stephan huller's observations: Quis Dives Salvetur, Carpocratian Exegesis, and the Letter to Theodore

Clement Defending Mark against a Matthew-First Tradition

By Stephan Huller

Clement makes a consequential choice at the beginning of Quis dives salvetur (Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?). He quotes the encounter between Jesus and the rich man, identifies his text as Mark, and works through its demands in order. I propose that this choice gives Mark authority within a dispute over possessions, righteousness, and perfection.

Even before that quotation, QDS 2.2 and 3.1 use the characteristic Matthean expression “kingdom of heaven.” This makes the subsequent choice of Mark worth investigating. It does not securely identify the opening saying as Matthew: the usual text of Matthew 19:24 itself reads “kingdom of God.”¹

The case for identifying a Carpocratian element in that dispute has a particularly strong starting point. A central argument in QDS reappears in the Stromata, where Clement expressly directs it against Carpocrates. Epiphanius supplies a reported connection between Carpocrates and Matthew; Irenaeus helps explain the Christological stakes. Together these comparisons give the relationship between QDS and the Letter to Theodore a more specific historical setting.

1. Clement explicitly uses the same argument against Carpocrates

At Stromata III.54.1, Clement introduces his refutation of Ἡ δὲ Καρποκράτους δικαιοσύνη, “the righteousness of Carpocrates.” Jesus’ command to give, he explains, is followed by the command not to turn away a borrower. Giving requires someone who possesses, gives, and lends. Clement then cites feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, and clothing the naked.

QDS 13.1 poses the corresponding question:

τίς γὰρ ἂν κοινωνία καταλείποιτο παρὰ ἀνθρώποις, εἰ μηδεὶς ἔχοι μηδέν;
“What sharing could remain among human beings if nobody possessed anything?”

At QDS 13.4–7, Clement follows this question with the same obligations toward the hungry, thirsty, naked, and homeless. Universal abandonment of the resources needed to help them would make Jesus command both sharing and its opposite. The parallel consists of an argument followed by a recognizable cluster of Gospel examples. One occurrence expressly names Carpocrates as its target.²

The issue is the meaning of κοινωνία, sharing or fellowship. In the passages Clement quotes from Epiphanes’ On Justice, divine righteousness means community with equality, while human laws introduce “mine” and “yours.” QDS 13–14 develops another account of fellowship: possessions can serve the needs of others when their owner masters the passions that corrupt their use.³

The next paragraph of the Stromata makes the connection more specific. At III.55.2 Clement turns to “If you wish to become perfect,” selling possessions, and giving to the poor. His named refutation of Carpocratian righteousness leads directly into the rich-man episode that governs QDS. The interpretations are not identical, as we shall see, but the shared argument places the two discussions in the same field of controversy.⁴

2. The Gospel Clement chooses is Mark

After quoting the rich-man episode, Clement writes at QDS 5.1:

Ταῦτα μὲν ἐν τῷ κατὰ Μᾶρκον εὐαγγελίῳ γέγραπται.
“These things are written in the Gospel according to Mark.”

He acknowledges verbal differences among the other received Gospels while affirming their agreement in meaning. His awareness of alternatives makes his selection worth examining: Mark supplies the passage being explained.⁵

I treat the expressions in Clement’s quotation as authentic Markan material for Clement. My proposal does not imagine him inserting Matthean and Lukan “bits” into a Gospel he otherwise called Mark. The following canonical parallels identify the readings under discussion; they do not establish the direction in which those readings travelled.

Wording in QDS 4.6	Canonical parallel	Function in the narrative
ἐμβλέψας ἠγάπησεν αὐτόν	Mark 10:21	Jesus looks upon the man and loves him
εἰ θέλεις τέλειος εἶναι	Matthew 19:21	The condition concerning perfection
διάδος πτωχοῖς	Luke 18:22	The command to distribute to the poor

The distinction between possessing wealth and trusting in it also has a basis in Clement’s quoted text. At QDS 4.9, Jesus speaks of τοὺς πεποιθότας ἐπὶ χρήμασιν, “those who trust in riches.” This form of Mark 10:24 already directs attention toward attachment.⁶

Clement resumes the perfection condition at QDS 10.1 with τέλειος γενέσθαι, “become perfect,” rather than the τέλειος εἶναι, “be perfect,” of his initial quotation. Stromata III.55.2 also uses γενέσθαι, followed by δὸς πτωχοῖς; IV.28.6 quotes selling and giving without the perfection condition. Those passages do not name an evangelist. QDS supplies the explicit Markan attribution.⁷

Other witnesses preserve related combinations. Irenaeus combines perfection with divide pauperibus. The transmitted Arabic Diatessaron combines perfection, the one thing lacking, and Jesus’ loving look. Cyprian expressly assigns a related sequence to Matthew. These witnesses have different attributions and transmission histories. Clement’s distinctive testimony is his assignment of the extended quotation to Mark.⁸

3. QDS follows the passage through its successive clauses

QDS can be described as the earliest surviving sustained exposition of a passage expressly identified as Mark. It is an extended interpretation of one episode, rather than a commentary on the whole Gospel.⁹ Clement repeatedly returns to successive clauses of the narrative:

QDS	Narrative clause or problem under discussion
6.1–3	The question about inheriting eternal life
6.4–8.2	The address to Jesus as good and the knowledge of the good God
8.2–9.2	The commandments observed from youth and Jesus’ love for the man
10.1–2	If you wish to be perfect and the freedom of the person addressed
10.3–7	The one thing lacking and the comparison with Martha and Mary
11–15	Sell and give interpreted through possessions, their use, and the passions
16–19	Follow me, spiritual poverty, different treasures, and heavenly wealth
20.1–2	The man’s departure and the difficulty of salvation
20.3–6	The disciples’ astonishment and their question about who can be saved
21.1–3	What is impossible for human beings becomes possible through God
21.4–7	Peter’s declaration that the disciples have left everything and followed
22–24	Leaving family and possessions for Jesus and the Gospel
25	Present recompense with persecutions and life in the coming age
26–27.2	The first and last, concluding distinctions, and a return to the camel

This sequence matters because the discussion corresponding to Matthew 19:21 remains inside the exposition of the passage Clement called Mark. Chapter 10 explains the condition concerning perfection; chapters 11–19 unfold the commands that answer it. “Matthew added,” at 17.5, appears within that extended discussion.¹⁰

Not every chapter begins with a fresh quotation. A single command can occupy several chapters, with other sayings brought in to explain it. Modern cross-references identifying Matthew 19:21 in an English translation do not amount to a new source attribution by Clement.¹¹

4. “Poor in spirit” appears before “Matthew added”

The stream of scriptural citations through QDS 15–20 is especially revealing. Clement moves from following Jesus to purity of heart, spiritual poverty, treasure, and entry into the kingdom:

QDS	Scriptural wording or close paraphrase	Canonical comparison
16.1	Come follow me	Mark 10:21 and parallels
16.2	The way for the person pure in heart and divine grace excluded from an impure soul	John 14:6 and Matthew 5:8 with Wisdom 1:4 also echoed
16.3	Poor in spirit and heir of the kingdom of heaven	Matthew 5:3
17.1	Where the human mind is there is its treasure	Matthew 6:21 and Luke 12:34 with order and wording altered
17.2	Good and evil treasure and the mouth speaking from the heart	Closest to Luke 6:45 with Matthew 12:34–35 also relevant
17.5	Matthew named for blessed poverty in spirit and hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness	Matthew 5:3 and 5:6
18.1	The rich who enter the kingdom with difficulty	Mark 10:23–24 and parallels
18.2–4	Destruction of God’s temple and enduring a blow to the face	1 Corinthians 3:17 and Matthew 5:39 or Luke 6:29
19.3	Become pure in heart and see God equated with entering the kingdom	Matthew 5:8
19.4–6	Sell the harmful possessions of the soul and receive heavenly treasure	Interpretive restatement of the command quoted in QDS 4.6
20.1–5	The departure, use of the world, who can be saved, and exceeding astonishment	Mark 10:22–26 with 1 Corinthians 7:31 also echoed

The table records quotations, close paraphrases, and allusions; their canonical parallels do not establish that every supporting saying stood in Clement’s Mark.¹² Two features nevertheless deserve emphasis. “Poor in spirit” and “kingdom of heaven” already appear at 16.3. The explicit attribution to Matthew at 17.5 does not introduce them for the first time. Between those occurrences, the good-treasure saying is closest in several features to Luke 6:45, with Matthew 12:34–35 also relevant.

Clement then writes:

τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ τρόπον καὶ πτωχεία μακαριστὴ μὲν ἡ πνευματική. διὸ καὶ προσέθηκεν ὁ Ματθαῖος· μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοί· πῶς; τῷ πνεύματι.
“In the same way, the poverty that is blessed is spiritual. That is why Matthew also added: ‘Blessed are the poor.’ In what respect? ‘In spirit.’”

The question and answer make “in spirit” carry the explanatory weight. Clement immediately follows it with the blessing of those who hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God.¹³

I favor reading Matthew’s qualifying language as confirmation of the spiritual meaning Clement has already developed under Markan authority. The Greek does not expressly say “added to Mark”: προσέθηκεν can also introduce an additional scriptural witness. The contextual argument is stronger than the grammatical claim. Matthew enters to support an interpretation whose governing narrative is Mark.

5. Epiphanius connects Carpocrates with Matthew

In Panarion 30.14.2, Epiphanius names Cerinthus and Carpocrates and says that they seek to establish Christ’s descent from Joseph and Mary:

ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρχῆς τοῦ κατὰ Ματθαῖον εὐαγγελίου διὰ τῆς γενεαλογίας
“From the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew, through the genealogy.”

This is an external report connecting Carpocratian interpretation with Matthew. Its specific subject is Christology: the genealogy is made to support natural generation from two human parents. Epiphanius is a later witness, and his attribution does not establish exclusive Carpocratian use of an unaltered Matthew.¹⁴

Clement’s own replies prevent a simple allocation of the Gospels to opposing parties. In the explicitly anti-Carpocratian passage at Stromata III.54, he answers through sayings parallel to Matthew 5:42 and 25:35–40. Matthew-related material can support the disputed interpretation and its correction. QDS 17.5 belongs naturally in that setting: Matthew’s qualification supports the proper understanding of poverty within an exposition governed by Mark.¹⁵

6. Irenaeus and the “bare man”

Irenaeus helps explain what is at stake in the genealogical argument. At Against Heresies III.19.1, he opposes those:

qui nude tantum hominem eum dicunt ex Joseph generatum
“Who say that he was simply and solely a man, begotten by Joseph.”

He describes them as nondum commixti Verbo Dei Patris, “not yet united with the Word of God the Father.” The “bare man” concerns humanity without the divine union necessary for salvation in Irenaeus’s account. In this sentence nude is an adverb; physical undress is not the claim being disputed.¹⁶

His Carpocratian report at I.25 describes Jesus as Joseph’s son, distinguished by his soul and by power received from above. The account of Cerinthus separately describes Christ descending upon Jesus and departing before the passion. At III.11.7, unnamed interpreters who distinguish Jesus from Christ are said to prefer Mark. At III.16.2, Matthew’s precise wording, “the birth of Christ,” is used to exclude such separation. These reports show rival readings crossing Gospel boundaries. Irenaeus does not identify every Mark-preferring interpreter as Carpocratian.¹⁷

QDS establishes the speaker’s divine authority before explaining his command. In chapter 6, Clement calls Jesus the Life, Saviour, Truth, Word, and Perfect, and says that he foresaw the question and answers as God. “Why do you call me good?” introduces instruction concerning the Father and the Son. It does not reduce the Saviour to ordinary humanity. This would answer a reductive Christology, although Clement does not name Carpocrates here.¹⁸

7. A Matthew-based reading of the rich man

Irenaeus supplies an earlier example of the interpretation QDS can be read as challenging. At Against Heresies IV.12.5, his quotation includes neighbour-love and the condition concerning perfection. He questions the man’s obedience and treats distribution as exposing and undoing covetousness. The wording and argument are strongly Matthew-shaped, although he does not name the evangelist.¹⁹

QDS 9.1 takes another approach. Clement expressly says that Jesus does not reprove the man for failing to fulfil the law. Jesus loves him and welcomes his obedience, while declaring him incomplete with respect to eternal life. The question becomes how someone already obedient advances toward perfection.²⁰

Clement also knew and used the other interpretation. At Stromata III.55.2 he says the man had not fulfilled neighbour-love; IV.29.3 also makes neighbour-love important. This prevents turning Clement’s preference in QDS into an exclusive Gospel allegiance throughout his writings. The explicitly anti-Carpocratian setting immediately before III.55.2 makes the difference especially instructive: Clement can employ the same social argument while interpreting the rich man differently.²¹

8. Origen preserves the continuing controversy

Origen’s Commentary on Matthew provides a later comparison. Clement cannot be responding to that surviving work, which Eusebius places in Origen’s later career. Its value is that it preserves the problems and competing readings against which Clement’s choice of Mark would have force.²²

Mark’s loving look

At XV.14, Origen considers whether the neighbour-love clause was added. Mark and Luke lack it; Mark’s statement that Jesus loved the man supports the sincerity of his obedience, much as it does in QDS. Origen also investigates a solution retaining the clause. Even a commentary organized around Matthew can make Mark decisive.²³

Crates and renunciation

QDS 11–12 invokes Crates to show that an outward renunciation performed before Christ cannot exhaust Jesus’ distinctive saving instruction. Origen XV.15 invokes Crates against someone who turns to allegory because literal renunciation seems too difficult. The same example appears in opposed arguments.²⁴

Selling does not automatically remove desire

QDS 12.4–5 argues that someone who abandons property can still covet it and regret its loss. Origen XV.16 raises the corresponding objection: sale alone does not remove anger, fear, desire, or grief. Origen therefore cannot be reduced to a merely literal interpreter.²⁵

Material gifts and spiritual assistance

At XV.17, Origen considers an exchange in which material gifts obtain the prayers and spiritual assistance of the poor. This resembles the reciprocal support advocated in QDS 31–35. Origen presents a proposed interpretation for consideration.²⁶

Giving discarded passions to the poor

Origen XV.18 investigates reading possessions as passions and the poor as powers deficient in goodness, while recognizing the strain this puts on selling and giving. Clement’s distinctions between kinds of wealth address the same difficulty; his Stromata also registers objections to giving discarded passions to the poor.²⁷

Peter’s “everything”

QDS 21.5–7 asks what Peter had abandoned if his property amounted to little, and develops the abandonment of inward possessions. Origen XV.21–22 defends a small material sacrifice through the widow’s gift, while also pursuing further interpretation. The same objection elicits a different first answer.²⁸

Poverty, treasure, and purity of heart

In Against Celsus VI.16, Origen rejects indiscriminate praise of material poverty: poor people can also live wickedly. QDS 11.3 and 16–19 make the corresponding distinction. Origen does not identify the beatitude there as Markan.²⁹

Other comparisons extend the shared vocabulary. Origen’s Commentary on John XIII.20–22 reads hunger and thirst for righteousness through living water; On First Principles I.1.9 connects seeing God with the purified mind; Commentary on Matthew X.14 interprets heavenly treasure spiritually, while XV.10 uses the good-treasure saying to distinguish human goodness from God’s. Compare QDS 17.5, 19.3, 13.3, and 17.1–2.³⁰

These are signs of a continuing exegetical debate. They allow us to compare Clement’s Mark-governed exposition with a later Matthew-centered commentary without claiming direct dependence or making Origen Clement’s historical opponent.³¹

9. An earlier Markan tradition behind Matthew and Luke

My further hypothesis is that Matthew and Luke appropriated material from the earlier Markan tradition represented by Clement’s Gospel. The perfection condition and distribution verb are authentic Markan elements for Clement because they belong to the quotation he expressly calls Mark.

The beatitudes raise a wider possibility. Luke 6:20–21 blesses the poor without “in spirit” and those who hunger “now.” Matthew qualifies poverty and specifies hunger and thirst for righteousness. If Clement’s “Matthew added” reflects comparison with his Markan tradition, Luke could preserve less qualified forms inherited from that earlier material. Matthew would not need to be expanding Luke itself.³²

That wider reconstruction remains inferential: Clement does not expressly quote the unqualified beatitude and label it Mark. Tertullian’s discussion of Marcion supplies another witness to an unqualified blessing of the poor, but no independent attribution of it to Mark.³³

“Alexandrian Mark” here means a Markan tradition associated with Clement’s setting, not the modern category of the Alexandrian text type. Matthew and Luke need not have consulted Clement’s later physical manuscript for that manuscript to preserve earlier material.

10. The Letter to Theodore in the same controversy

The Letter to Theodore describes Mark bringing material to Alexandria and enlarging his earlier work for readers advancing toward deeper understanding. Mark supplies narratives and sayings whose interpretation leads the learner toward knowledge; the Alexandrian church preserves the work and governs access to it.³⁴

The anti-Carpocratian comparison gives this defense of Mark a concrete setting. The letter names Carpocratians and describes their claims of freedom as slavery to desire. Clement’s acknowledged Stromata distinguishes the sharing Jesus requires from the sexual fellowship he attributes to Carpocrates. QDS demands interpretation beyond the fleshly surface and the removal of passions from the soul. These concerns already coexist in Clement’s acknowledged writings.³⁵

The language of instruction also converges. QDS 3.2 uses initiation language; 5.2–4 insists that even apparently explained sayings require deeper inquiry; the exposition then leads from obedience toward perfection. This makes the letter’s account of spiritual interpretation intelligible within Clement’s existing practice.³⁶

The letter’s wealthy young man, who loves Jesus and receives instruction concerning the kingdom, appears after the passion prediction corresponding to Mark 10:32–34. This places him near the rich-man episode expounded in QDS. At QDS 16.1, the soul must become poor, pure, and naked before following Jesus. These correspondences invite interpretation, without establishing that the two wealthy men are the same person or that a particular ritual occurred.³⁷

Irenaeus’s “bare man” adds a Christological question to investigate. It cannot settle the manuscript reading or meaning of the letter’s disputed nakedness expression: the vocabulary and immediate contexts differ.

Epiphanius’s Matthew report and the letter’s corrupted Mark need not be contradictory. Carpocratian readers could use more than one Gospel or interpret overlapping traditions. But neither report identifies canonical Matthew as Theodore’s “mixed Gospel.” The letter names Mark as the copied and corrupted text, never names Matthew as the resulting mixture, and quotes additions absent from canonical Matthew.³⁸

I regard the coherence with QDS and the Stromata as positive evidence favoring Clementine authorship. It does not independently exclude a knowledgeable imitator. Even an authentic letter would still transmit a Gospel-origin account requiring historical assessment. Authorship, Gospel history, and the letter’s surviving manuscript remain related but distinct questions.³⁹

11. What the identification establishes

The strongest evidence is internal: QDS repeats an argument Clement explicitly directs against Carpocrates, followed in the Stromata by the rich man and perfection. Epiphanius supplies the reported Matthew connection; Irenaeus illuminates the Christological dispute. This supports identifying Carpocratian teaching among the positions QDS answers.

QDS never names its opponents, and material renunciation was not peculiar to Carpocratians. An exclusively Carpocratian target for the entire work therefore remains unproved. Clement’s use of Matthew against Carpocrates also shows why the issue must be framed as competing interpretations, rather than fixed Gospel parties.

Gospel chronology presents another question. Eusebius attributes to Clement a tradition that the genealogical Gospels came first. The usual reading places Matthew and Luke before Mark; Stephen Carlson argues that προγεγράφθαι concerns public promulgation. Clement’s local preference for Mark in QDS does not require resolving that dispute, but my broader reconstruction of earlier Markan material must address it.⁴⁰

My proposal is that QDS develops a Mark-governed response to interpretations with a demonstrable Carpocratian counterpart. That finding gives the Letter to Theodore a more substantial Clementine setting: the defense of Mark, progress toward perfection, and the rejection of readings that legitimate the passions already belong together in Clement’s acknowledged work.

Sources and notes

Clement, Quis dives salvetur 2.1–4; 3.1–6; 4.4–10; 5.1–4. QDS designates Quis dives salvetur throughout. Greek follows the University of the Aegean Digital Patrologia transcription (2006). “Kingdom of heaven” is characteristic Matthean diction; the usual text of Matthew 19:24 itself nevertheless has “kingdom of God.” The opening wording therefore cannot securely identify Clement’s source. Back to text
Clement, Stromata III.6.54.1–4, especially the question at 54.2 and the quotations of Matthew 25:35–40 at 54.3; compare QDS 13.1–7. The Greek question in QDS 13.1 is τίς γὰρ ἂν κοινωνία καταλείποιτο παρὰ ἀνθρώποις, εἰ μηδεὶς ἔχοι μηδέν; The shared argument and scriptural examples establish reuse of an argument Clement expressly directs against Carpocrates elsewhere; they do not establish the exclusive identity of QDS’s unnamed interlocutors. For earlier comparisons of QDS 12 with Clement’s Carpocratian polemic, see Moeser, Jesus the Oracle (2019), 68–69, discussing Denise Kimber Buell and L. William Countryman; those observations are distinct from the more specific sequence compared here. Back to text
Clement, Stromata III.2.6.1–8.1, quoting Epiphanes, On Justice. Divine justice is characterized as κοινωνίαν τινὰ ... μετ’ ἰσότητος, while human laws introduce “mine” and “yours.” Distinguish Clement’s account of Epiphanes from Epiphanius of Salamis, the later author of the Panarion. No inference that all reported Carpocratian groups practised identical arrangements is required. Back to text
Clement, Stromata III.6.54.1–55.2; QDS 9.1 and 13.1–7. The rich-man interpretation at Stromata III.55.2 immediately follows the explicitly anti-Carpocratian discussion at 54. Clement there questions the man’s fulfilment of neighbour-love; in QDS 9.1 he accepts his fulfilment of the law. The shared social argument survives this exegetical difference. No chronology or change of position can be inferred from the comparison alone. Back to text
Clement, QDS 4.6; 5.1. Compare Mark 10:21, Matthew 19:21, and Luke 18:22. The attribution at 5.1 concerns the extended narrative immediately quoted. The claim that its distinctive wording was authentic Markan material for Clement is distinguished here from a reconstruction of its earlier transmission. Back to text
Clement, QDS 4.8–9, quoting the form of Mark 10:24 containing τοὺς πεποιθότας ἐπὶ χρήμασιν. This qualification is absent from many modern critical texts of Mark. The argument concerns the Markan text Clement actually presents, not an assumption that all witnesses to Mark have this wording. Back to text
Clement, QDS 10.1; Stromata III.6.55.2 and IV.6.28.6–29.3. The perfection condition in QDS 10.1 and Stromata III.55.2 has γενέσθαι; QDS 4.6 has εἶναι. Both Stromata citations use δός, rather than the διάδος of QDS 4.6. Neither Stromata passage expressly names an evangelist. Back to text
Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.12.5 (Latin: Si vis perfectus esse; divide pauperibus); Arabic Diatessaron XXVIII.48–49, trans. Hope W. Hogg; Cyprian, Testimonies to Quirinus III.1. The Latin divide does not establish an underlying Greek διάδος. The Arabic harmony is a later transmitted witness, not Tatian’s surviving second-century Greek text. Cyprian expressly introduces his sequence as Matthew. Back to text
Annelies Gisela Moeser, Jesus the Oracle: Reading Mark 9:33–11:19 as an Oracular Procession in Second/Third Century Roman Egypt (PhD diss., Brite Divinity School, 2019), 55. “Earliest surviving sustained exposition of a named Markan passage” preserves the relevant qualification: QDS is not a continuous commentary on the whole Gospel, and earlier lost expositions cannot be excluded. Back to text
Clement, QDS 6.1–27.2. Compare Jana Plátová, “Clement of Alexandria’s Homily Quis Dives Salvetur? and Its Pastoral Challenges for Alexandrian Christians,” Vox Patrum 85 (2023): 7–22, appendix at 20. The table follows Clement’s narrative resumptions. In the Greek text used here the departure is discussed at 20.1, the disciples’ alarm at 20.3–6, and the first and last at 26.1; the camel is revisited at 26.7–8. Back to text
Clement, QDS 9.1–10.7; 11.1–19.6. The Matthew 19:21 label attached to QDS 10 in the New Advent translation is an editorial cross-reference. Clement does not introduce a new Gospel source there. The command concerning possessions is resumed at 11.2 and receives its extended explanation through chapter 19. Back to text
Clement, QDS 15.1–20.6, especially 16.1–3; 17.1–5; 18.1–4; 19.3–6; 20.1–5. The table distinguishes quotation, paraphrase, and allusion. Its canonical parallels do not turn every supporting saying into an explicit citation of Matthew or Luke, or establish that every saying stood in Clement’s Markan exemplar. Back to text
Clement, QDS 17.5. The transmitted words explicitly name Matthew and use προσέθηκεν, but do not state “to Mark.” The quotation’s punctuation is editorial. The question πῶς; and answer τῷ πνεύματι focus the interpretation on the qualification. Clement’s next saying includes δικαιοσύνην τοῦ θεοῦ, “righteousness of God,” rather than the usual Matthew 5:6 wording δικαιοσύνην. Back to text
Epiphanius, Panarion 30.14.2, in Karl Holl, Epiphanius I, GCS 25 (Leipzig, 1915), 351, lines 9–12. The Greek names Cerinthus and Carpocrates and their appeal to the beginning of Matthew through the genealogy. A gap is marked after εὐαγγελίῳ; δῆθεν also marks the reporter’s distancing. The passage attests Epiphanius’s association, not independently verified exclusive use of an unaltered Matthew by second-century Carpocratians. Back to text
Clement, Stromata III.6.54.1–3, quoting the giving-and-lending saying parallel to Matthew 5:42 and the judgment saying parallel to Matthew 25:35–40; QDS 17.5, explicitly naming Matthew. Compare M. David Litwa, Carpocrates, Marcellina, and Epiphanes: Three Early Christian Teachers of Alexandria and Rome (London and New York: Routledge, 2022), chapter 2, discussion of the Carpocratian Gospel citation and Panarion 30.14.2. Litwa questions Epiphanius’s inference about Matthew; it should therefore remain a late external witness rather than the sole basis of the identification. Back to text
Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.19.1: qui nude tantum hominem eum dicunt ex Joseph generatum; nondum commixti Verbo Dei Patris. Nude is an adverb in the surviving Latin; “bare man” paraphrases the unqualified-humanity claim, rather than quoting a phrase nudum hominem here. Compare the explicit nudum hominem in Tertullian, De carne Christi 14. The language does not by itself establish physical nakedness or determine the reading or meaning of the disputed nakedness expression in the Letter to Theodore. Back to text
Irenaeus, Against Heresies I.25.1–2, on the human Jesus and the power descending upon him in the Carpocratian report; I.26.1, on Cerinthus’s distinction of Jesus and Christ; III.11.7, on unnamed interpreters who distinguish Jesus from Christ and prefer Mark; III.16.2, on Matthew’s “birth of Christ” wording as protection against separation. Irenaeus does not name the Mark-preferring interpreters at III.11.7 as Carpocratians, and these reports should not be collapsed into one identical Christology. Back to text
Clement, QDS 6.1–4, especially 6.3, on Jesus foreseeing the question and responses as God; 7.1–8.2, on knowledge of the Father, the greatness of the Saviour, and the law’s preparation for grace. This is compatible with a corrective to a merely-human interpretation of Jesus, but Clement does not name Carpocrates in these sections. Back to text
Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.12.5. His quotation includes the neighbour-love command found in Matthew 19:19 and the condition concerning perfection in 19:21, although the passage does not name Matthew. He questions the man’s claim of obedience and interprets distribution as undoing covetousness. These features establish a Matthew-shaped reading without proving an exclusive Matthean source. Back to text
Clement, QDS 8.2–9.2. Compare Mark 10:19–21 and Matthew 19:18–21. Clement’s quoted commandment list does not contain Matthew’s neighbour-love clause, and QDS 9.1 expressly denies that Jesus reproves the man for failing to fulfil the law. The claim here concerns the local argument of QDS. Back to text
Clement, Stromata III.6.55.2 and IV.6.29.3. At III.55.2 Clement says that the man had not fulfilled “you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” These passages are a necessary qualification of any claim that Clement consistently opposed the neighbour-love interpretation. No relative chronology of these passages and QDS is assumed here. Back to text
Eusebius, Church History 6.36.1–2, places Origen’s twenty-five books on Matthew in his later career, alongside Against Celsus, when he was over sixty. Origen’s surviving commentary is consequently used as a later comparison, not a work to which Clement’s QDS could literally be responding. Back to text
Origen, Commentary on Matthew XV.14, PG 13:1289c–1296a. Origen considers, as one possible solution, whether the neighbour-love clause was added; Mark and Luke, and especially Mark’s loving look, support that proposal. He also considers an explanation retaining the clause. This is not an unqualified report of a manuscript in which he had found the clause absent. Back to text
Clement, QDS 11.4–12.2; Origen, Commentary on Matthew XV.15, PG 13:1296b–1300a. For the comparative treatment, see Jana Plátová, “Výklad Mk 10,17–31 (Mt 19,16–30 a Lk 18,18–30) u Klementa z Alexandrie a Origena,” Studia theologica 14.4 (2012): 36–61, at 50–51. The different uses of Crates are explicit; direct literary dependence is an inference. Back to text
Clement, QDS 12.4–5; Origen, Commentary on Matthew XV.16, PG 13:1300b–1301b. Origen develops an objection rather than claiming that renunciation and moral transformation are incompatible. He then considers possible answers in XV.17–18. Compare Plátová, “Výklad,” 51–52. Back to text
Origen, Commentary on Matthew XV.17, PG 13:1301c–1304b, considers material assistance exchanged for the poor’s spiritual assistance, invoking 2 Corinthians 8:13–15. Compare Clement, QDS 31.6–35.1, especially 32.1–4. The Origen passage is a proposed interpretation submitted for judgment, not a simple rejection of almsgiving or endorsement of every form of exchange theology. Back to text
Origen, Commentary on Matthew XV.18, PG 13:1304b–1308a; Clement, QDS 17.2–19.6; Stromata IV.6.28.6–29.2. Origen recognizes the strain involved in interpreting the poor as powers deficient in goodness. Clement’s treatment elsewhere also registers the problem of giving discarded passions to the poor. Both writers investigate alternatives; neither can be reduced to a single literal or allegorical position. Back to text
Clement, QDS 21.5–7; Origen, Commentary on Matthew XV.21–22. Origen appeals to the widow’s gift when defending the significance of Peter’s small material sacrifice, while also developing further interpretation. The contrast concerns the immediate answer each gives to the objection about Peter’s limited possessions. Back to text
Origen, Against Celsus VI.16; compare Clement, QDS 11.3; 16.3–19.6. Origen links the camel saying with blessed poverty and condemned wealth and rejects indiscriminate praise of the materially poor. This passage does not expressly expound the words τῷ πνεύματι or identify the beatitude as Markan. Back to text
Origen, Commentary on John XIII.20–22 (also numbered XIII.4.20–22), on Matthew 5:6; On First Principles I.1.9, on Matthew 5:8; Commentary on Matthew X.14, on Matthew 6:19–21, and XV.10, using the good-treasure saying parallel to Matthew 12:35 and Luke 6:45. Compare Clement, QDS 13.3; 16.2; 17.1–5; 19.3–6. These are agreements or differences of application, not evidence that every supporting saying is contested between the authors. Back to text
Plátová, “Výklad,” 60–61, identifies shared interpretive problems and differing solutions while declining to infer Origen’s dependence on Clement merely from their agreement. The present proposal builds a hypothesis about Gospel authority on the primary comparisons; it does not attribute that hypothesis to Plátová. Back to text
Luke 6:20–21; Matthew 5:3, 6; Clement, QDS 17.5. Luke directly witnesses unqualified poverty and hunger “now.” Clement does not name Luke here. The proposal that Luke preserved material belonging to an earlier Markan tradition is the historical reconstruction advanced in this paper. Back to text
Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem IV.14.1 and IV.14.13. His discussion witnesses an unqualified blessing of the poor in his treatment of Marcion’s Gospel; his later repetition uses “kingdom of heaven.” Neither passage explicitly assigns the saying to Mark. No identification of Marcion’s Gospel with Clement’s Gospel is established by this parallel alone. Back to text
Letter to Theodore I.15–II.2. Mark brings his and Peter’s notes to Alexandria and transfers material promoting knowledge into his earlier work. The letter attributes enlargement to Mark; it does not describe borrowing by Matthew or Luke. Back to text
Letter to Theodore I.2–8 and II.6–9; Clement, QDS 5.2–4; 16.1–3; 18.1; Stromata III.6.54.1–3. The correspondence concerns the opposition between spiritual interpretation and the use of Gospel language to legitimate passions. The letter’s account of textual falsification is additional evidence within its own narrative, not an accusation independently made in QDS. Back to text
Clement, QDS 3.2; 5.2–4; 10.1–2; 12.1; 16.1–3; Letter to Theodore I.18–II.2. Compare Alain Le Boulluec, “La lettre sur l’Évangile secret de Marc et le Quis dives salvetur? de Clément d’Alexandrie,” Apocrypha 7 (1996): 27–41. The comparison concerns the interpretation of Gospel wording and the formation of the learner. Back to text
Letter to Theodore II.21–III.11; compare Mark 10:17–34 and Clement, QDS 16.1. The first additional narrative is placed after the passion prediction corresponding to Mark 10:32–34, not immediately after the rich man’s departure. Its wealthy young man is not explicitly identified with the man in Mark 10:17–22. Back to text
Letter to Theodore I.11–14 distinguishes true and false claims about Mark; II.6–9 alleges corruption of a copy of the secret Gospel. Neither passage names Matthew. The two quoted additions at II.23–III.16 are not passages in canonical Matthew. Epiphanius, Panarion 30.14.2, does not connect his Matthew report with the Letter to Theodore or its Gospel additions. Carpocratian use of more than one Gospel would reconcile the reports without identifying their texts. Back to text
For a critical argument against Clementine authorship, Francis Watson, “Beyond Suspicion: On the Authorship of the Mar Saba Letter and the Secret Gospel of Mark,” Journal of Theological Studies 61 (2010): 128–170. For editions and the wider debate, Michael J. Kok, “Secret Gospel of Mark,” e-Clavis Christian Apocrypha, updated April 2024. Literary coherence supports an attribution without independently establishing the date or authorship of the surviving inscription. Back to text
Eusebius, Church History 6.14.5–7, from Clement’s Hypotyposeis. The usual chronological reading places the genealogical Gospels first. For public promulgation rather than earlier composition as the force of προγεγράφθαι, see Carlson, “Order of the Gospels,” 122–125. Back to text