It was starting to look like Morton Smith was telling the truth when he said he just stumbled upon the letter in the monastery. Yet even if this comes to pass we still have another hurdle to jump over which is - was the letter really written by Clement of Alexandria? An ignored explanation for perceived 'anomalies' in the text might might be that some forged the letter BEFORE Madiotes copied the original letter in the back pages of the book discovered by Smith.
To Theodore challenges our inherited intellectual laziness and unquestioned acceptance of this Roman propaganda. Buried beneath Clement's letter is something that we almost never see openly expressed in any of his other surviving documents - an unmistakable pride in the authority of the Alexandrian Episcopal See.
I have often challenged my readers with this question - why don't Clement and Origen have any pride in their native See? Why don't they declare the antiquity of the Alexandrian Church? Why don't they boast of their indebtedness to St. Mark?
Many scholars take this silence as a sign that there never was an Alexandrian tradition of St. Mark before the fourth century. It was 'all made up' they claim in a later period to coincide with the developing autonomy of Egypt, especially in the fifth century.
Yet this view is utterly ridiculous. Eusebius references Alexandria's connection with St. Mark already at the beginning of the fourth century when the city was very much under the thumb of a centralized Roman government. Alexandria is referenced as a Markan see not only in the writings of Athanasius but it forms a large part of the Passio Petri Sancti.
Yet the single most important clue as to the antiquity of the idea that Alexandria always was the Markan See is seen by the manner in which Arius is said to have been the presbyter of the Church of St. Mark The parallel that exists between Arius being accused of being an Origenist and the Arians own appeals to Origenist Patriarchs of Alexandria all seem to confirm the basic historical understanding of the later Coptic tradition that the same Church of St. Mark in the Boucolia (a region just beyond the eastern walls of Alexandria) was certainly the seat of the tradition from the first century CE (when the Boucolia was the 'Jewish quarter' of Alexandria).
When this understanding begins to emerge in the consciousness of my readership the obvious question then - if indeed there really was a firm tradition associated with St. Mark in Alexandria long before the time of Clement and Origen - why is it that both men keep quiet about this association in their known writings?
The obvious answer of course is one that gets me into trouble with 'mainstream scholars.' For I firmly believe that the Imperial persecutions in Alexandria from the beginning of the third century onward were meant to diminish the standing of St. Mark's Church in the Empire and at the same time encourage the newly founded Roman orthodoxy to take its place.
I think that Nicaea only worked because Constantine was clever enough to get Alexander elected as Patriarch INSTEAD OF Arius. By both getting an Alexandrian bishop on board the new reforms of Constantine and at the same time ensuring that Rome WOULD NOT BE the new headquarters of the faith, the Emperor undoubtedly ensured the success of his program.
If we go back a century and a half earlier, I believe that the Alexandrian authorities like Clement, Origen and the rest of the Patriarchs which followed were essentially intimidated to accept the new canon being developed in Rome by Irenaeus in the court of Commodus [AH iv.30.1]. There was, as Hippolytus notes, a faction within the Church who secretly held fast to the gnostic teachings of Mark even though they had to openly pretend to be in communion with the Roman Church.
The identity of these 'Marcosians' (Greek Marcosai = 'those of Mark') is critical to make sense of the period. We just can't continue to take Irenaeus' word that they were just a group of followers of a heretic named 'Marcus' who flourished in Egypt.
Hippolytus writes two centuries after Irenaeus first reports on a sect associated with a certain 'Mark' that this community continued to flourish within the greater Church pretending to adhere to Catholic principles but maintaining a hidden canon of writings and beliefs. In reference to a heretical form of baptism called 'redemption' that was associated with the sect, Hippolytus writes:
For also the blessed presbyter Irenaeus, having approached the subject of a refutation in a more unconstrained spirit, has explained such washings and redemptions, stating more in the way of a rough digest what are their practices. (And it appears that some of the Marcosians,) on meeting with (Irenaeus' work), deny that they have so received, but they have learned that always they should deny. Wherefore our anxiety has been more accurately to investigate, and to discover minutely what are the (instructions) which they deliver in the case of the first bath, styling it by some such name; and in the case of the second, which they denominate Redemption. But not even has this secret of theirs escaped (our scrutiny). [Refutation vi.37]
While Irenaeus says that the Marcosai were followers of some relatively recent heretic named Marcus (although Marcus clearly antedates Irenaeus' report), the sect itself clearly refuted his claims about them. Who did they claim to follow? The answer is obvious - St. Mark.
Clement of Alexandria says in the Letter to Theodore that he belongs to a tradition associated with St. Mark in Alexandria. Mark is developed outside of Alexandria as basically some second-rate disciple. The Alexandrians clearly did not thinks so arguing that he was responsible for establishing their entire cultus - i.e. not only their preferred gospel [AH iii.11.7] but also the mysteries that developed from that original text.
Indeed I am not the first to connect Clement to the followers of this 'heretic' Mark whom Irenaeus opposes. Here is a sample of some of the scholarly opinion from the last century:
" ... for on comparison of the sections just cited from Clement and from Irenaeus [regarding the Marcosians] the coincidences are found to be such as to put it beyond doubt that Clement in his account of the number six makes an unacknowledged use of the same [Marcosian] writing as were employed by Irenaeus." [William Smith A Dictionary of Christian Biography p. 161]
"Clement of Alexandria, himself infected with Gnosticism, actually uses Marcus number system though without acknowledgement (Strom, VI, xvi)." [Arendzen JP. Marcus. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX]
"Irenaeus gives an account of Marcus and the Marcosians in 1.13 - 21 ... Hippolytus and Epiphanius (Haer 34) copy their accounts from Irenaeus, and probably had no direct knowledge of the works of Marcus or of his sect. Clement of Alexandria, however, knew and used his writings." [Philip Schaff note on Eusebius Church History iv.11.4]
"Clement of Alexandria, himself infected with Gnosticism, actually uses Marcus number system though without acknowledgement (Strom, VI, xvi)." [Arendzen JP. Marcus. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX]
"Irenaeus gives an account of Marcus and the Marcosians in 1.13 - 21 ... Hippolytus and Epiphanius (Haer 34) copy their accounts from Irenaeus, and probably had no direct knowledge of the works of Marcus or of his sect. Clement of Alexandria, however, knew and used his writings." [Philip Schaff note on Eusebius Church History iv.11.4]
Now, let's go back to that passage from Hippolytus that says that 'those of Mark' read Irenaeus' report and DENIED the claims he makes about Mark's teachings:
(And it appears that some of the Marcosians,) on meeting with (Irenaeus' work), deny that they have so received (from Mark), but they have learned that always they should deny.
And compare this with a key point in Clement's Letter to Theodore:
To them, therefore, as I said, one must never give way; nor when they put forward their falsifications, should one concede that it is Mark's mystical Gospel, but should even deny it on oath. [to Theodore II.10 - 12]
The exact meaning of how and why Clement advises his Markan community to 'deny even on oath' the 'falsifications' of their opponents has been much debated in recent years. I have nothing knew to add other than to note that the same thing seems to be reported of the so-called 'Marcosians' who - as we have just shown - have been already connected with Clement of Alexandria by scholars in the last century.
So now do you understand why the 'hoaxers' squirm in their chairs when they read to Theodore? I think it is an unconscious reaction to the idea that the illusion of unanimity in the late second/early third century was one big lie. Clement was a heretic. Origen was a heretic. The Alexandrian tradition was heretic or - shall we see made heretical - because the Roman Church was now top dog on the block.
The real history of how the West was won has never been told and there is good reason for that. No one likes to see the Devil as being present helping YOUR side with against the truth, the truth of Christianity that was in Alexandria since the visit of St. Mark and which clung to life under a relentless Imperial assault until the time Arius.
No wonder they will accept any argument no matter how far fetched in order to keep this text out of the discussion ...
dating back to conversations with his grandfather, Gaston Frank. "He said we represent one of the last descendants of the Frankist Jewish faith in the world," he muses. "I grew up thinking that our family was something like the Last of the Mohicans."