Clement's understanding of Christians as 'erastai' (i.e. 'lovers') of Jesus would be unmistakably homosexual so there is a lot at stake with this reference. This is why my discovery today of a clear identification of Jesus as the unicorn by Clement in a work by the fourteenth century Metropolite of Philadelphia, Macarius Chrysocephalus is so important. Philadelphia (modern Alasehir) was the last Greek city in Asia Minor to hold out against the Ottomans. It was made the metropolis of Lydia by the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, a status it still holds for this very reason.
The city was prosperous especially in the 13th and 14th centuries; there was a Genoese trading colony and the city was an important producer of leather goods and red-dyed silk (whence, perhaps, its Turkish name, which probably means "red city"). By the 14th century, the city was surrounded by Turkish emirates but maintained nominal allegiance to the Byzantine emperor. The town remained prosperous through trade and its strategic location.
Macarius Chrysocephalus was one of the last archbishops of this city and William Smith notes of him "Chrysocephalus was a man of extensive learning : his works, which were very numerous, were entirely on religious subjects, and highly esteemed in his day." The reference comes from Macarius Chrysocephalus: Parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke xv., Oration on Luke xv., Towards the Close:
To the sons, then, who come to Him, the Father gives the calf, and it is slain and eaten. But those who do not come to Him He pursues and disinherits, and is found to be a most powerful bull. Here, by reason of His size and prowess, it is said of Him, “His glory is as that of an unicorn.” [Numb. xxiii. 22] And the prophet Habakkuk sees Him bearing horns, and celebrates His defensive attitude—“horns in His hands.” [Hab. iii. 4]. Wherefore the sign shows His power and authority,—horns that pierce on both sides, or rather, on all sides, and through everything. And those who eat are so strengthened, and retain such strength from the life-giving food in them, that they themselves are stronger than their enemies, and are all but armed with the horns of a bull; as it is said, “In thee shall we butt our enemies.”
The citation is universally regarded as originating in some lost work of Clement. The point of this of course is that the abovementioned line:
Rightly, then, are those called children who know Him who is God alone as their Father, who are simple, and infants, and guileless, who are erastai of the horns of the unicorns.
It is absolutely clear that Clement identified Christians as 'the erastai of Christ,' thus signifying a 'direct hit' against the claims of those who promote the hoax hypothesis. I still do not think that there was anything 'homosexual' about the Alexandrian tradition that venerated St Mark and his secret gospel. Nevertheless the claim is always made, in some for or other, that 'Clement would never have conceived of the relationship between the presbytery and Jesus in flagrantly erotic terms. This claim can now at long last be put to rest.
