Why Clement's Identification of Jesus as 'the Neighbor' Changes Everything About Our Understanding of 'Secret Mark'

I know this might not necessarily seem important to all of my readership but I am increasingly convinced that the battle for the Mar Saba document will be fought on a rather peculiar battlefield - i.e. whether the controversial 'naked man with naked man' theme in to Theodore is witnessed in the rest of Clement's writings.  The reason I say this is the 'gay question' is the main reason that conservative scholars believe the letter is a hoax.  Morton Smith was 'queer,' they claim and so his discovery of a text which takes an interest in whether Jesus's love of his beloved disciple was homosexual in nature 'can only be' explained as a product of this modern 'pervert.'

No one who argues for the authenticity of the document wants to touch this topic with a ten foot long pole (or a pole of any other length for that matter).  I think the 'hoaxers' (i.e. those who argue that the document is a hoax) know the topic makes people unconfortable.  It also galvinizes support for their claims among people who - let's face it - are too ignorant or too stupid to have an opinion either way.  But tell some 'liberal academic' forged a text to discredit our Lord and Savior and you instantly get an army gathered around your point of view.

There are very few people who have any deep knowledge of the writings of Clement.  A hundred people in the world at present, I imagine (perhaps I am being to generous).  I like to think of myself now as number one hundred and one and to this end, I will say that Clement of Alexandria takes a greater interest in homosexuality and issues related to it (i.e. effeminacy, transgenderism etc.) than any other Church Father from his age.  I have not only demonstrated that he identifies the Carpocratians as homosexuals in his existing writings (the claim that he doesn't is considered by 'hoaxers' to be one of the strongest arguments to Theodore is a forgery) but moreover I think I know why Clement was so interested in the topic.

The Alexandrian Church just looked 'gay' to outsiders because there were so many eunuchs at its highest ranks.  Indeed when Severus of Al'Ashmunein preserves a story developed by near contemporary apologists for Pope Demetrius (c. 185 - 235 CE) that even though he was an outsider and uncastrated, he still deserved to be the head of the Church, you know you are dealing with a wacked out religious community. 

Of course not many scholars have picked up on the early castration interest in Alexandrian Christianity so Clement's motivation for attacking homosexuals and anyone else who displayed outward signs of effeminacy have never been properly understood.  Nevertheless I think it is only by going down this road - the road the eunuch priest Origen walked for most of his life - that we can finally make sense of the context of the letter to Theodore. 

I think most of us have to close our eyes and forget all we think we know about Christianity.  Forget about clean cut Caucasian missionaries and televangelists and concentrate instead on the monastic impulse that pervaded early Egyptian Christianity.  We have to think about men who don't like women (well, at least in 'that way') and decide to live with other men who don't women in communes and who spend all their time expressing their longing to have union with their Father. 

And then we have to add the extra dimension that many if not all of these men voluntarily castrated themselves to show their love for God and that they had taken on a 'new nature' as a result of loving God.

I know this sounds utterly wacky to most people.  I am sure that most scholars who argue for the authenticity of the Letter to Theodore think this is a reckless strategy to defend Morton Smith's discovery.  But the truth is that I don't really care.  I am not interested in 'strategy' or 'winning over' as many people as possible.  I am only interested in the truth and the truth is that I believe that the Alexandrian Christian tradition was very different from what developed in Rome.  It was certainly a lot 'wackier' looking and this undoubtedly explains why Clement spent so much time attacking homosexuals. 

In any event, one small part of the equation has already been solved when I noted a few posts back that Clement makes absolutely explicit that the non-canonical gospel which he preferred over all other texts blended together the Question of the Rich Youth (Mark 10:17 - 31) and the the Question of the Greatest Commandment (Mark 12:26 - 34) in some form.  This mingling occurs in all gospels related to the Diatessaron.  The Question of the Rich Man in the Gospel According to the Hebrews cited by Clement's student Origen has Jesus say:

How sayest though: I have kept the law and the prophets? For it is written in the law: Though shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, and lo, many of thy brethren, sons of Abraham, are clad in filth, dying for hunger, and thine house is full of many good things, and nought at all goeth out of it unto them.

The text clearly leading us onward to the next pericope - the Rich Man and Lazarus in the underworld.  Yet I have argued that Clement's non-canonical gospel seems to be looking one step further - i.e. to LGM 1 and the union, after 'ritual' death, of rich youth and Jesus 'in love' (or at least an initiation which became the prototype for the 'agape' festival of Alexandria). 

I noted in my previous posts that the way Clement used the term 'neighbor' (πλησίον) it was apparent to me at least that there was a secret meaning in Alexandria to Lev 19:18 i.e. 'love thy neighbor.'  Clement understood πλησίον to mean Jesus and I can confirm this now from a passage I just found in the Stromateis:

So that if one loves himself, he loves the Lord, and confesses to salvation that he may save his soul. Though you die for your neighbour out of love, and regard the Saviour as our πλησίον (for God who saves is said to be nigh in respect to what is saved); you do so, choosing death on account of life, and suffering for your own sake rather than his. (Strom. 4.7)

I have to stress once again that πλησίον doesn't just mean 'neighbor' but a term of endearment used by a lover for his loved.  But more important than this is the fact that the Question of the Rich Youth which in Clement's non-canonical gospel featured this 'mysterious' interpretation of the command to 'love thy πλησίον' (i.e. Jesus) stands only eleven or so lines from the beginning of the narrative that had this:

And approaching, Jesus rolled the stone from the door of the tomb, and going in immediately where the young man was, he stretched out the hand and raised him, having grasped the hand.  But the young man, having looked upon him, loved him (ηγαπησεν) and began to beg him that he might be with him.  And going out from the tomb they went into the house of the young man; for he was rich.  And after six days Jesus gave charge to him; and when it was evening the young man comes to him donning a linen sheet upon his naked body, and he remained with him that night; for Jesus was teaching him the mystery of the kingdom of God. [to Theod. 3.1 - 10]

As I noted earlier, the Question of the Rich Youth curiously begins with a deliberate emphasis that Jesus is not the Father.  Then, during the course of the discussion of the question of the rich youth he begins his re-interpretation of Lev 19.18 (i.e. Jesus is the πλησίον) and that he deserves 'love.'  Now, in LGM 1, the conclusion of the cycle if you will, Jesus takes the youth back from the underworld where the paradigmatic ἀγάπης is enacted.

I want to stress over and over again that LGM 1 'makes sense' if you know that Lev 19.18 was originally integrated into Clement's preferred gospel's 'Question of the Rich Man' narrative.  I implore my readers to read the references to this situation again, and remember that we have already determined that Clement understood the 'sell what you have, and give to the poor, and come, follow Me' to point to some mystical ritual which transformed the flesh of the intitiates to purge it of 'passion' and ask themselves - is the existence of something like LGM 1 of Secret Mark is really that unthinkable given its proximity to this original pericope?

In other words, not only does the Question of the Rich Youth introduce the question of what it takes to attain the kingdom of heaven (or 'kingdom of God' in canonical Mark), Clement also intimates it prepares the way for something like a gnostic baptism ritual:

The renunciation, then, and selling (πωλῆσαι) of all possessions (ὐπάρχοντα), is to be understood as expressly spoken of the passions of the soul (τῶν ψυχῶν παθῶν διειρημένον). [Quis Dives Salvetur 14]

And this is the import of “Sell what you have, and give to the poor, and come, follow Me” — that is, follow what is said by the Lord. Some say that by what “you have” He designated the things in the soul, of a nature not akin to it, though how these are bestowed on the poor they are not able to say. For God dispenses to all according to desert, His distribution being righteous. Despising, therefore, the possessions which God apportions to you in your magnificence, comply with what is spoken by me; haste to the ascent of the Spirit, being not only justified by abstinence from what is evil, but in addition also perfected, by Christlike beneficence. In this instance He convicted the man, who boasted that he had fulfilled the injunctions of the law, of not loving his neighbour; and it is by beneficence that the love which, according to the gnostic ascending scale, is Lord of the Sabbath, proclaims itself. We must then, according to my view, have recourse to the word of salvation neither from fear of punishment nor promise of a gift, but on account of the good itself. Such, as do so, stand on the right hand of the holy place. [Strom. 4.6]

Again when he says, "If you would be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor," he convicts the man who boasts that he has kept all the commandments~ from his youth up. For he had not fulfilled "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Only then was he taught by the Lord who wished to make him perfect, to give for love's sake. For such an one—one who fulfils the command, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”—is perfect. For this is the true luxury — the treasured wealth. But that which is squandered on foolish lusts is to be reckoned waste, not expenditure. For God has given to us, I know well, the liberty of use, but only so far as necessary; and He has determined that the use should be common [Strom 3.6]

Come on folks, Clement can't be talking about the John the Baptist baptism ritual. It's time to wake up! And changing one's nature? That's one step away from changing one's sex especially when you remmeber that gospel emphasizes an androgynous 'host' in heaven.