We have also demonstrated that Clement of Alexandria, Jerome and presumably Origen (undoubtedly Jerome's source) all connect 'ritual nudity' with the Question of the Rich Youth pericope (Mark 10:17 - 31). Jerome clearly understands 'naked with naked' to mean the naked disciple (the rich youth) following a 'naked Christ.' It isn't at all difficult to see that Clement has in mind much the same idea from his existing narratives. Yet the 'game-changer' I think is when we take a look at the writings of a pagan contemporary who makes reference to the same γυμνὸς γυμνῷ concept.
We haven't yet decided whether Maximus of Tyre (c. 170 CE) is actually attacking the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body or is developing an argument strictly from Platonic sources. Nevertheless - with the help of Professor Michael Trapp of King's College London - we have ascertained that Maximus of Tyre's 'naked with naked' reference in Dissertations 41 is to the Platonic idea of a 'naked judgment' - i.e. where judge and dead soul are judged with both participants unclothed:
Next, let all of them be judged naked, for they must be judged dead; and their judge too must be naked, and dead, contemplating the soul alone by itself at the very moment each person dies, bereft of all family and leaving behind on this earth all ornament and dress, in order that the judgment may be just. [Gorgias 532d]I truly think this is the greatest of breakthroughs with respect to the analysis of the text simply because it fits perfectly with the apparent liturgical application of the passage.
For it is only when we go back and read Clement's respose to Theodore's original question (i.e. "what's this I head about γυμνὸς γυμνῷ in this 'secret gospel' of Alexandria?") does everything start to come together. For Clement states quite clearly, just before citing te information from Secret Mark, that the gospel itself does not explicitly reference the 'hierophantic teachings.' In other words, the rites of the Alexandrian Church do not go back to 'instructions' established by the apostle Mark himself, who:
did not yet divulge the things not to be uttered, nor did he write down the hierophantic teaching of the Lord, but to the stories already written he added yet others and, moreover, brought in certain sayings of which he knew the interpretation would, as a mystagogue, lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils. Thus, in sum, he prepared matters, neither grudgingly nor incautiously, in my opinion, and, dying, he left his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries. [to Theod. 1.26 - 2.2]Clement is now telling Theodore in an elusive manner that the new 'sayings' or logia that were brought into the gospel by Mark do not 'match up' so to speak with the initiation rituals of the Alexandrian Church. In other words, there is indeed ritual nudity in the baptismal rites, but it is not explicitly referenced in the mystic gospel.
Indeed what makes this so interesting for us now is that we can begin to see the mysteries which were conducted in the Church of St. Mark in the Boucalia (the easter portion of Alexandria) begin to resemble the other mystery religions of the time. Notice at once that Lucius is 'transformed' from animal to human in the nude:
For from the moment that the ass stripped me of his wretched skin I had been doing my naked best to hide my privities with the sole naturally-supplied veil (the hand), while compressing my thighs. At once one of the initiated pulled off his upper tunic and wrapped me in it; and then the priest, smiling kindly but still staring at my quite-human countenance, thus addressed me: 'At last, Lucius, after the long days of disaster and the heavy storms of fortune you have reached the haven of peace and the altar of mercy. Neither your high lineage, nor your pride of place, nor your learning, profited you one jot. You gave yourself to the slavery of pleasure in the lewdness of hot-blooded youth; and you have reaped the reward of your unprospering curiosity. Nevertheless, blind Fortune, persecuting you with horrors and snares, has led you in her shortsighted malice to this beatitude of release. Let her go now and rage as madly as she will; but let her seek another object for her hate. Let her go now and rage as madly as she will; but let her seek another object for her hate. For terror and calamity have no power over him whose life the majesty of our Goddess has claimed for her service (Metamorphoses XI, 15).The point of course is that now we can ascertain the Christian mystery religion of Alexandria had all parties involved - both members of the presbytery and the initiates completely naked for the 'final act' of the show. We can also assume that the throne of St. Mark was likely the 'judgment seat' on which the representative of the apostle sat as 'judge of the ecumene.'
I can't help but think that most people are so preconditioned into imagining that Christian 'must' have developed from a primitive Church of fisherman that the whole Alexandrian concept of a 'mystery religion' which rivaled that of Isis and Eleusis doesn't even make sense. We want 'our Christianity' to appear a certain way in antiquity. We haven't the tools for dealing with the realization that at the time of Clement there was an established Christian mystery religion which went back to the late first century. The secret, of course, is to abandon the idea of 'the primitive Church' as a fiction developed by the Roman Church Fathers to explain where their tradition had been hiding for all those decaded Alexandria was established as the home of Christianity.
