The fact is that Morton Smith devotes many pages to the testimony of John of Damascus. Many people make a big deal about the fact that no one has ever heard about 'the Letter to Theodore' of Clement of Alexandria. Yet John of Damascus does mention 'letters of Clement of Alexandria' which no one else but him seems to have any knowledge. While it is by no means certain that the Letter to Theodore was one of those letters - it has to at least be deemed to be a pretty safe bet.
Clearly it can't be debated that every letter in that otherwise unknown collection of letters of Clement of Alexandria referenced by John of Damascus are themselves now unknown to us. By the logic of the hoaxers, any letter that might be discovered from that collection down the road would be 'suspicious' because of our ignorance.
I see Andrew Criddle has written a remarkably well researched article about this tradition also. He begins by noting that:
These supposed citations of letters by Clement have played a significant role in discussions of the Mar Saba letter which quotes from Secret Mark.
and of course adds that:
there are at least real questions as to whether or not these fragments come from genuine letters by Clement.
So the strategy here is that we can effectively ignore John of Damascus's testimony because we don't know very much about the letters. Criddle adds:
Of the three short passages one comes from the section [in John of Damascus entitled] On the Kingdom of Heaven one from the section On the Servants of God and one from the section On Almsgiving. In order to evaluate the attributions of these fragments we will have to begin with the tangled textual problems of the Sacra Parallela
I can't believe that we are supposed to believe that there are just 'so many problems' with John of Damascus's testimony that it won't help arguing at least for the possibility that to Theodore is authentic but let's hear how Criddle makes his case for that proposition.
Criddle, in my opinion stretches the limit of credibility when he makes the case that because a number of different manuscripts of John of Damascus's Sacred Parallels (Sacra Parallela) exist therefore the idea that John of Damascus knew of letters of Clement of Alexandria can be doubted:
The Sacra Parallela as we have them survive in a number of medieval manuscripts. They are a vast collection of quotations from the Bible and the Fathers arranged by topic eg On Justice, On the Council of God etc. The ordering of the topics varies from manuscript to manuscript as does the attribution of the quotations. A distinctive ordering is found in Codex Rupef. (the Parallela Rupefucaldina) while the other manuscripts broadly share another order. Codex Rupef. often has what seem to be correct readings found in no other manuscripts. For purposes of textual criticism Codex Rupef. should probably be regarded as representing one main recension and all the other manuscripts (despite their significant variations from one another) as representing the other main recension.
However Loofs in Studien uber die dem Johannes von Damascus zugeschriebenen Parallelen 1892, (which is a major source for this article), seems to have shown that none of these manuscripts really preserve the original form of the Sacra Parallela. The original Sacra Parallela was arranged in three books; the first dealing with God, the second with man, and the third with virtues and vices. The existing manuscripts have combined this material into one book. There is, however, an independent tradition of book one in manuscript Coisl. 276 and of book two in manuscript Vat. 1553. The material in Antonius Melissa may provide an independent tradition of book three but has been substantially rewritten.
This variation in the existing manuscripts allows Criddle an opening to consider the possibility that John of Damascus never originally referenced 'letters of Clement of Alexandria':
This simplified account of the history of the Sacra Parallela provides a basis for considering the supposed citations of letters by Clement. The first point to note is that none of the manuscripts attributes more than one of the three passages to a letter of Clement and some manuscripts have all three passages while attributing none of them to a Clementine letter.
All of this might lead the reader to think that Criddle has something more up his sleeve to finish his argument. However the reality is that this is as far as the case for some sort of catastrophic 'error' creeping into the manuscripts of John of Damascus.
To start with Criddle immediately goes on to acknowledge that "Stahlin briefly discusses this and claims, correctly, that this does not in, itself, disprove the attributions." Yet what Criddle passes over is that everyone before the 'hoaxer movement' (i.e. the collective attempt by mostly conservative scholars to disprove the authenticity of Morton Smith and his discovery) no serious scholar whoever commented on John of Damascus's statement ever doubted for a moment that he knew of a collection of letters of Clement of Alexandria. Stahlin (p. lix) makes clear that while there are debates which are authentic and spurious citations of 'letters of Clement of Alexandria' no one doubted for a moment that such a collection existed at the time of John of Damascus at Mar Saba.
Indeed let's examine what Criddle tries to do with the different ways the same three references to 'letters of Clement of Alexandria' are treated in the various manuscripts. Criddle writes:
The passage On Almsgiving is found in the Sacra Parallela and Antonius Melissa. In Antonius Melissa it is attributed simply to Clement, in Codex Rupef. and most of the other manuscripts to Clement the Stromatist, and in the remaining manuscripts to the letter of Clement the Stromatist.
It is worth noting of course that 'Clement the Stromatist' is the very title used by the Letter to Theodore for Clement and Morton Smith in fact argues that the heading of the text - Ἐκ τῶν ἐπιστολῶν τοῦ ἁγιωτάτου Κλήμεντο - demonstrates that "sometime after its arrival in Palestine the letter was incorporated into a collection of Clement's letters."
So we have two very different approaches. On the one hand Morton Smith says we should do the obvious and make the connection between Letter to Theodore and the report from an eighth century monk that a collection of Letters of Clement of Alexandria existed at the monastery and assume that to Theodore was one of the letters. On the other hand we have Criddle who - at least implicitly - argues that Morton Smith knew this testimony of John of Damascus beforehand and set out to 'make up' what he thought one of the letters might look like.
Of course Criddle and those who promote the hoax hypothesis never go so far as to present a coherent argument like this. They act, in fact, more like the Casey Anthony defense team and throw up some massive and utterly implausible conspiracy and then a series of small attempts to attack the evidence which supports authenticity. Criddle will eventually go on to claim that John of Damascus's reference is actually to a collection of letters of Clement of Rome which somehow got garbled by way of all these 'corruptions' of the original manuscript and developed into a testimony regarding 'letters of Clement of Alexandria.'
Yet how on earth could any reasonable person prefer his positing of two fantastic events happening at the same time - the distortion of 'Clement of Rome' to 'Clement of Alexandria' and a massively absurd conspiracy involving Morton Smith's forgery of the Letter to Theodore to simply accepting both sets of evidence at face value - i.e. the witness of John of Damascus to a collection of at least twenty one letters of Clement of Alexandria at Mar Saba and Morton Smith's innocent discovery of a letter authored by Clement of Alexandria in the Mar Saba monastery to a certain Theodore?
Now let's remind ourselves that John of Damascus makes three references to this body of epistles of Clement of Alexandria. Criddle thinks he has to go out of his way to shoot down all three of these references. I think he's better off just leaving his argument at the idea that Morton Smith knew this reference and forged what he thought one of these letters might have looked like. But in any event, acting like Jose Baez he feels compelled to put up an argument against the applicability of each of of those three citations to 'Clement of Alexandria.' He writes of the first reference:
The passage On the Kingdom of Heaven is found in the Sacra Parallela and Coisl. 276. It always occurs immediately after a passage attributed correctly to Quis Dives Salvetur (Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?) by Clement. In Coisl. 276 Codex Rupef. and most of the other manuscripts there is no new heading, but in the remaining manuscripts it is attributed as from letter 21 (presumably of Clement of Alexandria cited explicitly immediately before.
Indeed one thing Criddle couldn't have known - as it was only Tselikas who brought it quite recently - but there is absolutely no doubt that the whole text of Quis Dives Salvetur was available to John in the Jerusalem Patriarchate. By the ninth or tenth century at least it was kept at the Monastery of the Holy Cross.
Once we get beyond all the muddying of the waters we have an absolutely accurate citation of one work of Clement of Alexandria by John of Damascus, it stands to reason that the other likely also that the other work by the same author is also accurately cited.
Now I happened to get a copy of a work which Criddle credits as being "a major source" for the article: Loofs's Studien uber die dem Johannes von Damascus zugeschriebenen Parallelen (1892). I have to admit that being fortunate enough to read German, I don't understand where Criddle got the idea for his thesis based on Loof's text. Loofs's main point is that John of Damascus is not the author of the Sacra Parallela. As Criddle notes:
seems[emphasis mine] to have shown that none of these manuscripts really preserve the original form of the Sacra Parallela. The original Sacra Parallela was arranged in three books; the first dealing with God, the second with man, and the third with virtues and vices. The existing manuscripts have combined this material into one book. There is, however, an independent tradition of book one in manuscript Coisl. 276 and of book two in manuscript Vat. 1553. The material in Antonius Melissa may provide an independent tradition of book three but has been substantially rewritten.
If Criddle can read German I don't know why he uses 'seems' here. This is exactly Loofs point but it should be noted that Criddle merely takes Loofs argument that we should believe that John of Damascus wrote the Sacra Parallela because manuscript K is furthest removed from the original
Indeed I don't know if Criddle had all the original manuscripts of John of Damascus when he wrote his article because he seems to add information that isn't provided in Loofs original work. Let's start with what immediately follows our last citation in Criddle's article. He notes:
This simplified account of the history of the Sacra Parallela provides a basis for considering the supposed citations of letters by Clement. The first point to note is that none of the manuscripts attributes more than one of the three passages to a letter of Clement and some manuscripts have all three passages while attributing none of them to a Clementine letter. Stahlin briefly discusses this and claims, correctly, that this does not in, itself, disprove the attributions. The position for the three passages is, however, somewhat different and they should be considered individually
The passage On Almsgiving is found in the Sacra Parallela and Antonius Melissa. In Antonius Melissa it is attributed simply to Clement, in Codex Rupef. and most of the other manuscripts to Clement the Stromatist, and in the remaining manuscripts to the letter of Clement the Stromatist.
To be honest with you all, I really don't get Criddle's analysis whatsoever here. His point will ultimately be that we should consider that 'Clement of Rome' rather than 'Clement of Alexandria' is the real author of the collection known to John of Damascus. But everyone of any worth here attributes the material to Clement of Alexandria - 'Antonius Melissa' is by Criddle's own admission Melissa 'may provide an independent tradition of book three but has been substantially rewritten.' So already here it's case closed - Clement of Alexandria is the author of the material according to all the reliable witnesses.
With respect to the second citation Criddle writes:
The passage On the Kingdom of Heaven is found in the Sacra Parallela and Coisl. 276. It always occurs immediately after a passage attributed correctly to Quis Dives Salvetur (Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?) by Clement. In Coisl. 276 Codex Rupef. and most of the other manuscripts there is no new heading, but in the remaining manuscripts it is attributed as from letter 21 (presumably of Clement of Alexandria cited explicitly immediately before.
So in this case too there is no argument in favor of a mistaken identification of Clement of Rome for Clement of Alexandria. Notice how the letter of Clement of Alexandria citation immediately follows the reference to Quis Dives Salvetur. There is no allusion to any figure but Clement of Alexandria.
Criddle bets the whole farm on the third reference or as he puts it:
The passage On the Servants of God is found only in the Sacra Parallela. In Codex Rupef. it is attributed as from letter 21 of Clement the Stromatist, in all other manuscripts it is attributed simply to Clement.
In the case of the On Almsgiving passage the external evidence supports an original attribution of Clement the Stromatist rather than the letter of Clement the Stromatist and there seems no grounds on internal evidence to question this. In the case of the On the Servants of God passage, although from letter 21 of Clement the Stromatist is found only in Codex Rupef., this represents one of the two main recensions, while all the other manuscripts belong to the other. Hence the external evidence for this attribution is as strong as for Clement. In the case of the On the Kingdom of Heaven passage the external evidence is clearly against from letter 21. The problem here is that the alternative is no attribution at all, which in effect attributes this passage to Quis Dives Salvetur the source of the immediately preceding passage. However, no such passage is found in our texts of Quis Dives Salvetur . Hence on internal grounds from letter 21 should be preferred. The presence of the very specific reference to letter 21, in two separate passages in different recensions, increases the likelihood that such references were found in the original text.
This discussion suggests that references to letter 21 of Clement were part of the original text of the On the Servants of God and On the Kingdom of Heaven passages, while the reference to a letter in the On Almsgiving passage is secondary. Even if one is not convinced by this particular reconstruction, the references do appear to establish that a substantial collection of letters attributed to Clement was known by the compilers of the Sacra Parallela, whether or not the attributions of specific passages to this collection are accurate. The question remains whether or not this collection was genuinely written by Clement of Alexandria.
This line of argument is so convoluted that it makes my head spin. Somehow Criddle will admit that the first reference can only be to a letter of Clement of Alexandria but because the last reference (when taken on its own and ignoring the fact that a collection of letters of Clement of Alexandria exist with respect to the other two letters) Criddle wants us to believe that citation three could be read as to someone else named 'Clement' (if you ignore manuscript K and the fact that none of the evidence contradicts an ascription to Clement of Alexandria). Indeed he caps things off at the end by saying even if this collection of letters existed they might all have been forgeries.
I really feel for Criddle because I respect him so much as a scholar. But it seems to me that this article developed as one of those nights where you are trying to get around a wall of evidence that keeps building higher and higher and you simply won't give in (we've all been there). Criddle struggles valiantly but there is so much he doesn't tell his readers about the patterns which emerge in the citation of Patristic sources throughout the Sacra Parallela - i.e. that known texts associated with Clement of Alexandria and other Church Fathers where the writer is often identified in one or two manuscripts (and the rest don't mention an author) and these references are always right.
For instance those manuscripts which Criddle identifies as consistently not identifying Clement of Alexandria as the author of the citations of the material from 'the letters of Clement of Alexandria' consistently fail to identify the authors of citations. I will start with Title A 71 in Loofs's study on p. 77 from Clement's Stromata 7,88a which only manuscript K identifies as 'Clement the Stromatist' and the others do not.
Next we have Title B 38 from Strom 7.3.15 on p. 80 which is identified in K as belonging to 'Clement the Stromatist' but in the other manuscripts no name is given. Do either of these citations help prove that the Stromata was really written by Clement of Rome? Does anyone - even Andrew Criddle himself - really believe that John of Damascus knew of a collection of over 21 previously unknown letters of Clement of Rome? Really? The obsessive desire to disprove the authenticity of Morton Smith's discovery does that to great minds like Criddle's?
The same two manuscripts typically don't identity their citations including passages from Cyril of Alexandria, Justin's First Apology and this is only counting what appears on p. 80. I can't spent the time to calculate the scope of this pattern but not citing the names of authors is the rule not the exception for these two texts.
Criddle doesn't tell his audience is that on p. 81 the reference to Quis Dives Salvetur while appearing in all four manuscripts, manuscript R does not reference Clement or Quis Dives Salvetur and manuscript V identifies it as coming from 'Clement the Stromatist' again.
Criddle doesn't tell his audience that a passage from Irenaeus's Against Heresies is only specifically cited from 'Irenaeus' and his book in manuscript R and even in that text when more citations follow from other books of the same writing Irenaeus's name is not cited in the follow up (the other two manuscripts simply cite the material without a name).
I am very tired now but the reader can go through and look for himself at the link here - Criddle is making the most amazing argument to dismiss the clear and indisputable evidence that John of Damascus, resident of Mar Saba, knew and used a collection of letters of Clement of Alexandria which consisted of at least 21 letters (so Stahlin). I will cite from Morton Smith's study next where John is employed very frequently in his reconstruction of the history of the document. But let us admit that Criddle - who is a very, very smart and learned scholar wouldn't go to such lengths to put silly arguments if he didn't recognize the testimony of John of Damascus really does bolster the argument for authenticity.
That and the fact that he has a seemingly pathological obsession with attempting to prove Morton Smith a forger.
dating back to conversations with his grandfather, Gaston Frank. "He said we represent one of the last descendants of the Frankist Jewish faith in the world," he muses. "I grew up thinking that our family was something like the Last of the Mohicans."