| Clement passage | Greek cited / alluded to | Synoptic locus | Markan corridor location | Gospel profile | Effect on Secret Mark / Canon thesis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strom. 26.7–8 | θᾶττον κάμηλος διὰ βελόνης… ἢ ὁ πλούσιος | Mark 10:25; Matt 19:24; Luke 18:25 | Inside corridor (Mark 10) | Markan aphorism, allegorized | Strongly supportive (corridor-confirming) |
In Stromateis 26.7–8 Clement cites the famous dominical hyperbole concerning the camel and the eye of the needle, a saying attested in all three Synoptics but structurally anchored in Mark 10:25, at the very center of the Markan discipleship corridor. In Mark, the saying immediately follows the rich man’s departure, Jesus’ astonishment, and the disciples’ shock, functioning as the rhetorical climax that renders salvation humanly impossible and prepares for the divine reversal (“with God all things are possible”).
Clement’s handling of the saying is decisively Markan in character. He neither reproduces Matthew’s rhetorical softening nor Luke’s narrative framing. Instead, he treats the saying as a hard dominical paradox, intensifying rather than mitigating its force (“θᾶττον… ἢ ὁ τοιοῦτος πλούσιος”). The emphasis falls not on external wealth but on the condition of being “ἄτρωτος ὑπὸ χρημάτων,” echoing Mark’s concern with attachment rather than possession as such.
Crucially, Clement then moves into allegorical elevation, interpreting the camel’s passage through a “στενὴ καὶ τεθλιμμένη ὁδός.” This allegorical turn does not dislodge the saying from its Markan context; rather, it presupposes it. Clement signals that the deeper meaning belongs to a higher theological exposition (“ἐν τῇ περὶ ἀρχῶν καὶ θεολογίας ἐξηγήσει”), but the base text remains the Markan saying itself, functioning as the narrative and conceptual anchor.
From the standpoint of the Secret Mark / Canon thesis, this passage is strongly corroborative. The camel saying is one of the most distinctive markers of the Mark 10 corridor, inseparably bound to the rich man pericope and the disciples’ reaction. Clement’s sustained engagement with this saying—across multiple sections, without recourse to Matthean expansions or Lukan reframing—confirms that his operative gospel logic here is Mark-shaped. The allegorization represents Alexandrian exegesis layered onto Mark, not a harmonized replacement of it.
Accordingly, Stromateis 26.7–8 reinforces the cumulative pattern: Clement repeatedly returns to the same Markan cluster (riches, renunciation, impossibility, divine aid, reversal), treating it as a coherent dominical unit. Far from undermining the hypothesis, this passage strengthens the claim that Clement’s ethical and theological reasoning in this tract presupposes a Mark-based gospel tradition, entirely consistent with what is observed in Quis Dives Salvetur and with the proposed influence on later canonical structuring.
