Clement of Alexandria on Secrets, Mysteries, and the “Sevenfold Veiled” Truth

Οὐδέπω ὅμως αὐτὰ τὰ ἀπόῤῥητα ἐξωρχήσατο, οὐδὲ κατέγραψε τὴν ἱεροφαντικὴν διδασκαλίαν τοῦ Κυρίου, ἀλλὰ ταῖς προγεγραμμέναις πράξεσιν ἐπιθεὶς καὶ ἄλλας. Ἔτι προσεπήγαγε λόγιά τινα ὧν ἠπίστατο τὴν ἐξήγησιν μυσταγωγήσειν τοὺς ἀκροατὰς εἰς τὸ ἄδυτον τῆς ἑπτάκις κεκαλυμμένης ἀληθείας. (Clement, To Theodore 23 - 26)

He had not yet, however, set forth the secret things themselves, nor written down the hierophantic teaching of the Lord; rather, to the deeds previously recorded he added still others. He also further appended certain sayings, the interpretation of which he knew would initiate the hearers into the inner sanctuary of the truth that is veiled sevenfold.

It is almost insane to suggest that beneath the successful imitation of 18th century monastic handwriting written into a damaged copy of a 17th century printed book, "smuggling" said book into a guarded monastic library in 1958, Morton Smith, an assistant professor from Columbia, managed to compose something "as if" by Clement which not only perfectly approximates the Alexandrian's writing style but which also fits his conceptual understanding so well. An authority on Clement might have been able to pull that off. But Smith wasn't an authority on Clement. 

Let's look at some key phrases from the cited passage above with regards to how they "fit" with the Stromateis, a work Clement wrote at the end of the second century. Here's what Smith wrote in 1966 and published in 1973 regarding this section: 

Besides indicating this terminus ante quem for the secret Gospel, the letter gives us some notion of what this Gospel was like. First, it was a Gospel “according to Mark” — this was the claim of both the Carpocratians (I.1ff) and of Clement (I.2ff). It certainly included at least parts of the present canonical Gospel according to Mark: to such parts Clement gives precise references (II.21–22; III.11, 14). It probably contained all of canonical Mark — Clement says it was composed by additions to the canonical Gospel, but says nothing of omissions (I.20f, 24ff). The additions, Clement says, were made by Mark himself, of material from his “notes” (ὑπομνήματα, I.19f) and those of Peter. The new material did not exhaust these notes, but was chosen from them. It consisted of “things suitable to those studies which make for progress toward knowledge” (τὰ τοῖς προκόπτουσι περὶ τὴν γνώσιν κατάλληλα, I.20f), both of stories (πράξεις, I.24) like those in the canonical Gospel and sayings (λόγια τινά, I.25) of which the exegesis would lead the hearers to the hidden truth (I.26). It did not contain τὰ ἀπόρρητα (I.22f), nor “the hierophantic teaching of the Lord” (I.23–24, probably identical with τὰ ἀπόρρητα). The expanded text constituted a “more spiritual Gospel” (πνευματικώτερον εὐαγγέλιον, I.21f), which was intended to be useful to those who were being “perfected” or “initiated” (τελειούμενοι, I.22). This text was kept secret by Clement’s church in Alexandria and read only “to those being initiated (μυούμενοι) into the great mysteries” (II.2). It was in the custody of the presbyters of the church, or they had had access to it, so that one of them had been able to secure an inferior (?) copy (ἀπόγραφον) for Carpocrates (II.5–6). Clement himself either had a copy or knew the text by heart or had access to it; he could quote it verbatim to Theodore.

That's pretty good. But that barely scratches the surface. Let's see how five core concepts in the section "fit" with parallel passages in the Stromateis: 

τὰ ἀπόῤῥητα

ἡ ἱεροφαντικὴ διδασκαλία τοῦ Κυρίου

πράξεσιν / πράξεσιν ἐπιθεὶς

ἡ ἐξήγησις μυσταγωγήσειν

τὸ ἄδυτον τῆς ἑπτάκις κεκαλυμμένης ἀληθείας

Secret Teachings Not Written Down (τὰ ἀπόρρητα)

Clement of Alexandria held that certain higher truths of the faith were “secret” or unspeakable (τὰ ἀπόρρητα) and were not meant for casual disclosure. In his Stromateis (Miscellanies), Clement emphasizes an unwritten esoteric tradition handed down from the apostles. He says that Jesus “did not certainly disclose to the many what did not belong to the many; but to the few to whom He knew that they belonged… And, secret things are entrusted to speech, not to writing, as is the case with God”. In the same context, Clement argues that even if Scripture says “nothing is hidden that shall not be revealed,” it means that secret teachings will be revealed “to him who hears [them] secretly” – i.e. to worthy initiates, not to everyone. This demonstrates Clement’s practice of holding back the deepest doctrines (the “aporrheta”) from written texts, reserving them for oral instruction of a select few. Indeed, he admits “Some things I purposely omit, in the exercise of a wise selection, afraid to write what I guarded against even speaking…lest we should be found ‘reaching a sword to a child.’”. Such statements show that Clement consciously kept the highest teachings esoteric, very much in line with the idea of τὰ ἀπόρρητα (“things not to be uttered to all”) referenced in the passage.

Hierophantic Teaching of the Lord (ἱεροφαντικὴ διδασκαλία τοῦ Κυρίου)

Clement often describes Christian doctrine using the language of the mystery cults, portraying Christ and other holy teachers as hierophants (initiators into sacred mysteries). In the Protrepticus (Exhortation), he pointedly calls Moses “the hierophant of truth” for Israel. More significantly, Clement presents Christ Himself as the ultimate Hierophant who initiates believers into the divine mysteries. “O truly sacred mysteries! ... The Lord is the hierophant , and seals while illuminating him who is initiated, and presents to the Father him who believes, to be kept safe forever.”. Here Clement depicts Jesus as fulfilling the role of a mystagogue or hierophant, leading the “initiated” into saving knowledge. This shows that speaking of “the hierophantic teaching of the Lord” (ἱεροφαντικὴ διδασκαλία τοῦ Κυρίου) is consistent with Clement’s style. He freely uses hierophantic imagery for the gospel: the truth of Christ is a holy mystery into which the Lord (as High Priest and Teacher) initiates the worthy. In short, Clement’s Christianity has a strong mystagogical character, so referring to the Lord’s teaching as hierophantic accurately reflects his approach of likening Christian instruction to a sacred initiation.

“Acts” and Adding Further Narratives (πράξεις … ἐπιθεὶς)

The Greek term πράξεις (“acts” or “deeds”) in the passage alludes to narrative accounts of Jesus’s works – and Clement does use this term in reference to scripture. For example, he explicitly cites the biblical Acts of the Apostles (in Greek, Πράξεις τῶν Ἀποστόλων) as an authoritative text. In Stromateis I, he writes: “as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, ‘...Rise, Peter; kill and eat…’”, and elsewhere he notes “in the Acts of the Apostles you will find this, word for word, ‘Those then who received his word were baptized…’”. This shows Clement was familiar with “Acts” as a genre of sacred narrative.

As for the phrase “adding other deeds” (πράξεσιν ἐπιθεὶς καὶ ἄλλας), Clement’s extant writings acknowledge that Mark and the other evangelists compiled accounts of the Lord’s deeds, though they do not use these exact words. Notably, Clement describes the composition of Mark’s Gospel in a way that resonates with the idea of adding more narratives. According to Eusebius (who quotes Clement’s Hypotyposeis), after Peter’s preaching in Rome the people “besought Mark, who had followed [Peter]… to leave them a written monument of the doctrine which had been orally communicated. …Thus Mark composed the Gospel, and gave it to those who had requested it” Clement further relates that “when Peter learned of this, he neither forbade it nor encouraged it”. Moreover, Clement knew Mark was associated with Alexandria – “they say that this Mark was the first that was sent to Egypt…and first established churches in Alexandria.”. While Clement’s surviving works do not explicitly say Mark “added” additional stories later, his testimony (preserved by Eusebius) acknowledges two stages of Mark’s work: an initial Gospel written in Rome for new converts, and the tradition that Mark brought his gospel to Alexandria, the very scenario in which the passage implies Mark appended further secret narratives for the mature. Thus, Clement’s writings show familiarity with the idea of Gospel narratives (praxeis) and even a distinction between basic written accounts and deeper teachings. This lends context to the passage’s statement that Mark, “to the previously written acts, added still others”, even if Clement’s extant text stops short of using the exact phrasing πράξεσιν ἐπιθεὶς. The concept of supplementing the Gospel with further deeds for those “advancing in knowledge” is in harmony with Clement’s view that the faith has both elementary teachings and more advanced, hidden teachings for those capable – a point he makes by noting that Mark’s listeners in Rome were “not content with the unwritten teaching” and demanded a written Gospel.

Interpretation as Mystagogy (τὴν ἐξήγησιν μυσταγωγήσειν)

Clement consistently portrays biblical interpretation (ἐξήγησις) and teaching as a process of mystical initiation (μυσταγωγία). In the quoted passage, the phrase “the interpretation of which will mystagogically lead the hearers…” corresponds exactly to Clement’s pedagogical method. He asserts that the deeper meaning of Scripture is deliberately veiled in symbols and enigmas so that only a trained mind can discern it. “The mysteries are delivered mystically,” he writes, “that what is spoken may be… not on the tongue but in the understanding [of the listener]”. Only the one with the right disposition will grasp the hidden truth: “to him who hears secretly, even what is secret shall be manifested… what is hidden to the many shall appear manifest to the few.”. This is essentially mystagogical language – Clement describes the teacher as leading the student into a sacred inner meaning, much as a mystagogue leads initiates into the inner sanctuary. Indeed, Clement sees the Christian gnostic teacher as an initiator: “Thus the Lord did not hinder us from doing good on the Sabbath, but allowed us to communicate of those divine mysteries to those capable of receiving them”. And as shown above, he even calls Christ “the hierophant” who “illuminates the one being initiated”. We can say, then, that Clement’s concept of exegesis is inherently mystagogical. He uses allegorical interpretation to unveil spiritual truths layer by layer, initiating the faithful into higher knowledge. This directly parallels the passage’s idea that Mark included certain λόγια (sayings) whose proper interpretation would “lead the hearers as a mystagogue” into the deepest truth. In Clement’s own practice, scriptural exegesis serves to usher believers from the outer literal level into the inner secrets of faith, just as a mystagogue leads initiates from the outer court into the inner shrine.

The “Adyton” and the Sevenfold-Veiled Truth (τὸ ἄδυτον τῆς ἑπτάκις κεκαλυμμένης ἀληθείας)

Perhaps most striking is Clement’s use of temple imagery and multiple veils to describe the concealment of divine truth – imagery that closely matches “the adyton of the truth hidden by sevenfold covering.” In Stromateis V, Clement gives a detailed allegorical interpretation of the Jewish tabernacle/temple, emphasizing how it exemplifies layered secrecy. He notes for instance: “Now concealment is evidenced by the reference to the seven circuits around the temple, spoken of among the Hebrews; and the covering and the veil were variegated…suggesting that the nature of the elements contained the revelation of God.”. Here Clement draws attention to sevenfold enclosures (often understood as seven walls or perhaps the sevenfold veil of the tabernacle) that separate the profane outside from the holy inner sanctum. He goes on to describe the divisions of the sanctuary: there was an outer court open to all Israelites, an inner Holy Place accessible only to priests, and beyond the inner veil lay “the Adyton (ἄδυτον),” the Holy of Holies, entered only by the high priest on appointed days. He even remarks that the mystic four-lettered Name of God was known only to those admitted to the adytum. This language directly parallels the passage’s phrase “the adyton of the truth hidden by sevenfold-veiled truth.” Clement clearly envisions ultimate truth as an inner holy place – “the sanctuary of knowledge”, as he elsewhere calls it – screened by multiple veils that only the spiritually advanced can penetrate. The “seven times covered” truth in the letter evokes the same concept as Clement’s “seven circuits” and veils that envelop the sacred mysteries.

It is worth noting that Clement connects this “sevenfold veil” motif with the idea that spiritual truths are protected from the uninitiated. Just as a physical veil guarded the holy inner room, the literal narratives and symbols guard the deeper gospel truth. Only through successive unveilings – analogous to passing through multiple curtains or precincts – does one reach “the secret place” of truth (τὸ ἄδυτον τῆς ἀληθείας). In Clement’s own words, “the things recorded of the sacred Ark signify the properties of the world of thought, which is hidden and closed to the many”. Ultimately, the goal is to arrive where, as he says, “within the veil…the sacerdotal service is concealed”, far from the gaze of the uninitiated crowd.

In sum, Clement’s extant writings abundantly attest to all the key concepts found in the Greek passage: the notion of secret teachings (τὰ ἀπόρρητα) reserved for a spiritual elite; the portrayal of Christ’s gospel as a mysterial or hierophantic teaching; the use of the term praxeis for recorded acts and an understanding that Mark’s Gospel had both public and secret components; the idea that proper exegesis serves to mystagogically lead believers into the hidden core of truth; and the vivid image of ultimate truth as an inner sanctuary veiled seven-fold from the profane, into which the initiated alone may enter. All these themes are integral to Clement of Alexandria’s theological vocabulary and imagery, showing a remarkable consistency between his acknowledged works and the concepts expressed in the questioned passage. The correspondence of these ideas in Clement’s Greek writings underlines how authentically “Clementine” the passage’s language and mystagogical themes are.

Sources: Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks (Protrepticus) and Stromateis (Miscellanies) in ANF vol.2; Stromateis V.4–VI.** (on the tabernacle symbolism); Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History II.15–16 (citing Clement’s Hypotyposeis on Mark’s Gospel); etc.

2 Thessalonians 2:2 Is Clearly a Post-Marcionite ("Orthodox") Revision of the Marcionite Canon (Whatever that Was)

μὴ ταχέως σαλευθῆναι ὑμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ νοὸς μηδὲ θροεῖσθαι, μήτε διὰ πνεύματος μήτε διὰ λόγου μήτε δι’ ἐπιστολῆς ὡς δι’ ἡμῶν, ὡς ὅτι ἐνέστηκεν ἡ ἡμέρα τοῦ Κυρίου.

Not to be quickly shaken in mind nor to be alarmed, neither through a spirit nor through a logos nor through a letter as though from us, as though the Day of the Lord has arrived. 

The structure of 2 Thess 2:2 presupposes three distinct channels of authoritative communication. Because “spirit” already encompasses inspired oral tradition, “logos” cannot mean mere spoken teaching. The only type of authoritative “word” distinct from prophecy and epistle—and capable of being forged—is a gospel narrative. Thus, read in light of early traditions (Clement, Marcion) that Paul possessed a gospel, 2 Thess 2:2 becomes unexpectedly transparent: Paul warns the Thessalonians against forged prophecies, forged gospels, and forged letters.

Scholars Who Study the Bible Have a Hard Time Being Indifferent About their Subject Matter

I don't know about the rest of you, but in my day to day life I tend to think I am right about most things. If another driver honks their horn at me, I immediately assume "he's an asshole" (unless it's a "she" when a switch over to calling her whatever is appropriate - I don't know why I refuse to apply "asshole" to women or whether that is a "good thing" or latent "misogyny" - who knows). The point is if most of us (and I assume that I am not alone in my self-centeredness) find it hard to be open-minded regarding our inferiority and unreliability in the cosmos with regards to banal things like driving how much more so with respect to religion. 

Whether we are atheists or believers the human mind always strives for "sameness." The simplest path to sameness is the default assumption of personal infallibility. I was put on this earth "for a reason." That "reason" is to keep doing what I am doing. I do what I do not as a matter of random chance but purpose. What is the ultimate purpose of my being? Whatever beliefs and practices my parents and whatever other ancestors that touch my consciousness. It's so banal and predictable. 

One of the things that many of our ancestors believed in (not mine but that's another story) is the version of early Christian history contained in the Acts of the Apostles. Clement of Alexandria is the first person to cite material from this "history" (Clement is older than Irenaeus because Irenaeus repeated cites from Clement's work the Stromateis) and Clement thinks that Luke was a second century figure. The complexities of who believed what, when and how and why doesn't concern us right now. The point is that while our culture has given Acts a blank check to define the history of Christianity for us and all future generations, it is recognized by many second century Christians as a false history (i.e. Tatian, Marcion etc). 

It becomes impossible to ignore that not only is the "totality" of inherited history about the origins of Christianity that have come down us is "wrong" but quite specifically the original centrality of "Paul" was obscured or diminished. We actually have early Church Fathers who consistently complain about "those who exaggerate the significance of Paul" - that he wasn't the one who "knew everything" or was smarter or better or more knowledgeable or "more blessed" than the other apostles (and whenever we hear statements like this "other apostles" who the Patristic authorities really have in mind is Peter. 

Why does any of this matter? For scholars who study the Bible this question has great personal value. These people spend a great part of their life acquiring "expertise" over this subject matter and it is worth noting that in the study of humanity there are always really two types of knowledge - (a) the knowledge of what successive generations believe and then (b) what actually happened. With respect to (a) this is epitomized by the term "Nicene." Scholars pass on an inherited notion that our inherited tradition is for instance "Nicene" because a group of scholars at the end of the Western Roman Empire pretended that the tradition associated with Athanasius was confirmed at Nicaea. This is patently untrue. The Arians undoubtedly triumphed at Nicaea. Eusebius of Nicomedia rather than Athanasius baptized Constantine. The problem for the circle of Arius was simply that they failed to "get the last word" as barbarian hordes sacked Rome at the beginning of the fifth century CE and so "Nicene" was ultimately associated with the apologists for their adversary Athanasius. 

In the very same way, the apostle Paul was originally something or someone entirely other than the subordinated figure in the pantheon of Irenaeus of Lyons. Paul stood alone and apart from Peter. Paul was, for his supporters greater, smarter, better, "faster" and stronger than Peter. The unfortunate part is that we can't nail down who, what, where or how the original Pauline tradition with as great a certainty as the "un-Nicene" historicity of our Nicene tradition. Even then, though we have some of the writings of Eusebius of Caesarea even the un-Nicene character of our Nicene tradition has its difficulties and limitations. The bottom line is that the reconstruction of early Christian history is very, very uncertain. 

It is always easier to reconstruct the negative aspects of this historical situation - the "lies," the misrepresentations, the shortcomings than the "full picture." Such is the case with our false canon of Pauline of writings. Paul originally wrote a "Gospel of Jesus" (often referenced as the "Gospel of the Lord"). This is certainly the gospel "according to Mark" without a clear ascription of authorship. The Philosophumena hints at this as does Origen's inevitable coupling of Mark 1:1 with Romans 1:1. There is something unmistakably Markan about Pauline theology (despite arguments to the contrary). 

The "Marcionites" (better simply "early Pauline Christians") claimed that our inherited canon of letters was falsified from theirs. Of course they are right. We know this not because of any statement in Tertullian or Epiphanius but because of the statement from 2 Thessalonians 2:2 which was always taken to mean that a "false" collection of letters circulated in antiquity which identified Paul as saying the Parousia (the Second Coming) had already taken place. 

Of course the earliest Christians thought the Parousia had taken place in their lifetime. As noted at the beginning of this scribble, we're all self-centered assholes. We all things not only the world but history itself was made for "us." If the first Christian converts were to find out that Jesus visited the world in their life time but that the world would continue for two thousand years with no Parousia they would have stopped being Christians. Perhaps we only live in one of many universes, the one in which there is no Parousia for two thousand years. My father died without seeing the financial meltdown of 2008, something he had been predicting for many years. I may or may not live to see nuclear armageddon even though I was afforded a vision of it when I was lying in a gutter in Toronto's Chinatown in 1985. 

The situation with regards to 2 Thessalonians 2:2 is neatly summed up in the writings of the twelfth century monk Euthymius Zigabenus:

Since in the first Epistle he wrote to them that he prays to God night and day to see them face to face, so that by his own living voice he might supply what is lacking in their faith, and yet he had not yet come to them, being frequently hindered, he learned that certain deceivers were going round among them saying that the Coming of Christ and the Judgment had already arrived, reporting to them even certain sayings (λόγια τινά) as though the Apostle Paul had made these things known to them through them, and even producing forged letters. He was therefore compelled to write this present Epistle, and through it to make up for the lack of his bodily presence among them. 

In the world of 2 Thessalonians itself, παρουσία here really is the eschatological coming of Jesus – the “day of the Lord,” with resurrection and judgment. The author explicitly links it to “the coming (παρουσία) of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him” (2 Thess 2:1) and then warns them not to be shaken by claims “as though from us … that the day of the Lord has already come” (ἐνέστηκεν ἡ ἡμέρα τοῦ κυρίου, 2:2). Virtually all commentators, whether they think the letter is genuine or pseudonymous, read this as a correction of rumors that the final Parousia has already happened or is presently underway.

The point of course is that no Christian believer of the earliest period had any inkling the physical universe would continue for two thousand years after the crucifixion. Moreover, the definition of what the Parousia or the "day of the Lord" was is unclear. What is clear however is that at the time that our canon of Pauline writings was being assembled the editor/author of this material witnessed the existence of more primitive, more authentic letters of Paul which contained certain sayings or oracles (λόγια τινά) which understand the "day of the Lord" had already come. This collection of Pauline writings was certainly one and the same with the Marcionite canon even though this is never made explicit. 

The difficulty now is coming to grips with how "ur-Paul" was defining the Parousia or rather it is a difficulty for scholars who study the Bible with all their inherited (wrong) answers. We already know Paul believed that he was the "restanding" of Jesus, that he was the Parousia. It is plain from the earliest Pauline traditions like the community at Harran in the writings of Hegemonius where it is taken for granted that Paul was the Paraclete, the messianic "comforter" or advocate, that "Christ spoke in him" and the like. This understanding becomes confirmed by the further layer of the arch-heretic Mani coming to the town and arguing Paul never said that he was the Paraclete, he said I was (i.e. Mani argued that Paul heralded his coming). 

The history of humanity is a never ending stream of narcissists and self-centeredness. 

Morton Smith Wasn't as Smart as Everyone Pretends He Was

For anyone who has read my previous posts it should be plain that I think the approach of the Marcionophiles (the scholarly circle that "studies" - more like "fixates" - on two supposed "textual critical studies" of the Marcionite New Testament canon in Tertullian and Epiphanius) is superficial. Most of the writings of the early Church Fathers represent little more than a giant game of "broken telephone" (formerly known as "Chinese whispers"). 

I think Irenaeus actually did complete the anti-Marcionite work which he references in Adversus Haereses Book Three - viz:

"curtailing the Gospel according to Luke and the Epistles of Paul, they assert that these are alone authentic, which they have themselves thus shortened. In another work, however, I shall, God granting [me strength], refute them out of these which they still retain." 

I think this work survives in an altered form in Tertullian's Adversus Marcionem (in the manner that Tertullian copied, translated and reshaped Irenaeus's Valentinian material from Adversus Haereses 1.1 - 12 in Adversus Valentinianos. Epiphanius employed Irenaeus lost work in his "detailed" study of Marcion's gospel and letters of Paul in the Panarion.  

In other words, what has come down to us via two sources is an argument that Marcion falsified Luke when in reality the actual gospel of Marcion resembled Mark as witnessed in the account of the Philosophumena. Luke is an expansion of Mark. The Marcionite gospel could - at least theoretically - be regarded as both an expansion of Mark and a contraction of Luke. 

The point here is that I think we should abandon "trusting" the Church Fathers to show us what the actual Marcionite gospel looked like, these same men who wanted to keep Marcion away from the "innocent lambs" of their flock. I think Clement of Alexandria provides us with the truth. His homily on Mark 10:17 - 31 begins with the statement that his present work is aimed at rescuing those who lose hope hearing the rich man, camel and eye of the needle parable, those Clement identifies as:

having withdrawn further from the way that leads there, no longer troubling themselves either which (τίνας) from among the rich the Master and Teacher is speaking about, or how what is impossible for human beings becomes possible. 

In one sense the discussion develops as if Clement is addressing a generic class of people. Here τίνας is an interrogative/indefinite accusative plural: “which (ones), which people.” So the question implied is:

“Which rich people is the Lord talking about?”

Now in 4.4 Clement cites the opening words of the Mark 10 scene:

ἐκπορευομένου αὐτοῦ εἰς ὁδὸν προσελθών τις ἐγονυπέτει λέγων…

“as he was going out into the road, someone came up and knelt before him, saying…”

That τις is the “rich man / rich youth” of the story. The title of the work however is in the singular: Τίς ὁ πλούσιος ὁ σωσόμενος; “Who is the rich man who will be saved?” By the time he reaches §§38–39 he has already re-read the pericope through 1 Corinthians 13, so that the whole scene becomes a practical commentary on Paul’s “more excellent way.” Now he draws the line out to its furthest consequences.

Clement introduces the Corinthian material not as an edifying excursus, but as a salvific path disclosed by Paul himself: “But you, learn the ‘surpassingly excellent way’ (τὴν καθ’ ὑπερβολὴν ὁδόν), which Paul reveals unto salvation” (38.1). The phrase is of course lifted from 1 Cor 12.31, but Clement recontextualises it as a kind of esoteric itinerary, a mystic ὁδός that leads beyond prophecy, tongues and healings into the definitive triad of faith, hope and love. In his hands Paul is not merely an ethical preacher but a mystagogue: he “reveals” (δείκνυσι) the hidden way by which the soul is perfected. Love is not simply the greatest of the three virtues; it is the only one which survives eschatological vision and fulfilment, the only power that is “brought together into perfection and grows even more in those who have been handed over to perfection” (38.3). The whole homily has been circling around τέλειος and τελείωσις; here Clement quietly identifies Paul as the one who knows how the Gospel’s demand for perfection is actually realised.

It is at this point, having threaded the rich man’s story through Paul’s “more excellent way,” that Clement turns to the question of the man’s identity. After insisting that even a person “born in sins” and guilty of “many forbidden things” can, through love and pure repentance, fight back against his misdeeds (38.4–5), he adds the notoriously cryptic warning: “Let not even this be left to bring you despair or hopelessness—even if you come to know who the rich man is” (εἰ καὶ τὸν πλούσιον μάθοις ὅστις ἐστίν).

The Greek is as pointed as it is brief. Clement does not say, “even if you understand the parable,” or “even if you grasp the meaning of the rich man.” The verb is μανθάνω, “to learn, to come to know,” in the aorist optative μάθοις, and it is followed not by an abstract but by a relative clause that presses on the man’s personal identity: ὅστις ἐστίν, “who he is, exactly.” The construction is precisely what one would expect if Clement envisaged some of his readers being initiated into a further piece of information: not merely what the rich man stands for, but who he in fact was. The very need to reassure them – “let not even this drive you into despair or ἀπογνώσις” – presupposes that the answer, once disclosed, might well be disturbing.

Read in this light, the clause εἰ καὶ τὸν πλούσιον μάθοις ὅστις ἐστίν does more than dangle a rhetorical possibility. It tacitly acknowledges the existence of a tradition in which the “rich man” of Mark 10 bore a determinate, real-world identity. Clement does not name him; but he writes as someone who knows that such an identification circulates, and that some of his hearers may one day “come to know” it. That is why he must add: even if you reach that level of insight, do not conclude that the figure in question is irretrievably lost. The entire sequence from 38.1 to 39.6 is designed as a theological prophylactic against precisely that conclusion.

The ensuing paragraph confirms the point. Clement immediately generalises from the hypothetical rich man to “the one who has no inheritance in the heavens,” and asks “in what manner one, by rightly using the things that are, might escape both the arrogant burden of wealth and its difficulty regarding life, and be able to partake of the eternal good things” (39.1). He then imagines someone who has fallen into “such sins or transgressions after the seal and the redemption”—that is, after baptism—whether through ignorance, weakness, or involuntary circumstance, and insists that it must not be thought that such a person is “wholly rejected by God, as if he were utterly condemned.” Instead, the prodigal is invited to true μετάνοια, to “uproot entirely from the soul those sins for which one has condemned himself unto death” (39.2–3). God alone forgives sins; God alone refuses to “reckon transgressions”; and God is by nature μακρόθυμος, waiting for those who turn back (39.5–6). Only now does the homily’s rhetoric fully make sense. Clement is not offering a generic reassurance that rich men as a class may be saved. He is hedging the revelation that this particular rich man – whose identity some of his readers may eventually learn – has, or can have, a story of repentance after grave post-baptismal sin.

Who, then, would fit such a profile? In principle one might think of Peter, whose denial of Jesus became a paradigm of fallen apostleship healed by tears. But Peter’s fall and rehabilitation are already inscribed in the canonical narratives. There is nothing esoteric in the assertion that Peter sinned grievously yet was restored; no Alexandrian gnostic needed to be cautioned not to despair “even if you come to know who Peter is.” The canonical Peter is public property, not hidden knowledge. Clement’s language makes far more sense if the identity in question belongs to the realm of whispered tradition, a “someone” whose connection to the Gospel’s rich youth is not inscribed on the evangelic roll.

The figure who best fits Clement’s hints is the very apostle through whom he has just interpreted the passage. Paul is, for Clement, the man who “flourished straight after the ascension,” a young Jew whose mind outstripped his years, a perfect keeper of the Law who nevertheless had to abandon his former life in order to press on toward perfection. In Quis Dives the rich youth has already kept the commandments “from earliest age,” possesses a precociously ripened φρόνημα, yet fails, at least initially, to take the final step into τέλειος. In Paedagogus Clement glosses Paul’s confession in Phil 3 by saying that he “considers himself perfect in having left his former life and taken hold of the better—not that he is perfect in knowledge, but that he presses toward what he expects of the perfect.” The overlap is too close to be accidental. The young, law-observant τις of Mark 10 is the narrative foil for the apostle who later discovers and walks Paul’s “more excellent way.” If, in Alexandrian circles, that connection crystallised into the claim that the rich man was Paul in his unperfected state, then Clement’s final proviso falls into place. Even if you, dear hearer, should one day learn who the rich man really was, do not let that knowledge cast you into despair. For the whole point of Paul’s gospel is that even the one who first turned away from perfection can, by love and repentance, be restored.

Is it Peter? Is it Paul? Clement will not say. But when his closing warning is read against his own Pauline dossier, the balance of probabilities tips toward the latter. The rich man whose identity might shock the gnostic into despair, yet whose story Clement wraps in a dense theology of love, perfection and post-baptismal repentance, looks very much like the Marcionite Paul: once the wealthy youth who went away grieving, later the apostle who finally walked the surpassingly excellent way he himself revealed.

Do I Dislike Academics in the Humanities Because I Resent Their Authority?

I don't think so. 

There was a time of course that being a professor had authority. The various European colonial empires used missionaries as part of their reach for global dominion. The professor helped "explain" Holy Writ balancing his responsibility as member of an Imperial order with actual learning. As these Imperial orders began collapsing, so too did the apologetic nature of their authority. 

Without getting too deeply involved in politics, as long as the professor served a role in the hegemonic "order" he was respected and the political "authorities" granted him what was clearly reciprocal authority. Once universities began to cut up, "deconstruct" and what not "the Bible" the professor lost the authority that the political order granted him. 

This is just a fact of life. Morton Smith and his protege Jacob Neusner were arch-conservative scholars. They despised the leftist university climate they worked within. Neusner was appointed as part of Reagan's "revolution" to clean up the NEA. The paradox of Morton Smith's discovery of a certain letter of Clement of Alexandria in the Mar Saba monastery near Bethlehem is that Smith wasn't a "leftist" scholar trying to make Jesus a spokesman for "social change." He was fascist, according to one of his students, almost "to the right of Hitler" although Smith bore no hatred of the Jews. In fact all the loves of his life seem to have been Jewish women. 

The discovery of Clement's Letter to Theodore should have marked a major turning point of that understanding of the past that never happened. Instead a handful of "other" conservative scholars developed a conspiracy theory - read carefully Smith and Landau's culling of Quentin Quesnell's personal notes that I helped preserve at the Smith College archives, Quesnell was (secretly) a conspiracy theorist, he suspected Smith and Darby Nock worked together on this "forgery" - in order to blunt its authority. 

I use the word authority throughout quite deliberately. Now academics prefer their interpretation, their reconstruction of antiquity over antiquity itself. What could be more valuable than having a letter from let's Irenaeus of Lyons to help understand Roman Christianity of the late second century? We now have a letter from a contemporary in Christianity Alexandria and the argument against its authenticity has completely fallen apart. Yet Marcionite studies would rather stay engrossed in their wholly subjective analysis of "what the canon of Marcion looked like" from culling together all the scriptural references made in anti-Marcionite texts like Adversus Marcionem or unreliable authors like Epiphanius of Salamis. They would prefer to argue over Q. They would prefer to do anything other than settle the question once and for all whether the Letter to Theodore is an actual letter of Clement of Alexandria. 

It is an authentic letter of Clement of Alexandria and it tells us something remarkable about the origins of Christianity. 

Morton Smith may have been a repressed homosexual in 1958. He was unlikely to be a practicing homosexual in 1958 given the obvious time restraints between his travels, his job at Columbia University and his real life (secret) and documented relationships with the mother of one of his students. These sons and daughters of a conspiracy theorist want us to believe that on top of this incredible work schedule Smith was visiting non-existent gay bars in Manhattan and as a sort of "Satanic hobby" when not "cottaging" or whatever other superficialities they manage to conjure up in their imaginary timeline, he was actively learning to make 17th century ink, practicing 18th century Byzantine handwriting, cobbling together a perfect replica of Clement of Alexandria and the evangelist Mark's writing habits and fitting that "gospel fragment" into an extremely niched "window" of antiquity - i.e. that window which knew that a collection of Letters of Clement of Alexandria once existed at the Mar Saba monastery in the desert near Bethlehem because John of Damascus saw it there and quotes from it, that Clement of Alexandria preferred the Gospel of Mark and at the end of pre-Nicene Christianity St Mark's martyrium in the wilderness of a place called the "Cattle Pasture" was the headquarters of an alternative tradition to the Rome-centric worldview initiating its priests with a "secret" rite developed from a "gospel of Mark" brought over from Rome by the evangelist according to early sources. 

Yes, in a highly improbable way Morton Smith could have "known" all of this and yes, as a "rogue scholar" he "could have decided" to forge a text using archaic Greek script and smuggled this book into the library. But it is such a crazy theory - one which has been repeated as fact for almost 70 years without any corroborating evidence. These people promoting such nonsense just expected that some massive piece of evidence would just fall from the tree at some point and it never has, save from gossip mongering about Morton Smith's homosexuality. 

There are so many rabbit holes here which I and most other people who study early Christianity have no real expertise. The simple fact is that it would be highly unusual for an associate professor in 1958 who would go on to become "one of the greats" to forge a document that was outside of his real area of expertise. Smith eventually specialized in the history of early Israelite religion. The Letter to Theodore is not about that. In one of the most enlightening videos on the subject (not in the way intended I might add) Craig Evans, a Canadian Biblical scholar who is famous for introducing a silly "Canadian" angle to the sordid history of conspiracy theorizing in relation to this document (the Hunter Hogg pulp fiction novel which "anticipated" Smith's discovery) argues that Smith's attempt to make to Theodore about magic when it is clearly not about magic is "really a proof" of Smith's complex forgery methodology. 

No it is not. It is only proof of what I and many others dislike about academics. They always make things about "themselves" like a rustic hairdresser's chit chat with customers. 

I liked Morton Smith. He introduced me to Celsus and the possibility that Jesus might have been a magician. But his attempt to make the Letter to Theodore and the "Secret Gospel of Mark" about magic and magicians and all the things he became interested in the 1960s is a precursor really for Evans attempts to connect the Hunter Hogg novel to the controversy. These fucking people always want to make it about them and their concerns. The objectivity that real scholarship demands is lonely. And in a world where there is a unprecedented loneliness and alienation, groups within the study of early Christianity "naturally" break off into factions, championing causes for little more than finding friends. 

I had a teacher in Grade 5 who told my classmates that friendships developed against a common enemy don't last. But what Ms Yamaguchi didn't tell us is that when you get older these are the only kinds of personal relationships. But that's another story. 

I actually prefer Morton Smith's analysis in his second book the Secret Gospel to Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (CASGM), the original academic work. Both books were released in the same year owing to delays with CASGM. CASGM represented Smith's original research up to about 1965. He gave up his relationship with his girlfriend at the time of the discovery and became engrossed in his research, laying the ground for Jesus the Magician, which was ultimately published in 1978. 

Jesus the Magician is in my mind the best possible explanation for Jesus as a historical figure. Essentially Smith asks, "how do you explain the gospels historically?" that is rationally i.e. without an appeal for miracles being "real." Smith essentially makes the case that Celsus, a prominent pagan critic from 180 CE, identifies Jesus as a popular magician because Jesus must have been a popular magician. The "brilliance" of Smith's formulation is that it is wholly based in ancient sources and ancient religious testimonies. 

The problem with Smith's theory is that it is out of step with what Clement of Alexandria believed about Jesus and the gospel used by his community in Alexandria. Whether critics like to believe it or not, Clement's homily on Mark 10:17 - 31 (which survives essentially in some end pages of manuscripts associated with his "successor" (we don't really know the relationship between the two men but it sounds good) Origen of Alexandria. The Alexandrian community in Clement's day clearly was attached to the gospel of Mark and so we see him make his authoritative understanding of Christianity's understanding of the relationship between personal wealth and following Jesus from the Gospel of Mark not Matthew, Luke or John. End of story. 

This is not surprising because Eusebius over a century later repeats the story we hear from other sources about Mark bringing a gospel from Rome to Alexandria and establishing the first Christian community in the city. None of this would be remotely controversial if Morton Smith wasn't reviled as a "fag" scholar who gave up being a priest to engage in a secular "queer" lifestyle. 

The so-called "Arian Church" was really a continuation of this Alexandrian community of St Mark. Arius was the "presbyter" of the Church of St Mark referenced in the Letter to Theodore. His predecessor Peter of Alexandria presided over Egyptian Christianity from the "church" mentioned by Eusebius from a document he quotes from Philo of Alexandria in the first century. This doesn't mean that Mark "actually" founded the community referenced by Philo. What it does show is that Eusebius's information went back to a pre-Eusebian "Alexandrian Church of St Mark" and the appeal of Arius and his circle to Clement, Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria shows that Alexandria was a real rival - an African rival - of the European Church of Rome. 

With all of this said, Clement's citation of the Alexandrian text of Mark 10:17 - 31 has many textual anomalies. It represents a "harmonized" text of Mark - i.e. where the words sound used by Mark show up not in the "standard" text of Mark (as preserved by scriptoriums from the third to fifth centuries, but Matthew and Luke's account of the pericope. Now because I am not a narcissist (at least to the extent of my peers) I don't happen to believe that "standard Mark" should be accepted as the "true text" of Mark. Clement's homily represents the earliest testimony of Mark's actual wording (older, I believe than even Irenaeus's discussion of Mark in Book Three of Adversus Haereses). 

What is most incredible about this citation is a little word which shows up in the description of "rich guy" as simply a three letter word - τις. This little word changes everything. It proves or at least suggests that this "someone" (τις) was Paul or at least quite specifically the Marcionite Paul, the Paul of heresy. 

The title of Clement's homily Τίς ὁ σωζόμενος πλούσιος; (“Who is the rich man that is being saved?”) can be read as a deliberate transformation of the τις in his Mark 10:17. In the Alexandrian text of Mark, the story begins, ἐκπορευομένου αὐτοῦ εἰς ὁδόν προσελθών τις ἐγονυπέτει λέγων…—“as he was going out into the road, a certain one (τις) ran up and knelt before him, saying…”. Mark introduces the rich inquirer only as τις, an anonymous, indefinite “someone.” In later accentuation, the interrogative τίς (“who?”) and the indefinite τις (“someone”) are distinguished by accents, but in the manuscripts the underlying form is the same word: ΤΙΣ. Graphically and lexically, Clement’s τίς and Mark’s τις are the same item.

Clement’s treatise is an extended exposition of precisely this Markan pericope, so the verbal echo is unlikely to be accidental. What Mark presents narratively as τις—a certain unnamed rich man—Clement recasts programmatically as a question: Τίς ὁ σωζόμενος πλούσιος; “Who is the rich person who is saved?” In effect, he lifts Mark’s τις out of the narrative, re-accentuates it as τίς, and turns the anonymous figure into a universal problem: which “someone,” which rich person (potentially among Clement’s own hearers), will actually become that man who is saved? The same ΤΙΣ that appears in Mark as an indefinite “someone” thus reappears in Clement as an interrogative “who?”, and the entire homily is framed as the answer to that question generated by Mark 10:17.

I have found repeated reference to τις as Paul in Clement's Alexandrian tradition. But that τις held a special place as a signal for a "secret figure" shows up in Tertullian's reporting on the Marcionite tradition. Why is there this parallel? We will pick this up in our next post. But let's report the facts. 

In Adversus Marcionem IV Tertullian first references this character while making passing mention of Marcion “arguing more strenuously (against us) with that I‑know‑not‑what fellow” (apud illum suum nescio quem), adding the adjectives συνταλαίπωρος and συμμισούμενος. We next encounter him as a general reference in IV.36 to “all you who already share in his pity and are his fellow-sufferers” (omnesque iam commiserones et coodibiles) and where he goes on to introduce the question “by that certain someone” (ab illo quodam)– clearly translating the Greek τις of Luke 18:18. I don’t think this is an accident. The first nescio quem was referencing someone who went by the guise τις. But how could Marcion be bringing in a character from the gospel to support his argumentation?

The same unmarked τις is the sole descriptor of the wealthy inquirer in the Alexandrian form of Mark preserved by Clement; it is therefore difficult to avoid the conclusion that Clement’s anonymous rich man, Tertullian’s nescio quem, and the Marcionite apostle converge in a single figure. Clement already cites a Marcionite tradition that Paul “flourished immediately after the Lord’s ascension,” eliminating the Damascus-persecutor motif and signaling a ministry that begins where the gospel ends. If Mark’s τις was understood to be Paul, that identification would explain why Tertullian treats the nescio quem as Marcion’s ultimate proof‑text: Marcion’s Gospel, circulating without an author’s name, would have introduced Paul under the deliberately opaque pronoun.

But the very concept of “the gospel of Jesus Christ” is rarely examined. Whose gospel is it really? I will touch upon this later. Let us merely acknowledge that the Alexandrian tradition hints in many ways that this τις  figure was originally Paul. Origen had already exploited the anonymity, suggesting that the rich inquirer supplied the backdrop for Paul’s pressing beyond the Law’s incompleteness to perfection. Clement follows suit – albeit more cautiously.

Using the Alexandrian Mark, Clement exploits the kneeling τις to move the audience closer to identifying him with Paul. His exegesis begins:

If, then, the Law of Moses had sufficed to confer eternal life, it would have been pointless for the Saviour Himself to come and suffer on our behalf … and pointless for the man who had kept all the commandments from childhood to fall on his knees and beg immortality from another. For he had not merely observed the Law, but had done so from earliest youth … Yet if τις, in juvenile frolicsomeness (ἐν σκιρτήματι νεοτησίῳ) and youthful fire, shows a judgment beyond his years, such a one is an admirable combatant, conspicuous and prematurely hoary in mind.

Because Clement elsewhere implies that Paul was still a youth at the Gospel’s close, he draws attention to Mark’s remark that the man kept the Law “from his youth” by reading it as “from earliest youth,” thereby allowing the figure to remain young at the episode’s climax.

Among Clement’s scant biographical notices he affirms Paul’s Hebrew lineage and his mastery of the Law prior to conversion. Identifying Paul with the anonymous τις supplies the final piece of the puzzle. In strikingly Marcionite fashion, Clement summarises the pericope thus:

He is questioned concerning the matters for which He has also come down (κατελήλυθεν) … in order to show the foundation of the Gospel, that it is a gift of eternal life. And, as God, He foreknew both the questions that would be put to Him and the answers that τις would return.

When Tertullian opposes the Marcionite reading, he does not quote their exegesis directly. Instead, Adversus Marcionem reproduces it obliquely through Mic 6:8, aligning the prophet’s three‑fold demand—doing justice, loving mercy, walking humbly—with Christ’s imperatives in the pericope. Clement, in Quis dives, approaches the same lesson through 1 Cor 13: even one who distributes all possessions but lacks ἀγάπη gains nothing. The same exegesis shared by Marcion and Clement.

Paul could be linked so intimately with the episode only if he were once identified with the rich youth. The Marcionite reading, preserved in Clement and Origen and caricatured by Tertullian, thus furnishes an alternative self‑portrait of the apostle—one that predates the persecutor‑turned‑convert narrative of Acts and challenges the complacency of later orthodoxy. Harnack notes of Tertullian’s nescio quem “[t]his individual was likely, for Marcion, the representative of all his like-minded followers” – in other words, the Marcionite Paul.

As noted, Paul himself repeatedly employs the indefinite pronoun τις when he wishes to veil self‑reference. John Chrysostom, commenting on 2 Cor 12, explains that the apostle, when “about to enter into praise, he hides himself (κρύπτει ἑαυτόν), saying, ‘I know a man…,’ and again, ‘About such a one I will boast, but about myself I will not boast.’” Chrysostom then quotes 2 Cor 11:21 in support of his proposition, “Whatever anyone (τις) dares to boast of…I also dare,” —and concludes that Paul is speaking wholly of himself while hiding beneath another persona (προσωπεῖον ἕτερον).

Margaret Mitchell has shown that Chrysostom reads this rhetorical strategy as a deliberate προσωποποιΐα: the mask of τις both reveals and conceals the apostle. The roots of this understanding undoubtedly go deep. Jewish exegetes were already accustomed to finding God or his angel beneath the sobriquet ἄνθρωπος/איש; Philo’s man according to the image—a certain form (ἰδέα τις), bodiless and incorruptible—shows how readily an anonymous “someone” could bear transcendent significance. Photius reports that Clement held that the “person that appeared ‘in flesh’ as Jesus, was a lesser (τὸν ἥττονα) being, a sort of power of God (δύναμίς τις τοῦ θεοῦ) … [which] penetrated or inhabited the hearts of men such as the prophets.” As we shall demonstrate shortly, Paul’s understanding of himself as “τις” is only a further refinement of these original Jewish building blocks by means of Cicero.

Clement capitalises on this idiom when he develops Paul as the exemplar of perfected humanity. “A certain person (ὁ … τις ἄνθρωπος),” he writes, “is stamped according to the impress of the choices he adopts.” Adam was perfect in his formation, lacking nothing of the idea of humanity; yet a higher mode of generation, becoming, is disclosed in the apostle who surpasses the Law. Here Clement’s anthropology dovetails with his reading of Mark 10: the kneeling τις—left anonymous in the Alexandrian text—is none other than Paul, youthful yet already accomplished in legal observance, poised to surpass the Law under Christ’s call to perfection.

Chrysostom extends Clement’s trajectory by situating Paul at the centre of Christian μίμησις. For the Antiochene preacher, Paul is the perfect copy of Christ and the living πίναξ upon which believers should fix their gaze. He invites his congregation to imagine a painted panel more splendid than any imperial portrait, for it is fashioned not of wood or canvas but of soul and body—the very workmanship of God. The assembly’s spontaneous applause, reported by Chrysostom himself, suggests that the audience sensed the force of a tradition that had long held Paul to be more than a post‑ascension convert: he is the model, the prototype, perhaps even the hidden protagonist, of the Gospel narrative.

Such a tradition, though suppressed by Irenaeus and later heresiologists, persisted in Marcionite circles. Irenaeus had branded it criminal to exalt Paul as the lone recipient of the mystery, yet the evidence surveyed here—Paul inserted into the Gospel as the anonymous τις, Paul identified with the Paraclete, Paul called forth immediately after the ascension—explains why an alternative, reactionary portrait emerged: the once‑persecutor turned late disciple of Acts. By recasting Paul as Saul, orthodoxy sought to limit the apostle’s radical authority over the faith he founded.

---

[1] Adversus Marcionem 4.9.3, 36.4.

[2] Quis Dives Salvetur, 4.4.

[3] Tertullian pays special attention to the “anonymous” character of the Marcionite gospel 4.2.3. Lurking within Clementine Homilies (II.22) Simon Magus wished to be called "a certain supreme power of God" (ἀ νωτ€τη τις δύναμις).

[4] Philosophumena 7.18 implies Marcion falsified Mark.

[5] Contra Ian N. Mills, “Marcion as Textual Critic? Heresiological Rhetoric and the Conventions of Roman Scholarship,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 33, no. 1 (Spring 2025): 27–54.

[6] Quis Dives Salvetur 38.5. The optative μάθοις, nested in that clause, is the grammar of mystery-disclosure and the tag ὅστις ἐστίν, far from being a redundant relative pronoun, emphasises concrete historical identity: who exactly this man is.

[7] Clement’s treatise is unusual not because its title is a question, but because the title employs the exact τίς + participle + noun structure.

[8] Apollonius Dyscolus, Peri Syntaxeōs I 358.6.

[9] Quis Dives Salvetur 8.1 – 3.

[10] Paedagogus 1.5.

[11] Quis Dives Salvetur 6.1 – 2.

[12] Adversus Marcionem 4.36.6 – 7. Because Tertulian is working from Luke and Luke lacks the ἠγάπησεν αὐτὸν of the original text, diligere misericordiam from Micah is latched on to “Come, follow Me” (Et veni… sequere me) which makes little sense. The original Marcionite exegesis was necessarily based on interpreting the Law as incomplete without “love.” Clement employs 1 Corinthians 13 throughout the conclusion of Who is the Rich One (37.1 – 38.1) to drive home this point. .[12] Methodius (Symposium Sive Convivium Decem Virginum 10.4) cites a variant of 1 Cor 13.3 likely related to the original Marcionite text “If I sell all my possessions and give to the poor … but have not love, I am nothing” which also influenced Clement.

[13] Adolf von Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott. Eine Monographie zur Geschichte der Grundlegung der katholischen Kirche (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1921), 71. “Der eine war für M. wohl Repräsentant aller seiner Gesinnungsgenossen.” The accompanying reference to him as συνταλαίπωρος is also clearly a Pauline-sounding reference likely derived from Philippians 1:7. 

[14] cf. Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel, WUNT II/4 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1981/1984), 16 “in the present verse , 2Cor 5.17 , Paul speaks of ' being in Christ ' as being a new creation gnomically in general terms ( τις ) , he thinks primarily of his own case.”

[15] Laudatio Pauli 5.12 (PG 50, 575 B–576 A; SC 300, 250-52)

[16] PG 61, 575-77; SC 367, 218-24. The same explanation appears in his Homilies on 2 Corinthians 26.1–2, where he insists that “the whole discourse is about himself, even though he obscures the fact” (περὶ ἑαυτοῦ πᾶς ὁ λόγος ἦν… συσκιάζει τὸ πρᾶγμα)

[17] Mitchell, the Heavenly Trumpet, 105.

[18] Miroslav Marcovich, “Notes on Justin Martyr’s Apologies,” Illinois Classical Studies 17, no. 2 (1992): see p. [page], accessed via IDEALS, University of Illinois, 326; Philo Opif. 134.

[19] Piotr Ashwin‑Siejkowski, Clement of Alexandria on Trial: The Evidence of ‘Heresy’ from Photius’ Bibliotheca (Vigiliae Christianae Supplements 101; Brill, 2010), 62. 71.

[20] Stromateis 4.23.150.2.

[21] Mitchell, the Heavenly Trumpet, 105.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Re-interpreting Irenaeus’s writing in terms of Cyril of Jerusalem’s preservation of the original title as .

Why is the Gospel All About Peter When Paul is All About the Gospel?

It's so ludicrous. Paul literally coins the phrase "the Gospel of the Lord/Jesus" - the original title of Mark's gospel. And yet, the Gospel of Mark - superficially at least - is all about Peter. Nah. Our gospels derive from the original text preserved among the so-called "Marcionites." 

Paul's Gospel is About Paul

Already Paul says that Christ speaks in him. This is the underlying dynamic in the Gospel of Mark which is at once the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so the "biographical approach" to the gospel is born. Mark "decided" to write a "life story" of Jesus. No he didn't. He used Jesus to talk about himself. But who was he? I strongly suspect he was Paul. In the Latin biographies of Paul it is clear that "Paulos" comes from a Hebrew title.