ὅπερ ἐπιγνόντα τὸν Πέτρον προτρεπτικῶς μήτε κωλῦσαι μήτε προτρέψασθαι?Which Peter, upon recognizing it (Mark's gospel writing), did not oppose nor actively encourage in an exhortative manner.
It's a curious statement given that elsewhere Eusebius does his best to put a positive "spin" on the statement immediately before:
And they say that Peter when he had learned, through a revelation of the Spirit, of that which had been done, was pleased with the zeal of the men, and that the work obtained the sanction of his authority for the purpose of being used in the churches.
So in the standard interpretation of this passage (= Francis Watson) it is merely recognized that Eusebius doesn't properly summarize the quote that follows. But what is left out of the discussion is why cite the actual text of Clement when you are obviously misrepresenting it? Either Eusebius has "brain damage" of some sort (i.e. he doesn't recognize the disconnect) or he wants to alert the reader to the disconnect.
Let's continue with the standard interpretation of the material. Firstly, Clement’s language in the Hypotyposeis fragment can only be understood against the highly technical pedagogical framework. Let's look to another work and see how he uses the work "exhortation."
At the very opening of the Protrepticus. There Clement insists that the Logos operates through distinct but coordinated modes: the προτρεπτικός word shapes ἤθη (moral disposition), the ὑποθετικός governs πράξεις (actions), and the παραμυθητικός heals πάθη (passions), all while remaining one and the same Logos (Protr. 1.1.1.1–4). “Exhortation” (προτροπή) is thus not generic encouragement but a defined, authoritative phase of divine pedagogy, properly associated with the initial turning of the soul toward salvation.
This clarifies - at least superficially - why, when Clement reports that Peter, upon recognizing what Mark had done, “neither hindered nor exhorted προτρεπτικῶς” (Hypotyposeis fr. apud Eus. Hist. eccl. 2.15.2), the phrase cannot be reduced to mere silence. Clement could easily have spoken of silence (σιωπᾶν), but instead excludes a specific pedagogical action. To refrain from exhorting προτρεπτικῶς is to withhold formal, initiatory authorization while neither condemning nor suppressing the activity in question.
Read in light of the Protrepticus, Peter’s stance is best described as deliberate non-ratification within Clement’s technical schema of moral formation, not ignorance, indifference, or muteness. In Clement’s system, such restraint is meaningful precisely because exhortation is powerful and authoritative; its absence marks a boundary without negating the underlying reality of what has occurred (Clem. Alex., Protrepticus 1.1.1.1–4; Hypotyposeis fr. in Eus. Hist. eccl. 2.15.2).
Put more simply, Clement is not saying that Peter “said nothing” because he did not know or did not care. He is saying something much more careful. In Clement’s world, encouraging something in an official way is a real act of authority, not just a casual opinion. To urge something exhortatively means to give it formal backing as part of the path that believers ought to follow.
When Clement says Peter neither stopped Mark nor encouraged him in this way, according to the normative interpretation, he is describing a conscious choice to stand back. Peter allows the action to exist, but he does not turn it into a rule, a command, or a required model for everyone. This kind of silence is not emptiness; it is restraint. It leaves space for something to be real without making it obligatory. For a modern comparison, it is like a senior figure who knows about a practice, does not forbid it, but also refuses to issue an official endorsement. Clement’s point is that Peter’s authority was present, but deliberately not exercised in the strongest, directive sense.
This is clearly how someone like Francis Watson reads the fragment - because he doesn't accept the authenticity of the Letter to Theodore. He's an advocate of the "hoax" hypothesis (i.e. that the gay Morton Smith forged the letter and all the other nonsense associated with this fringe theory). But I will argue that once you know that Clement also advocates the idea that Mark wrote a "mystic" gospel it necessarily changes the interpretation of the Hypotyposeis fragment.
Reading the Hypotyposeis With to Theodore in Mind
Let's peel away at some of the "facts" that a religious man like Francis Watson takes for granted. Irenaeus and Tertullian diminish the St Mark's value by identifying him as something less than an apostle. Tertullian inherits an entire "subordinate class" of disciple from Irenaeus - "the apostolic." But Clement in the Hypotyposeis not only identifies as Mark as one of the Twelve - and thus a full "apostle" - but Clement also recognizes that Mark made his way to Alexandria and presumably brought a written gospel to this community before dying in the city.
The point here is that Eusebius did not "invent" Mark's association with Alexandria, nor indeed a gospel of Mark with the city. To this end, when we "flip the narrative" and start to approach Clement's statements in the Hypotyposeis regarding Peter "προτρεπτικῶς μήτε κωλῦσαι μήτε προτρέψασθαι" it is entirely possible that Clement already has in mind Mark's association with "mystic" truths that can't be uttered as recounted in the Letter to Theodore.
Photius, one of the few witnesses to the contents of the Hypotyposeis, references the "monstrous statements" contained therein. Isn't it possible that the sense of προτρεπτικῶς μήτε κωλῦσαι μήτε προτρέψασθαι includes a ritual silence regarding the underlying "mystic" truths that were presumably transferred from Jesus to Peter to Mark or perhaps directly from Jesus to Mark?
Elsewhere in the Hypotyposeis Clement associates "exhortation" quite specifically with Peter from another now apocryphal source:
They say, accordingly, that the blessed Peter, on seeing his own wife being led to death, rejoiced on account of her summons and her returning home, and cried out very encouragingly (προτρεπτικῶς) and comfortingly, addressing her by name, ‘Remember the Lord, O thou!’” Such was the marriage of the blessed and the perfect disposition toward those most beloved.
So, based on a small sample size, Peter's not acting "exhortatively" in the case of something as important as a gospel, is quite curious. Normally, or much of the time, Peter acted "exhortatively." Why not with the gospel. Clearly (or at least in my mind plausibly) it has something to do with him passing on mystic information which should be kept secret or at least obscure.
Peter's lack of "exhortation" with respect to his gospel becomes even more unusual given the pattern of God, and other apostles always "exhorting" everyone and everything. From Clement's own work called "the Exhortation":
Then it is not unreasonable, friends, that God should always exhort us (προτρέπειν ἡμᾶς) toward virtue, and that we should rise up to benefit and put off salvation. For does not John also exhort (παρακαλεῖ) to salvation, and does not all of his speech become exhortation (προτρεπτική)? Let us then ask him: ‘Who is this one of men?’ Elijah does not say it, but Christ refuses to be that; and a voice will confess and cry out in the wilderness. Who then is John? To take it in type, to say it, let it be permitted: it is the exhorting voice of the Word (φωνὴ τοῦ λόγου προτρεπτικὴ) crying out in the wilderness. ‘What do you cry, O voice?’” — “Say also to us.”
Nevertheless there are clear examples in the writings of Clement where divine forces are understood to impart to their human companion something of a reluctance to utter holy truths.
There are some clear examples of God or other holy being not necessarily "exhorting" everyone. In the Seventh Book of the Stromateis:
With this God also lends assistance, honoring it with a more attentive oversight. For indeed—why not?—is it not for the sake of good men, and for their use and benefit—indeed rather their salvation—that all things have come to be? Accordingly, he would not deprive these men of the things that belong to virtue, on account of whom the things that exist came into being. For it is clear that he would honor their good nature and holy intention, since he even breathes strength toward the remaining salvation into those who have chosen to live well: to some he gives exhortation only, but to those who have become worthy he both assists from himself and cooperates with them. For the good is entirely generative in the case of the gnostic, if indeed his end is to know and to act knowledgeably in each matter.
Clearly, as with Philo, there are different classes of people, with the "unworthy" (by implication) being reserved only exhortation. The elect or "worthy" are treated with something else. I would assume these are the sort of people who the "mystic gospel" was reserved for.
But I think another passage in the Stromateis Book 1: "For the demon of Socrates was a cause, not by not preventing, but by exhorting, even if (strictly speaking) he did not exhort. And neither praises nor censures, neither rewards nor punishments, are right, when the soul has not the power of inclination and disinclination, but evil is involuntary."
(a) The passage in the Stromateis: modes of exhortation, command, and restraint
In Stromateis 6.17.160–161, Clement develops a taxonomy of pedagogical action. He distinguishes three ways in which benefit (ὠφέλεια) is transmitted from one person to another.
First, there is formation by close guidance (κατὰ παρακολούθησιν), likened to the athletic trainer who physically shapes the pupil. Second, there is exhortation by likeness (καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν), where one who has already advanced urges another forward by example and encouragement (προτρεπόμενος). Third, there is instruction by command (κατὰ πρόσταξιν), appropriate only when the learner is already advanced and no longer needs demonstration or shaping.
Clement explicitly assigns these three modes to the γνωστικός, who, having received power from God, benefits others sometimes by formation, sometimes by exhortation, and sometimes by authoritative command. Crucially, this schema implies that withholding exhortation or command is not failure, but a deliberate pedagogical judgment. Silence or restraint is meaningful when the situation or the audience does not warrant authoritative speech. Clement thus provides a conceptual framework in which non-exhortation is itself a mode of governance.
This background is essential for understanding the logic of the Letter to Theodore.
(b) The Letter to Theodore: Mark, Peter, and the mystic gospel
In the Letter to Theodore, Clement describes a two-stage Markan literary activity.
First, during Peter’s time in Rome, Mark wrote down the deeds of the Lord, not exhaustively, and not signaling the mystic matters, but selecting those things he judged most useful for the growth of the catechumens’ faith. This first gospel is pedagogical and introductory.
After Peter’s martyrdom, Mark goes to Alexandria, bringing both his own notes and Peter’s hypomnēmata. From these materials he composes a more spiritual gospel (πνευματικώτερον εὐαγγέλιον), intended for the use of the perfected. This second composition still does not disclose the ineffable rites (τὰ ἀπόρρητα), nor does it record the hierophantic teaching of the Lord. Rather, Mark adds further deeds and logia, carefully chosen because their interpretation would lead the hearers by mystagogy into the inner sanctuary of truth.
Clement stresses that Mark acted neither jealously nor carelessly, and that this writing was entrusted to the Alexandrian church, where it is preserved securely and read only to those being initiated into the great mysteries.
Against this backdrop, Clement introduces Carpocrates, who obtains a copy of this mystic gospel and reinterprets it carnally, corrupting it by mixing impure falsehoods with holy words. Clement’s polemic is not against the existence of the mystic gospel as such, but against its misuse and misinterpretation.
Within this narrative appears the crucial Petrine datum already discussed elsewhere in the letter: Peter, upon recognizing what Mark had done, neither hindered nor exhortatively encouraged it (μήτε κωλῦσαι μήτε προτρέψασθαι προτρεπτικῶς). Read in light of Stromateis 6, this is not indecision but calculated restraint. Peter does not elevate Mark’s Alexandrian work into an apostolic command, nor does he suppress it. He leaves it in a restricted pedagogical sphere, appropriate only for certain hearers.
(c) Socrates in the Apology (31c–d): private counsel and non-exhortative restraint
In Apology 31c–d, Socrates explains what might appear paradoxical to the Athenians: he gives advice privately (ἰδίᾳ μὲν ταῦτα συμβουλεύω), moving among individuals, but does not dare to address the city publicly (δημοσίᾳ δὲ οὐ τολμῶ).
The reason, he explains, is his divine sign (δαιμόνιον), a voice that has accompanied him since childhood. This voice has a strictly negative function: whenever it appears, it always restrains him (ἀεὶ ἀποτρέπει), but never exhorts him (προτρέπει δὲ οὔποτε). It does not tell him what to do; it only tells him what not to do. Socrates explicitly attributes his abstention from public political life to this restraint and judges it to be entirely good, since public exhortation would have destroyed both him and his capacity to benefit others.
Synthesis: restraint as a mode of authority
When these three bodies of material are read together, a consistent pattern emerges.
Clement’s Stromateis provides the theoretical grammar: exhortation (προτροπή) and command (πρόσταξις) are graduated forms of authority, not automatic responses. Withholding them can be pedagogically correct.
The Letter to Theodore applies this logic narratively. Peter’s response to Mark is not silence born of ignorance, but non-exhortative restraint after recognition. Peter neither condemns nor authorizes in a public, binding way. He allows the mystic gospel to exist without transforming it into a universal norm.
Socrates supplies a philosophical analogue. His daimonion restrains without exhorting; as a result, he operates privately rather than publicly, benefiting individuals without legislating for the city. His silence is not emptiness but negative guidance, a refusal to convert insight into command.
In all three cases, restraint functions as a protective boundary. What is withheld is not truth, but authoritative exhortation. Clement’s Peter, like Socrates’ daimonion, governs by refusal to legislate. The result is not chaos but ordered limitation: a mystic gospel preserved for the initiated, just as Socratic wisdom is preserved through private counsel rather than public politics.
Seen this way, Clement’s language is neither casual nor evasive. It reflects a deeply embedded philosophical and pedagogical tradition in which silence, when paired with knowledge, is itself a form of rule.
