Yes, truly, the apostles were baptised, as Clement the Stromatist relates in the fifth book of the Hypotyposes. For, in explaining the apostolic statement, I thank God that I baptised none of you, he says, Christ is said to have baptised Peter alone, and Peter Andrew, and Andrew John, and they James and the rest. [Moschus: Spiritual Meadow, Book V. Chap. 176]
For today's scholar, more interested in making a point than seeking truth, Moschus testimony seems to be the death knell for any claim that Clement MIGHT have held that Jesus secretly baptized St. Mark or any other disciple.
But let's not be so modern. Let's go back to what other scholars have already noted about this amazing reference.
For centuries Church Fathers puzzled over the question of why Jesus never baptized his disciples and then - all of a sudden - in the seventh century of all epochs, the answer was suddenly resolved. As Quasten and Kuttner note:
In the writings of Clement as we possess them today, we find no mention of the baptism of the apostles. However, to this question which puzzled the writers of the early days of the Church, it seemed that Clement had an answer, an answer which is no way vague, indefinite or proposed as only probable, but is exact and detailed
Indeed this sudden introduction of a text associated with Clement seems to have had widespread circulation in Jerusalem in the seventh century.
Yet is it really believable that this profoundly significant statement about Jesus' baptism of Peter was unknown to previous generations closer to the time when Clement was actively actively writing.
I will ignore for the moment the fact that Photius explicitly says that Clement did not write the Hypotyposes. Instead let me bring forward the much simpler argument that the opinions were mistakenly applied to Clement owing to the over active imagination of Moschus the poet.
Indeed we see Nicephorus the ninth century historian attribute the very same quote to Evodius, the legendary first successor to Peter in the Episcopal chair of Antioch:
The divine Evodius himself a successor of the holy apostles, in his Commentaries and principally in his letter entitled 'Light' also states this "Christ with his own hands baptized only Peter, Peter in turn baptized Andrew and the sons of Zebedee, Andrew and the sons of Zebedee the rest of the apostles.
For those who want to see the original Greek of Nicephorus' testimony I present it here.
Another Byzantine theologian - Euthymius Zigabenus - again 'mentions that some writers near the time of the apostles records that our Lord baptized His holy mother and Peter and Saint Peter baptized the other disciples (In Joan. Ev. iii.5).
The point of course is that given the silence of ALL Church Fathers on these opinions attributed to Clement of Alexandria before the seventh century and then the clear attribution of these same opinions to a mythical figure living in the apostolic age coupled with the fact that Photius, yet another Byzantine scholar, who condemns the Hypotyposes themselves as not being authentic writings of Clement of Alexandria (see below) no one should possibly hold up THE REAL Clement as holding any of these things attributed to them.
Photius read both the Hypotyposes attributed to Clement and the authentic Instructor and concluded "that these discourses have nothing in common with the Outlines." Similarly when Photius compared the Hypotyposes with the Stromata another authentic text of Clement's, he wrote that while the Stromata is "in some parts is unsound, but not like the Outlines, some of whose statements it refutes."
I have my own theory about who really wrote this text but there is no need to get into that here. The point is that there is no substantial witness in the writings of the poet Moschus to the idea that Clement might have held that St. Mark or anyone else was secretly baptized by Jesus.
I wish both of these guys all the best in the today's academic culture. I am sure that they will succeed at whatever they put their minds to. Just leave the truth seeking to the rest of us ...
If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here
If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here
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."