| Clement locus | Gospel material engaged (Greek) | Synoptic location | Relation to Markan discipleship corridor (Mark 8:34–10:52) | Effect on Secret Mark / Eusebius Canon hypothesis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stromateis 2.11.49.1 | ἐὰν ἔχητε πίστιν ὡς κόκκον σινάπεως … / ὃ μὲν θεραπεύεται προσλαβὼν τῇ πίστει τὴν ἴασιν | Matt 17:20; Matt 8:13; implicit Mark 10:52 // Luke 18:42 | Markan faith-healing logic is present but abstracted from its corridor position; Bartimaeus is reduced to a general example of faith, not treated as the climactic corridor episode | Does not advance the hypothesis; confirms Markan contact but lacks Markan sequencing or corridor logic and therefore remains evidentially neutral |
Stromateis 2.11.49.1 does not advance the Secret Mark argument, even though it contains an implicit reference to Mark 10:52, a text located at the terminus of the Markan discipleship corridor. Clement’s use of the material is deliberately non-narrative and non-sequential. He abstracts dominical sayings about faith from Matthew, Mark, and Luke and treats them as interchangeable doctrinal witnesses to πίστις as divine power. The Markan element (faith resulting in healing, as in Bartimaeus) is not deployed in its corridor position, not connected to discipleship progression, renunciation, sight/blindness, following, or κρίσις, and not integrated into a Mark-shaped instructional sequence. Instead, it is reduced to a generalized example within a theological proof.
This mode of citation stands in clear contrast to the passages that do support the Secret Mark hypothesis, where Clement reconstructs scattered Matthean material into a unified teaching sequence that mirrors Mark’s ordering and logic, and where Mark governs coherence rather than merely supplying vocabulary or exempla. In Stromateis 2.11.49.1, Mark is present but structurally inert. The passage shows Clement’s familiarity with Markan material inside the discipleship corridor, but it does not show dependence on a harmonized Markan gospel, nor does it reflect the kind of Mark-centered ordering that would later underwrite Eusebius’s Canon Tables.
Accordingly, this citation is evidentially neutral for the Secret Mark argument: it confirms Markan contact, but it does not contribute to the claim that Clement used a Mark-shaped harmonized gospel or that such a gospel functioned as the hidden structural spine behind Eusebius’s Gospel Canons.
