Secret Gospel of Mark

Introduction

Somewhere between faith and forgery, between revelation and conspiracy, lies one of the most electrifying discoveries in the history of biblical scholarship. In 1958, a Columbia University professor named Morton Smith was cataloguing manuscripts in the ancient library of Mar Saba monastery, perched dramatically in the Judean desert southeast of Jerusalem. What he found tucked into the back pages of a seventeenth-century printed book would ignite a controversy that has never truly been extinguished — a handwritten Greek letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria, one of the early Church's most respected theologians, referencing a version of the Gospel of Mark that virtually no one in the modern world had ever heard of. A secret version. A longer version. A version, Clement's letter suggested, that had been deliberately concealed from ordinary believers and preserved only for those deemed spiritually mature enough to receive its deeper mysteries.

The implications were staggering, and they remain so today. If the letter was genuine — and the debate over its authenticity has consumed entire careers, spawned dozens of books, and fractured the community of New Testament scholars into passionate, sometimes bitter camps — then the Gospel of Mark, already considered by most scholars to be the oldest of the four canonical gospels, had a hidden sibling. A text that contained episodes, teachings, and ritual elements that the mainstream Church had either suppressed, forgotten, or never acknowledged. A text that raised uncomfortable questions about what the earliest Christians actually believed, what Jesus actually taught, and how much of what we think we know about the origins of Christianity has been shaped not by history but by editorial decisions made by powerful men in the second and third centuries.

This book is an invitation to explore that mystery in full — not to resolve it cheaply or to take easy sides, but to sit with its complexity, to follow its threads wherever they lead, and to emerge with a richer, more nuanced understanding of how sacred texts are born, how they travel through time, and how they accumulate the fingerprints of every hand that touches them. Whether you come to these pages as a devoted Christian, a secular historian, a student of comparative religion, or simply someone who has always suspected that the official story of anything is rarely the complete story, you will find here a subject worthy of your most serious attention.

The fragment that Morton Smith discovered — now referred to almost universally in scholarly literature as the Mar Saba letter, or the letter of Clement — contains two brief passages from what Clement calls a 'more spiritual gospel' used by the church in Alexandria. One of those passages describes a scene with unmistakable resonances to the story of Lazarus in the Gospel of John: a young man who had died is raised by Jesus, and then, some days later, comes to Jesus wearing only a linen cloth over his naked body, spending the night with him so that Jesus might teach him 'the mystery of the kingdom of God.' The other passage is brief and almost dismissive, simply noting that certain women and a figure called 'Salome' were present in Jericho. These fragments, short as they are, have generated an almost incomprehensible volume of scholarly argument, theological anxiety, and popular speculation.

Why? Because they touch on things that the institutional Church has historically been extremely reluctant to discuss openly. The idea of a secret teaching, reserved for an inner circle, challenges the democratic, universalist self-image that Christianity has long cultivated. The image of a young man in a linen cloth spending the night with Jesus has been seized upon by some scholars as evidence of a ritual initiation practice, and by others as evidence of something far more sensational. The very existence of a 'longer' or 'secret' version of Mark raises the question of which version came first — and whether the gospel we have in our Bibles today is the original or the edited, sanitized, publicly acceptable version of a more complex and esoteric original.

These are not small questions. They go to the heart of what Christianity is, where it came from, and how it was constructed. And they deserve to be asked with intellectual honesty, historical rigor, and a genuine openness to the possibility that the answers might be surprising.

Before we go any further, it is worth acknowledging something that this book will return to repeatedly: the question of authenticity. Morton Smith's discovery has never been straightforwardly accepted by the scholarly community. The original manuscript — the handwritten letter in the back of that seventeenth-century book — has not been seen since the 1970s, when it was apparently removed from the book and its current location remains unknown. We have only photographs taken by Smith himself. This has led a significant number of scholars to argue that the letter is a modern forgery, possibly fabricated by Smith himself, either as an elaborate academic hoax or for more personal reasons connected to his own interpretation of early Christianity. The forgery hypothesis has been argued with great sophistication and passion, and it cannot be dismissed.

And yet the authenticity hypothesis has also been argued with great sophistication and passion, and it too cannot be dismissed. The Greek of the letter is consistent with Clement's known style. The theological concerns it expresses are consistent with Clement's known preoccupations. The specific way it handles the idea of esoteric knowledge — the notion that some truths are too dangerous or too profound for general circulation — fits perfectly with what we know about Alexandrian Christianity in the second century. Several of the world's most respected papyrologists and New Testament scholars have examined the photographs and concluded that the letter shows no obvious signs of forgery.

This book does not pretend to resolve the authenticity question definitively. No book can, at least not until the manuscript is relocated and subjected to modern forensic analysis. What this book does instead is something arguably more valuable: it treats the question of authenticity as a doorway rather than a wall. Whether the letter is genuine or forged, it opens onto a landscape of early Christian history that is far more complex, far more contested, and far more fascinating than the version most of us learned in Sunday school or in introductory religious studies courses. The questions it raises were real questions for real people in the ancient world, and they are real questions for us today.

A Letter Attributed to Clement of Alexandria

From the letters of the holy Clement, author of the Stromateis. To Theodore.

You did well to stop the terrible teachings of the Carpocratians. For these are the "wandering stars" mentioned in the prophecy, who wander from the straight path of the commandments into a bottomless pit of sins of the flesh. For, proud of their knowledge of what they call "the deep things of Satan," they do not know that they are throwing themselves into "the dark underworld" of lies. And boasting that they are free, they have become slaves to base desires. Such people must be opposed in every way. For, even if they say something true, one who loves the truth should not agree with them. For not all true things are the Truth, nor should the truth that only seems true by human opinion be preferred to the true Truth, which is according to the faith.

Now, as for the things they keep saying about the God-inspired Gospel of Mark, some are complete lies. Others, even if they contain some true elements, are not reported truthfully. For when true things are mixed with inventions, they are falsified, so that, as the saying goes, even the salt loses its flavor.

While Peter was in Rome, Mark wrote an account of the Lord's actions. He did not, however, report all of them, nor did he hint at the secret ones, but chose what he thought would be most useful for increasing the faith of those being taught. But when Peter died a martyr, Mark came to Alexandria, bringing both his own notes and Peter's. From these, he added to his earlier book things that would help people progress toward knowledge. In this way, he composed a more spiritual Gospel for those who were being perfected in the faith. Nevertheless, he still did not reveal the things that should not be spoken, nor did he write down the sacred teachings of the Lord. Instead, to the stories already written he added others and also included certain sayings. He knew the interpretation of these sayings would, like a guide to the mysteries, lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of truth, hidden by seven veils. So, in my opinion, he prepared the material neither reluctantly nor carelessly. And, when he died, he left his work to the church in Alexandria, where it is still very carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.

But since evil demons are always plotting to destroy the human race, Carpocrates, instructed by them and using deceitful arts, so completely controlled a certain elder of the church in Alexandria that he got a copy of the secret Gospel from him. He then interpreted it according to his own blasphemous and worldly doctrine and, furthermore, polluted it, mixing completely shameless lies with the spotless and holy words. The teaching of the Carpocratians is drawn from this mixture.

To them, therefore, as I said above, you must never give in; nor, when they present their lies, should you admit that the secret Gospel is by Mark. You should even deny it under oath. For, "Not all true things are to be said to all people." For this reason the Wisdom of God, through Solomon, advises, "Answer the fool with his folly," teaching that the light of the truth should be hidden from those who are spiritually blind. It also says, "From him who has not, it shall be taken away," and "Let the fool walk in darkness." But we are "children of Light," having been illuminated by "the dawn" of the spirit of the Lord "from on high," and "Where the Spirit of the Lord is," it says, "there is freedom," for "All things are pure to the pure."

To you, therefore, I will not hesitate to answer the questions you have asked, refuting their lies with the very words of the Gospel. For example, after "And they were on the road going up to Jerusalem" and what follows, until "After three days he will rise," the secret Gospel includes the following material word for word:

"And they came to Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And, coming, she bowed down before Jesus and said to him, "son of David, have mercy on me." But the disciples scolded her. And Jesus, becoming angry, went with her into the garden where the tomb was, and right away, going in where the youth was, he reached out his hand and raised him, taking his hand. But the youth, looking at him, loved him and began to beg that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth came to him, wearing a linen cloth over his bare body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And from there, he got up and returned to the other side of the Jordan."

And these words follow the text, "And James and John came to him" and that whole section. But "naked man with naked man" and the other things you wrote about are not found.

And after the words, "And he came into Jericho," the secret Gospel adds only, "And the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome were there, and Jesus did not receive them." But many other things you wrote about both seem to be and are lies. Now the true explanation, the one that agrees with the true philosophy.

[Here the fragment ends.]