| Clement passage | Greek cited / alluded to | Synoptic locus | Markan corridor location | Gospel profile | Effect on Secret Mark / Canon thesis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strom. 5.1.[context] | τοὺς τελώνας… δυσκόλως σωθήσεσθαι | Matt 19:23–24; Mark 10:23–25; Luke 18:24–25 (conceptual) | Inside corridor (Mark 10, thematic) | Indirect Markan corridor allusion | Mildly supportive (conceptual compatibility) |
In this passage Clement does not quote a dominical saying verbatim. Instead, he offers a philosophical gloss—framed through a Pythagorean symbol (“not to sail upon the earth”)—that culminates in the claim that “the Word says that tax collectors are saved with difficulty.” The language is deliberately generalized and lacks the distinctive phrasing of any single synoptic text.
Nevertheless, the conceptual target is unmistakable. The idea that certain social or economic classes are “saved with difficulty” directly echoes Jesus’ teaching on wealth and impediments to salvation, articulated most sharply in the rich man discourse. In Mark 10:23–25, Jesus declares how difficult it is for those with wealth to enter the kingdom of God, a saying that stands at the very heart of the Markan discipleship corridor. Matthew 19:23–24 and Luke 18:24–25 preserve the same dominical warning in parallel form.
Clement’s substitution of “tax collectors” for “the rich” reflects interpretive expansion rather than textual dependence. In Second Temple and early Christian moral discourse, tax collectors function as paradigmatic figures of acquisitiveness, instability, and entanglement with worldly systems. Clement’s concern is ethical ontology, not gospel narration: he collapses gospel teaching into a philosophical axiom about instability, attachment, and the difficulty of salvation under conditions of moral turbulence.
Crucially, Clement does not harmonize multiple gospel texts here, nor does he reproduce Matthean redactional features. Nor does he isolate Matthew against Mark. Instead, he presupposes a dominical teaching that, in Mark, belongs squarely within the corridor of renunciation, difficulty, and reversal that culminates in the rich man episode and its aftermath.
From the perspective of the Secret Mark / Eusebian Canon thesis, this passage is mildly supportive but non-probative. It aligns naturally with Markan corridor theology, yet it does not require the existence of an expanded or secret Markan narrative. It demonstrates Clement’s habit of abstracting corridor material into sapiential maxims, a pattern already well established elsewhere in Stromateis.
Accordingly, this passage should be classified as corridor-compatible by concept, not by citation. It neither advances nor undermines the hypothesis that Clement possessed a Mark-based gospel tradition beyond the canonical form, but it coheres smoothly with the broader observation that Clement’s ethical teaching repeatedly draws upon material that, in Mark, is structurally central to the discipleship sequence.
