63, no. 3 (2009): 25–47.

112. The Mystery of Mar Saba by James H. Hunter (Toronto: Evangelical Publishers, 1940). See further Watson, “Beyond Suspicion,” 163–70 (critiqued by Zeddies, “An Origenian Background,” 403–5); Andrew S. Jacobs, “‘This Piece of Parchment Will Shake the World,’ Mystery of Mar Saba and the Evangelical Prototype of a Secular Fiction Genre,” Christianity & Literature 69, no. 1 (2020): 91–106.

113. Watson, “Beyond Suspicion,” 159–61.

114. Smith, “The Manuscript Tradition of Isidore of Pelusium,” HTR 47 (1954): 205–10.

115. Smith, “Minor Collections of Manuscripts in Greece,” JBL 72 (1953): xii; Smith, “Symmeikta: Notes on Collections of Manuscripts in Greece,” Epeteris Hetaireias Byzantinon Spoudon 26 (1956): 380–93. In 1952, Smith also produced a catalogue of microfilmed selections from Greek manuscripts of the tenth to nineteenth centuries found mainly in monastic libraries (deposited in the Brown University Library, Providence, RI).

116. Smith was intimately familiar with Mark, as can be seen from his “Comments on Taylor’s Commentary.” Smith had planned to write a book on Mark (Scholem, Correspondence letter 40, August 1, 1955 [81]), no. 42 [85], no. 45 [February 28, 1956]).

117. Jay, “Epistolary Framework,” 596–7.

118. Grant Adamson recently critiques Jay’s article and provides additional reasons for Morton Smith’s dependence on Eusebius (“What Are the Odds? Serapion, Eusebius, and Secret Mark,” NovT 64 no. 3 [2022], forthcoming).

119. Smith, “On the Authenticity,” 197.

120. Carlson, Gospel Hoax, 74–86, 7.

121. Brown, “Question of Motive,” 374.Pace

122. Stroumsa, ed., Morton Smith and Gershom Scholem, 158 (Letter 96); 160 (Letter 97).

123. See Helmut Koester, “Was Morton Smith a Great Thespian and I a Complete Fool?” Biblical Archaeology Review 35, no. 6 (Nov/Dec 2009): 54–8.

124. Smith, “Score,” 450.

125. Smith, CA, 248–51.

126. Jeffery, Pace Secret Gospel, 251. Whitley claims that Smith has been hereticalized in the modern academy (“Blasphemy,” 4).

127. Shaye J.D. Cohen, “In Memoriam Morton Smith: Morton Smith and His Scholarly Achievement,” in Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period: Essays in Memory of Morton Smith, ed. Fausto Parente and Joseph Sievers (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 1–8.

128. Schenke, “Mystery,” 65–82.Pace

129. Michael Kok has shown that Smith uncritically accepted and exaggerated the libertine and “magical” features of the ancient testimonies about the Carpocratians (“Morton Smith and the Carpocratians”). See further Löhr, “Karpokratianisches,” 34–5; Scholten, “Karpokrates,” 174–5.

References

1. Anastasopoulou, V. “Experts Report Handwriting Examination.” BAR 36 (2010): 9. https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/secret-mark-analysis.pdf.

2. Ashwin-Siejkowski, Piotr. Clement of Alexandria on Trial: The Evidence of ‘Heresy’ from Photius’ Bibliotheca. Leiden: Brill, 2010.

3. Brown, Scott. “Behind the Seven Veils: The Gnostic Life Setting of the Mystic Gospel of Mark.” 247–283 in Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery: The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate. Edited by Tony Burke. Eugene: Cascade, 2013.

4. Brown, Scott. “Behind the Seven Veils II: Assessing Clement of Alexandria’s Knowledge of the Mystic Gospel of Mark.” Pages 95–128 in Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions: Writing Ancient and Modern Christian Apocrypha. Proceedings from the 2015 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium. Edited by Tony Burke. Eugene: Cascade, 2017.

5. Brown, Scott. “Factualizing the Folklore: Stephen Carlson’s Case against Morton Smith.” HTR 99 (2006): 298–306.

6. Brown, Scott. Mark’s Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith’s Controversial Discovery. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier Press, 2005.

7. Brown, Scott. “On the Composition History of the Longer (‘Secret’) Gospel of Mark.” JBL 122, no. 1 (2003): 89–110.

8. Brown, Scott. “Reply to Stephen Carlson.” ExpT 117, no. 4 (2006): 144–149.

9. Brown, Scott. “The Letter to Theodore: Stephen Carlson’s Case against Clement’s Authorship.” JECS 16, no. 4 (2008): 535–572.

10. Brown, Scott and Allan J. Pantuck. “Morton Smith as M. Madiotes: Stephen Carlson’s Attribution of Secret Mark to a Bald Swindler.” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 6, no. 1 (2008): 106–125.

11. Bucur, Bogdan. Angelomorphic Pneumatology: Clement of Alexandria and Other Early Christian Witnesses. Leiden: Brill, 2009.

12. Calabi, F., ed. Arrhetos Theos. L’ineffabilità del primo principio nel medio platonismo. Pisa: ETS, 2002.

13. Carlson, Stephen. Papias of Hierapolis, Exposition of Dominical Oracles: The Fragments, Testimonia and Reception of a Second-Century Commentator. Oxford: Oxford Univeristy Press, 2021.

14. Carlson, Stephen. The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2005.

15. Charlesworth, James H. The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John. Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 1995.

16. Cohen, Shaye J.D. “In Memoriam Morton Smith: Morton Smith and His Scholarly Achievement.” Pages 1–8 in Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period: Essays in Memory of Morton Smith. Edited by Fausto Parente and Joseph Sievers. Leiden: Brill, 1994.

17. Criddle, A.H. “On the Mar Saba Letter Attributed to Clement of Alexandria.” JECS 3, no. 2 (1995): 215–220.

18. Crossley, James G. The Date of Mark’s Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity. London: T&T Clark, 2004.

19. Dainesse, Davide. “Cassiodorus’ Adumbrationes: Do They Belong to Clement’s Hypotyposeis?” Studia Patristica 79 (2017): 87–100.

20. Dart, John. Decoding Mark. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2003.

21. Dunderberg, Ismo. Beloved Disciple in Conflict? Revisiting the Gospels of John and Thomas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

22. Ehrman, Bart. “Response to Charles Hedrick’s Stalemate.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 11, no. 2 (2003): 155–163.

23. Grünstäudl, Wolfgang. Petrus Alexandrinus: Studien zum historischen und theologischen Ort des zweiten Petrusbriefes. WUNT 2/353. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013.

24. Gundry, Robert H. Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.

25. Hedrick, Charles W. “The Secret Gospel of Mark: Stalemate in the Academy.” JECS 11, no. 2 (2003): 133–145.

26. Hedrick, Charles W. and Nikolaos Olympiou. “Secret Mark: New Photographs, New Witnesses.” The Fourth R 13/5 (September–October 2000): 3–16.

27. Hüller, Stephen and Daniel N. Gullotta. “Quentin Quesnell’s Secret Mark Secret: A Report on Quentin Quesnell’s 1983 Trip to Jerusalem and His Inspection of the Mar Saba Document.” VC 71 (2017): 353–378.

28. Humphrey, Hugh M. From Q to “Secret” Mark: A Composition History of the Earliest Narrative Theology. London: T&T Clark, 2006.

29. Itter, Andrew C. Esoteric Teaching in the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria. Leiden: Brill, 2009.

30. Jacobs, Andrew S. “‘This Piece of Parchment Will Shake the World,’ The Mystery of Mar Saba and the Evangelical Prototype of a Secular Fiction Genre.” Christianity & Literature 69, no. 1 (2020): 91–106.

31. Jay, Jeff. “A New Look at the Epistolary Framework of the Secret Gospel of Mark.” JECS 16, no. 4 (2008): 573–597.

32. Jeffery, Peter. The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery. New Haven: Yale Univeristy Press, 2007.

33. Kaestli, Jean-Daniel. “L’Évangile de Marc. Une version longue de l’Évangile de Marc réservée aux Chrétiennes avancés dans la Église d’Alexandrie?” Pages 85–106 in Le Mystère apocryphe. Introduction à une littérature méconnue. Edited by J.-D. Kaestli and D. Marguerat. Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1995.

34. Klinghardt, Matthias. The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels. 2 vols. Leuven: Peeters, 2021.

35. Koester, Helmut. From Jesus to the Gospels: Interpreting the New Testament in its Context. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007.

36. Koester, Helmut. “Was Morton Smith a Great Thespian and I a Complete Fool?” Biblical Archaeology Review 35, no. 6 (Nov/Dec 2009): 54–58.

37. Koester, Helmut. Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development. London: SCM Press, 1990.

38. Kok, Michael. The Beloved Apostle? The Transformation of the Apostle John into the Fourth Evangelist. Eugene: Cascade, 2017.

39. Kok, Michael. “Morton Smith and the Carpocratians.” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 97/4 (2021): 591–607.

40. Kovacs, Judith L. “Concealment and Gnostic Exegesis: Clement of Alexandria’s Interpretation of the Tabernacle.” Studia Patristica 31 (1997): 414–437.

41. Kovacs, Judith L. “Divine Pedagogy and the Gnostic Teacher according to Clement of Alexandria.” JECS 9, no. 1 (2001): 3–25.

42. Larson, Matthew D.C. Gospels Before the Book. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

43. Merkel, Helmut. “Das geheime Markusevangelium.” Pages 390–399 in Antike christliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung. Edited by Christoph Markschies and Jens Schröter. Vol. 1.1. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012.

44. Meyer, Marvin. Secret Gospels: Essays on Thomas and the Secret Gospel of Mark. Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 2003.

45. Mullins, Terrence Y. “Papias and Clement and Mark’s Two Gospels.” VC 30, no. 3 (1976): 189–192.

46. Murgia, Charles E. “Secret Mark: Real or Fake?” Pages 35–40 in Longer Mark: Forgery, Interpolation, or Old Tradition? Protocol of the Eighteenth Colloquy, 7 December 1975. Edited by Reginald H. Fuller. Berkeley: Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modern Culture, 1976.

47. Osborne, Eric. “Teaching and Writing in the First Chapter of the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria.” JTS 10 (1959): 335–344.

48. Osborne, Eric. Clement of Alexandria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

49. Paananen, Timo S. “A Study in Authenticity: Admissible Concealed Indicators of Authority and Other Features of Forgeries—A Case Study on Clement of Alexandria, Letter to Theodore, and the Longer Gospel of Mark.” ThD diss., University of Helsinki, 2019.

50. Paananen, Timo S. “From Stalemate to Deadlock: Clement’s Letter to Theodore in Recent Scholarship.” Currents in Biblical Research 11, no. 1 (2012): 87–125.

51. Pearson, Birger A. “The Secret Gospel of Mark: A 20th Century Forgery.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 4 (2008): 1–14.

52. Quesnell, Quentin. “The Mar Saba Clementine: A Question of Evidence.” CBQ 37, no. 1 (1975): 48–67.

53. Ramelli, Ilaria L.E. “The Birth of the Rome-Alexandria Connection: The Early Sources on Mark and Philo, and the Petrine Tradition.” SPhA 23 (2011): 69–95.

54. Regul, Jurgen, ed. Die antimarcionitischen Evangelienprologe. Vetus Latina 6. Freiburg: Herder, 1969.

55. Rosenblum, Joseph. Practice to Deceive: The Amazing Stories of Literary Forgery’s Most Notorious Practitioners. New Castle: Oak Knoll Press, 2000.

56. Satran, David. “Pedagogy and Deceit in the Alexandrian Theological Tradition.” Pages 119–124 in Origeniana Quinta: Historica – Text and Method – Biblica – Philosophica – Theologica. Origenism and Later Developments. Edited by Robert J. Daly. Leuven: Leuven Univeristy Press, 1992.

57. Schenke, Hans-Martin. “The Mystery of the Gospel of Mark.” Second Century 4, no. 2 (1984): 65–82.

58. Sellew, Philip. “Eusebius and the Gospels,” Pages 110–138 in Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism. Edited by Harold Attridge and Gohei Hata. Leiden: Brill, 1992.

59. Smith, Morton. “Clement of Alexandria and Secret Mark: The Score at the End of the First Decade.” HTR 75, no. 4 (1982): 449–461.

60. Smith, Morton. “Comments on Taylor’s Commentary on Mark.” HTR 48, no. 1 (1955): 21–64.

61. Smith, Morton. “Minor Collections of Manuscripts in Greece.” JBL 72 (1953): xii.

62. Smith, Morton. “On the Authenticity of the Mar Saba Letter of Clement.” CBQ 38 (1976): 196–199.

63. Smith, Morton. “Review of V. Taylor The Gospel According to St. Mark.” Journal of Religious Thought 11, no. 1 Autumn to Winter (1953–1954): 64–65.

64. Smith, Morton. “Symmeikta: Notes on Collections of Manuscripts in Greece.” Epeteris Hetaireias Byzantinon Spoudon 26 (1956): 380–393.

65. Smith, Morton. “The Jewish Elements in the Gospels.” Journal of Bible and Religion 24 (1956): 90–96.

66. Smith, Morton. “The Manuscript Tradition of Isidore of Pelusium.” HTR 47 (1954): 205–210.

67. Smith, Morton. Jesus the Magician. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.

68. Solow, Andrew R. and Woollcott K. Smith. “A Statistical Problem Concerning the Mar Saba Letter.” American Statistician 63, no. 3 (2009): 254–257.

69. Stevens, Luke J. “The Evangelists in Clement’s Hypotyposes.” JECS 26, no. 3 (2018): 353–379.

70. Stewart-Sykes, Alistair, ed. Hippolytus: On the Apostolic Tradition. An English Version with Introduction and Commentary. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001.

71. Stroumsa, Guy. “Comments on Charles Hedrick’s Article: A Testimony.” JECS 11, no. 2 (2003): 147–153.

72. Taylor, Vincent. The Gospel According to St. Mark: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indexes. London: Macmillan, 1952.

73. Tselikas, A. “Handwriting Analysis Report.” Biblical Archaeology Review, October 14 (2009). https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-interpretation/agamemnon-tselikas-handwriting-analysis-report/.

74. Tyson, Joseph B. Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006.

75. Van den Hoek, Annewies. Clement of Alexandria and His Use of Philo in the Stromateis: An Early Christian Reshaping of a Jewish Model. Leiden: Brill, 1988.

76. Viklund, Roger and Timo S. Paananen. “Distortion of the Scribal Hand in the Images of Clement’s Letter to Theodore.” VC 67 (2013): 235–247.

77. Vinzent, Markus. Tertullian’s Preface to Marcion’s Gospel. Studia Patristica Supplement 5. Leuven: Peeters, 2016.

78. Watson, Francis. “Beyond Suspicion: On the Authorship of the Mar Saba Letter and the Secret Gospel of Mark.” JTS 61, no. 1 (2010): 128–170.

79. Yarbro Collins, Adela. Mark: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007.

80. Zeddies, Michael T. “An Origenian Background for the Letter to Theodore.” HTR 112, no. 3 (2019): 376–406.

81. Zeddies, Michael T. “Did Origen Write the Letter to Theodore?” JECS 25, no. 1 (2017): 55–87.