The Preservation of the γυμνὸς γυμνῷ Formula of the Letter to Theodore in Jerome and Other Early Latin Fathers

I want to thank Philippe for his comments on my last post. Believe it or not - truly no BS here - but getting help like that can make all the difference in the world.

I had been using the same source as he pointed me to - remacle.org - but I hadn't bothered to check the notation to the passage. It confirmed my own sense from the passage, that is - the line cited 'naked with naked, friend with friend, freeman with freeman' doesn't quite fit with what precedes it in Maximus's Dissertation 41.

The French translator gives the explanation that it might be a copyist error. Yet this was written before the discovery of the Mar Saba document were the beginning of the formula is cited by Clement of Alexandria. I think that a much more reasonable explanation is that Maximus, Theodore and Clement are all engaged in discussing an Alexandrian Christian formula related to heretical baptism.

I might have time tomorrow to bring forward Celsus's attack against the Christian interest in the preservation and perfection of the human body to bolster my argument that Maximus is attacking a pre-existent Christian belief. However, what I really want to thank Philippe for is the Latin translation of the original passage in Maximus. This is because it gave me the idea to do some searches for the preservation of the Mar Saba formula among Latin Church Fathers. And guess what I found?

I can't believe that scholars like Larry Hurtado can argue that the 'naked with naked' formula doesn't fit with the earliest monastic traditions in Christianity. I mean, I am just some crazy Jew learning about these things for the first time. He is supposed to be some 'defender of the faith' who is an expert on the earliest traditions of Christianity. You'd think the Latin Fathers and the earliest moastic traditions preserved in the Latin language would be right up his alley.

Indeed you'd think he would know all about the fact that the formulas 'nudus nudum Christum sequi' and 'nudus nudam crucem sequi' in the writing of Jerome. How isn't this an exact preservation of the original Alexandrian formula γυμνὸν γυμνῷ and γυμνὸς γυμνῷ preserved in the writings of Maximus, Clement and Theodore? It is impossible to argue that Jerome was not connected with Alexandrian Christianity given that Jerome was among the most active in preserving the writings of Clement's successor Origen. The point is that we know almost nothing about the development of monastic formulas from the time of Clement to that Jerome. It is absolutely conceivable that Jerome is actually preserving the same formula as cited in to Theodore.

All of which leads me to the next point - why the hell is γυμνὸς γυμνῷ so controversial? Theodore has obviously heard the very same formula as Maximus and later witnessed by Jerome. He has written Clement to ask if the saying appears in the Alexandrian gospel and Clement replies 'no, but there is this ...' and proceeds to cite LGM 1 (= the first addition to the longer gospel of Mark).

For those who are interested, I am providing a link to an article on the preservation of the nudus, nudum formula in Latin monastic writings. The question now is why haven't people like Larry Hurtado, who clearly know about these things brought this up in their 'studies' of the Mar Saba document. Could it be that modern scholarship is so driven by personality and popularity that experts like Hurtado are driven to shoot the message (i.e. the Mar Saba document) because of their hatred for the messenger (Morton Smith)?

I think we should close all the theology departments and start over again.

BTW Philippe, my mother asked me the same question about the election last night. Good luck!