Clement denies the Carpocratians' claim that the Secret Gospel included the phrase "naked man on naked man." Some scholars see in Clement's letter a reference to nude nocturnal baptism, since baptism originally involved disrobing (Gal. 3:27; Eph. 4:20-24; Col. 3:9-14) and was commonly performed by immersion at night or dawn (Acts 16:33; Hippolytus, Trad. ap. 21). Yet a better reference is Cyril of Jerusalem's On the Mysteries. II. which deals with baptism (and Romans 6. 3–14) in particular.
I have never understood how people reconcile the 'baptism into Christ's death' interpretation of the baptism ritual. To be sure, by Cyril's time it was standard to understand that baptism was somehow connected with the Passion. Yet it doesn't make any sense. The apostle references the crossing of the sea (1 Cor. 10:2) by the ancient Israelites which was understood to have taken place as the seventh day was 'going out' into the eighth. But this only has a superficial connection with Easter Sunday. It can't be the original understanding.
So it is I think that the apostle is referencing LGM 1 - the first 'addition' to the longer gospel of Mark mentioned in the Letter to Theodore. I happen to think that the apostle we have learned to call 'Paul' through our Catholic tradition was identified as 'Mark' among the early Alexandrians. But that is another story.
Let us establish that even in Cyril's age, the initiates were totally naked in the water. We read:
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death? for ye are not under the Law, but under grace.
These daily introductions into the Mysteries, and new instructions, which are the announcements of new truths, are profitable to us; and most of all to you, who have been renewed from an old state to a new. Therefore, I shall necessarily lay before you the sequel of yesterday’s Lecture, that ye may learn of what those things, which were done by you in the inner chamber, were symbolical.
As soon, then, as ye entered, ye put off your tunic; and this was an image of putting off the old man with his deeds. Having stripped yourselves, ye were naked; in this also imitating Christ, who was stripped naked on the Cross, and by His nakedness put off from Himself the principalities and powers, and openly triumphed over them on the tree. For since the adverse powers made their lair in your members, ye may no longer wear that old garment; I do not at all mean this visible one, but the old man, which waxeth corrupt in the lusts of deceit. May the soul which has once put him off, never again put him on, but say with the Spouse of Christ in the Song of Songs, I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on?
O wondrous thing! ye were naked in the sight of all, and were not ashamed; for truly ye bore the likeness of the first-formed Adam, who was naked in the garden, and was not ashamed.
Of course Cyril sees a parallel in the naked initiates and the naked Christ - but now he is already connected this 'nudity' with the crucified Jesus. I don't think this was so originally. I think there was just 'naked man on naked man' from the beginning. I will explain the 'on' part in my next post.
It is enough now to see that Cyril consistently attempts to connect the entire baptism ritual to the Passion - and it really doesn't seem to be the original understanding. Let's just look at the conclusion to see what I mean:
For in Christ’s case there was death in reality, for His soul was really separated from His body, and real burial, for His holy body was wrapt in pure linen; and everything happened really to Him; but in your case there was only a likeness of death and sufferings, whereas of salvation there was not a likeness but a reality.
Having been sufficiently instructed in these things, keep them, I beseech you, in your remembrance; that I also, unworthy though I be, may say of you, Now I love you, because ye always remember me, and hold fast the traditions, which I delivered unto you. And God, who has presented you as it were alive from the dead, is able to grant unto you to walk in newness of life: because His is the glory and the power, now and for ever. Amen.
I think the rich youth in the water with Jesus was the Christ and Jesus the God who made him divine. I think the two on top of one another wasn't actually sexual in any way but a reenactment of what happened to the ancient Egyptians as the sun sank into the sea at the beginning of the eighth day. But more on that tomorrow ...
