Quentin Quesnell claimed to know the truth about many things. He knew, or thought he knew, what Jesus wanted for him and a married priesthood from the evangelist Matthew. He knew the mind of evangelist Mark and then as a consequence he knew the mind of Morton Smith. The certainty of Quesnell has claimed many adherents. A great many of the hoax theorists who came after him developed their theories from Quesnell’s certainties, especially the supposed twin dedications “to the One Who Knows.”  Quesnell came from a priestly culture in which a spiritual man directed his efforts toward a flock and announced, in effect, “Follow me and you can’t go wrong.” This does not mean that everyone who later wrote on Secret Mark was taking dictation from Quesnell. Not at all. But there was a shared certainty in the face of a striking paucity of evidence, and that certainty ultimately derived from the same place: the faith-based culture of religious orthodoxy. I do not know how to explain this better ...