The most significant thing about Felix's writings is that he is the earliest hostile witness to the Alexandrian tradition - and most importantly - the idea that it engaged in homosexual rites of initiation for its catechumen. As Michael Grant notes (Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece and Rome, Volume 2 p. 1295) "Minucius Felix
M. Cornelius Fronto (ca. 100 - 166) composed an oration against Christianity during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Celsus probably wrote soon after Fronto. Minucius Felix created a pagan character named Caecilius in his Octavius who quoted Fronto's charge of sexual promiscuity during Christian banquets, Caecilius included the charge of cannibalism immediately before his reference to Fronto. Werner Schafke notes that the charges of Thyestean feasts and Oedipodean intercourse were a topos of the pagan's polemic against Christianity. It is unclear how much of Caecilius's arguments in the rest of the Octavius are due to Fronto's oration. Caecilius believes that Christians rashly yield to any sort of opinion and that they are unskilled in letters but yet make categorical statements about the nature of the universe (Oct 5.3 -4). This is similar to Celsus's statement that Christians regularly make arrogant statements about matters they know nothing about (C Celsus 5.65). If Fronto is Caecilius's source here, then Fronto and Celsus hold similar opinions in this case. Caecilius (Fronto?) and Celsus share other similarities in their attacks on Christianity including the following: shock at the Christian belief in the destruction of the universe; skepticism concerning the resurrection; comments on the fact that God (or his Son) is not protecting Christians from persecution; revulsion at the low classes and credulous women who are attracted to Christianity; references to Christian refusal to take part in the processions, temple worship, and worship around altars and images, and the charge that Christians are guilty of conspiracy. It seems quite possible that Fronto may have helped justify the persecution of the Church under Marcus Aurelius. [p. 5]
The reason of course that Cook thinks that Fronto might have had this effect is because Fronto was appointed by Antoninus Pius to be Marcus Aurelius's tutor. The two seemed to have had some sort of sexual relationship and his influence over the Imperial court was immense.
So I want to make absolutely clear, I am not suggesting that early Christianity indeed engaged in homosexual rites, but rather that the accusation was already lingering in the air well before Clement wrote the Letter to Theodore. This charge developed in the very highest levels of society and seemed to hang there into the reign of Marcus Aurelius's son Commodus. I think that Alexandrian Christianity suffered as a result of the influence of this cabal of Antonine advisors. The charge that Christians engaged in homosexual rites was very real. I feel that it is simply scandalous that those trying to prove the the Letter to Theodore 'couldn't possibly' have been written by Clement are completely ignorant of the reality of the age. The presence of these charges in to Theodore actually makes it more likely that the document is authentic.
Let's start with the very beginning of the Octavius introduces a certain Caecilius who is a pagan who encapsulates all the contemporary charges against Christianity::
They despise the temples as dead-houses, they reject the gods, they laugh at sacred things; wretched, they pity, if they are allowed, the priests; half naked themselves, they despise honours and purple robes. Oh, wondrous folly and incredible audacity! they despise present torments, although they fear those which are uncertain and future; and while they fear to die after death, they do not fear to die for the present: so does a deceitful hope soothe their fear with the solace of a revival.There can be no doubt that Clement read this passage or new of the exact charge emboldened here in yellow - i.e. and thus the conscious light being overturned and extinguished in the shameless darkness - when we see Clement make the exact same allusion in Book Three of the Stromateis, only now identifying the offensive Christians as 'Carpocratians':
And now, as wickeder things advance more fruitfully, and abandoned manners creep on day by day, those abominable shrines of an impious assembly are maturing themselves throughout the whole world. Assuredly this confederacy ought to be rooted out and execrated. They know one another by secret marks and insignia, and they love one another almost before they know one another. Everywhere also there is mingled among them a certain religion of lust, and they call one another promiscuously brothers and sisters, that even a not unusual debauchery may by the intervention of that sacred name become incestuous: it is thus that their vain and senseless superstition glories in crimes. Nor, concerning these things, would intelligent report speak of things so great and various, and requiring to be prefaced by an apology, unless truth were at the bottom of it. I hear that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of creatures, consecrated by I know not what silly persuasion,--a worthy and appropriate religion for such manners. Some say that they worship the virilia of their pontiff and priest, and adore the nature, as it were, of their common parent. I know not whether these things are false; certainly suspicion is applicable to secret and nocturnal rites; and he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the cross, appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men, that they may worship what they deserve. Now the story about the initiation of young novices is as much to be detested as it is well known. An infant covered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before him who is to be stained with their rites: this infant is slain by the young pupil, who has been urged on as if to harmless blows on the surface of the meal, with dark and secret wounds.
Thirstily--O horror!--they lick up its blood; eagerly they divide its limbs. By this victim they are pledged together; with this consciousness of wickedness they are covenanted to mutual silence. Such sacred rites as these are more foul than any sacrileges. And of their banqueting it is well known all men speak of it everywhere; even the speech of our Cirtensian testifies to it. On a solemn day they assemble at the feast, with all their children, sisters, mothers, people of every sex and of every age. There, after much feasting, when the fellowship has grown warm, and the fervour of incestuous lust has grown hot with drunkenness, a dog that has been tied to the chandelier is provoked, by throwing a small piece of offal beyond the length of a line by which he is bound, to rush and spring; and thus the conscious light being overturned and extinguished in the shameless darkness, the connections of abominable lust involve them in the uncertainty of fate. Although not all in fact, yet in consciousness all are alike incestuous, since by the desire of all of them everything is sought for which can happen in the act of each individual. [Octavius 9,10]
These then are the doctrines of the excellent Carpocratians. These, so they say, and certain other enthusiasts for the same wickednesses, gather together for feasts (I would not call their meeting an Agape), men and women together. After they have sated their appetites ("on repletion Cypris, the goddess of love, enters," as it is said), then they overturn the lamps and so extinguish the light that the shame of their adulterous "righteousness" is hidden, and they have intercourse where they will and with whom they will. After they have practiced community of use in this love-feast, they demand by daylight of whatever women they wish that they will be obedient to the law of Carpocrates-it would not be right to say the law of God. Such, I think, is the law that Carpocrates must have given for the copulations of dogs and pigs and goats. He seems to me to have misunderstood the saying of Plato in the Republic that the women of all are to be common. Plato means that the unmarried are common for those who wish to ask them, as also the theatre is open to the public for all who wish to see, but that when each one has chosen his wife, then the married woman is no longer common to all. [Stromateis 3.2]There can be no doubt then that Clement is constantly responding to anti-Christian material developed in the Antonine period. The persecution of the Alexandrian Church was very real and it was based - in part - on the charges developed by people like Fronto, Celsus and 'Caecilius.'
I think this is a major breakthrough in the discussion of the authenticity question with respect to the Letter to Theodore. We need only read the response of Felix to these charge which clearly included 'homosexuality' and 'homosexual rites' as we see in subsequent sections of the Octavius. A Christian named Octavius comes forward and makes absolutely clear that pagans were making these charges. In the end we read Octavius say:
how unjust it is, to form a judgment on things unknown and unexamined, as you do! Believe us ourselves when penitent, for we also were the same as you, and formerly, while yet blind and obtuse, thought the same things as you; to wit, that the Christians worshipped monsters, devoured infants, mingled in incestuous banquets. And we did not perceive that such fables as these were always set afloat by those (newsmongers), and were never either inquired into nor proved; and that in so long a time no one had appeared to betray (their doings), to obtain not only pardon for their crime, but also favour for its discovery: moreover, that it was to this extent not evil, that a Christian, when accused, neither blushed nor feared, and that he only repented that he had not been one before. We, however, when we undertook to defend and protect some sacrilegious and incestuous persons, and even parricides, did not think that these (Christians) were to be heard at all.Of course I am sure the point will complete escape the imbeciles who claim that 'Secret Mark' is a fake. We have already shown that Clement knows and responds to charges - including sexual depravity - developed in authors known to Minucius Felix. Among the charges circulating in this anti-Christian polemic were the fact that Christians engaged in homosexual rites. These charges were developed at the highest ranks of society. They would certainly have filtered down to the Roman Church and eventually make their way into anti-heretical literature as we already see in the example of at least one prominent parishoner - Irenaeus.
Sometimes even, when we affected to pity them, we were more cruelly violent against them, so as to torture them when they confessed, that they might deny, to wit, that they might not perish; making use of a perverse inquisition against them, not to elicit the truth, but to compel a falsehood. And if any one, by reason of greater weakness, overcome with suffering, and conquered, should deny that he was a Christian, we showed favour to him, as if by forswearing that name he had at once atoned for all his deeds by that simple denial. Do not you acknowledge that we felt and did the same as you feel and do? when, if reason and not the instigation of a demon were to judge, they should rather have been pressed not to disavow themselves Christians, but to confess themselves guilty of incests, of abominations, of sacred rites polluted, of infants immolated. For with these and such as these stories, did those same demons fill up the ears of the ignorant against us, to the horror of their execration. Nor yet was it wonderful, since the common report of men, which is, always fed by the scattering of falsehoods, is wasted away when the truth is brought to light. Thus this is the business of demons, for by them false rumours are both sown and cherished. Thence arises what you say that you hear, that an ass's head is esteemed among us a divine thing. Who is such a fool as to worship this? Who is so much more foolish as to believe that it is an object of worship? unless that you even consecrate whole asses in your stables, together with your Epona, and religiously devours those same asses with Isis. Also you offer up and worship the heads of oxen and of wethers, and you dedicate gods mingled also of a goat and a man, and gods with the faces of dogs and lions. Do you not adore and feed Apis the ox, with the Egyptians? And you do not condemn their sacred rites instituted in honour of serpents, and crocodiles, and other beasts, and birds, and fishes, of which if any one were to kill one of these gods, he is even punished with death. These same Egyptians, together with very many of you, are not more afraid of Isis than they are of the pungency of onions, nor of Serapis more than they tremble. at the basest noises produced by the foulness of their bodies. He also who fables against us about our adoration of the members of the priest, tries to confer upon us what belongs really to himself. Let us grant such indecorous behaviour is considered to be worthy of religious veneration among those who show their penises and accept payment for sex acts, among those whose indecency is called courtesy, among those who envy whores dissoluteness, among those who lick males and suck libidinously partner's sex organs, these men however who perform fellatio on, even if they are silent, perhaps will regret it, but they won't repent
Abomination! they suffer on themselves such evil deeds, as no age is so effeminate as to be able to bear, and no slavery so cruel as to be compelled to endure. [Octavius 28]
Please tell me what is so 'problematic' about the homosexual allegations in the Letter to Theodore. Is there even a rational argument here or is it just an attempt to rile the ignorant to hate a document they don't even understand ...
