Did Clement Use 'Carpocrates' to Shield his Alexandrian Tradition From the Accusation of Heresy?

I can't believe that I have just exceeded 500 views of the page with the interview with Agamemnon Tselikas. I guess I am not surprised that people are interested in what he has to say. I just find it interesting that the arguments for authenticity rarely get that much attention here at my blog. Perhaps it is because I am the one developing them. Be that as it may, I am the only person in the world who develops arguments in favor of the authenticity of the Mar Saba letter (i.e. rather than merely attacking the arguments for forgery). This blog is the only forum in which these arguments reach an audience.

In our last series of posts we clearly discovered something important - Clement of Alexandria unquestionably makes reference to a gospel, held in common with the Carpocratians and actually goes so far as to cite a single line from that extra-canonical gospel. Jesus declares "Ego autem dico, non concupisces" (but I say unto you, do not lust.) I believe that I have also identified the actual context from which this statement was originally delivered - Mark 10:17 - 30 or the 'Rich Youth' narrative.

We have argued that this is yet another example of Clement citing from the lost 'Marcionite New Testament' - a collection of apostolic writings that was in the hands of those who followed St. Mark since the first century or 'Μαρκίων' (Marcion) as he was identified in the Alexandrian liturgy (i.e. in the diminutive form of the name Marcus which expresses affection or endearment.

This isn't the first time that we noted Clement cites from writings of this Christian tradition that was later deemed heretical. Indeed we have made the case that the strange sounding idea that emerges from Clement's recently discovered 'Letter to Theodore' in the Mar Saba monastery near Bethlehem that the Alexandrian Church actually used two separate gospels of Mark - a short, public text and a mystic, private gospel is actually the original paradigm of the Marcionite tradition. Scholars haven't recognized it before because they hadn't realized the implications of the clues that we get from the Catholic Church Fathers about this alternative (and now long dead) Christian tradition.

I have noted from time to time various other examples of Clement citing from the Marcionite New Testament. He cites for instance what Joseph Tyson identifies as the original opening words of the short, public gospel of the Marcionite tradition in Strom . All of this fits within Philip Schaff's observation that Clement was attached to a heretical tradition associated with a certain 'Mark' who - as we have noted - is one and the same as the historical St. Mark.

For whatever reason by the late second century the Roman Church had turned on the tradition of St. Mark in Alexandria. One needn't see this as a 'conspiracy' (although I certainly do). The underlying reality is that whatever ancient Christian tradition had been established in Alexandria by the time of Clement, its connection with the apostolic past was rendered 'unutterable' owing to changing political fortunes. The tradition of St. Mark was clearly declared unlawful and the evangelist himself was ultimately subordinated to both St. Peter and St. Paul, the twin thrones of the contemporary Christian tradition in Rome.

The Letter to Theodore was discovered by Morton Smith in 1958 in the Mar Saba monastery. It makes clear that Clement's Alexandrian Church was just as devoted to the authority of St. Mark as modern Coptic Christians are. The episcopal authority of St. Mark continues to this day from its original home in Alexandria and what we are now suggesting is that Morton Smith's discovery makes clear is that the 'missing years' which stretch from the apostolic era to the time Clement was writing, Alexandrian Christianity was 'Marcionite' only slowly transforming itself into something roughly resembling the prevailing Roman orthodoxy over the one hundred and fifty years that separated Clement's earliest writings and the Council of Nicaea.

The Mar Saba document witnesses an important link to the Alexandrian Church's Marcionite past. The Marcionites held that Christianity was originally founded by a single man who wrote not one but two gospels. One gospel which was meant to circulate openly as a kind of historical narrative about the various things that Jesus did in his 'ministry' down to his crucifixion and another which was held secretly - either solely by the Alexandrian Church (as the Letter to Theodore claims) or 'held safely' by the various churches of the 'Marcionite' tradition which assumes of course that Clement wasn't being completely honest in the letter.

Why wouldn't Clement have been telling the truth when he claimed that there was only one copy of the 'secret gospel'? I think he was so intent on trying to deny whatever report that Theodore heard that claiming that there was only one copy of the text furthered that goal. The reality is that there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence not merely the arguments which emerge in Tertullian's recopying of Against Marcion Book Four and Five but also Casey's discussion in the Armenian Marcionites and the Diatessaron) that the Marcionites continued to use a 'fuller' version of the gospel which seems to have resembled the Diatessaron (i.e. a single work in which the familiar stories of our four gospels were apparently 'blended together').

I can't prove why Clement might have said something or other any more than anyone else. We are all left scratching our heads and trying to piece together what exactly was going on in the mind of a man living almost two thousand years ago. Clement was certainly an enigmatic individual. The Christian writings which emerge from the same period are equally enigmatic however what makes them seem to be more familiar is that we all 'buy into' the system that Irenaeus, Hippolytus and others lay down for us. As long as you go along with the classification of orthodoxy and heresy that appears first appears in Irenaeus's Against Heresies you can pretend to make sense of the early history of Christianity using this text alongside the familiar New Testament canon of the Roman Church.

Clement certainly seems to go along with this system throughout most of his writings and even to Theodore. Nevertheless there is always something necessarily unconvincing about Clement's act. Clement was certainly aware of Irenaeus's 'system' and also his classification of various 'heresies' - i.e. 'Valentinians,' 'Marcosians,' 'Marcionites,' Carpocratians' etc. He likely knew about other reports from Irenaeus and other contemporary authors which we no longer have available to us.

It is difficult not to get the sense however that Irenaeus's seemingly authoritative reports about the various heresies are ultimately very inaccurate. The Marcionites and the Marcosians seem to have been confused by later Church Fathers The report about the Carpocratians also seems to be related to the original tradition that is misrepresented in Irenaeus's work. Indeed'Carpocrates' the supposed head of the 'Carpocratians' can only be thought to be a corruption of 'Harpocrates' the young Horus of the mysteries of Serapis. The whole report which now appears in Irenaeus's Against Heresies about the sect derives from a lost history of the Roman Church (the so-called 'hypomnemata' of Hegesippus) which mentions a 'Marcellina' who is identified as a member of the 'Harpocratian of Salome' tradition (so Celsus) and Jerome says this same 'Marcellina' was a Marcionite (developed undoubtedly from yet another ancient source that is now lost to us).

The thing which seems to emerge from a critical evaluation of the Letter to Theodore is that Clement has received an inquiry from a certain Theodore about the existence of a secret gospel associated with St. Mark. The context seems roughly similar with Serapion of Antioch's near contemporary letter cited in Eusebius's Church History regarding a 'gospel' in the name of Peter which was expanded to include heretical information. Theodore has decided to track down the origin of this 'secret gospel' back to its source following a lead originating with adherents to the text.

Clement's 'way out' of the dilemma is to separate himself and his Alexandrian tradition from Theodore's source. They are not members of the Alexandrian Church but 'Carpocratians' - i.e. devotees of the Carpocrates, the heretical sect first mentioned in Hegesippus's hypomnemata. He acknowledges that such a text exists only as a means of disproving the claims that Theodore has put before him. Yet I am now beginning to wonder whether all of the attacks against the Carpocratians in the writings of Clement have a similar origin.

Did Hegesippus accuse Marcellina of being a 'Harpocratian' because she was from Alexandria? Was she a notorious harlot and so the tradition as a whole became stained with her sins? When the name 'Harpocratian' became corrupted into 'Carpocratian' two generations later did Clement just go along with the description of 'Alexandrian heretics' as a convenient way of disposing of reports about Alexandrian beliefs and practices which developed from Mark chapter 10 in a parallel Alexandrian 'gospel of Mark'? Yes, I certainly think all of this explains the historical context of the surviving references including the Letter to Theodore.