Unveiling the Hidden Connections: Theodore, Gregory, and the Legacy of the Secret Gospel of Mark

Let us presume that among Origen's first initiates into the mysteries of Christianity was a certain “Theodore,” who later took the name of Gregory – Gregory the Wonderworker – a prominent third-century Christian writer and bishop. I propose that this “Theodore” was one and the same with the addressee of the Letter to Theodore by Clement of Alexandria.

This investigation will argue that the homosexual innuendo used to convict Morton Smith was already present in relation to the mysteries associated with the secret gospel at the time of Origen and Clement. The Alexandrian baptismal rituals were prone to misinterpretation, and anyone associated with them could inevitably end up “caught” in a web of suspicion. The discovery of the letter brought to life something akin to Howard Carter’s “Pharaoh’s curse,” a plague which lay dormant in Tutankhamun’s tomb only to bring bad luck to its discoverer once it was unearthed. If only Smith had known that his colleagues would not only accuse him of forgery and homosexuality but madness, culminating in the 2009 SBL debacle titled “The Secret Gospel of Mark, Sex, Death, and Madness; The Psychodynamics of Morton Smith's Proposal,” chaired by Peter Jeffery. One wonders if Morton Smith ever regretted opening Pandora’s box, recovering a lost chapter of early Christian history, and reacquainting us with the not-so-dignified world of the ancient Church Fathers. His reputation at least would have remained intact had he not gleaned the existence of this letter.

Naked Man With Naked Man (γυμνὸς γυμνῷ)

I am convinced that the “naked with naked” reference in the Letter to Theodore ultimately derives from Plato’s reference to the manner in which divine judgment is carried out in his Gorgias. The phrase γυμνὸς γυμνῷ can be employed without sexual overtones, as demonstrated by Dissertation 41 of Maximus of Tyre, a contemporary of Clement, who speaks of “naked to naked, friend to friend, freeman to freeman” (φίλον φίλῳ, ἐλεύθερον ἐλευθέρῳ). Jerome’s “nudus nudum Christum/Jesum sequi” is more ambiguous but connected, I believe, to the Origenist knowledge of the Secret Gospel of Mark.

What gives γυμνὸς γυμνῷ the hint of sexuality is Clement’s efforts to connect Theodore’s source about the secret gospel with the “carnal” Carpocratians. In other words, if we are to pair Origen and Morton Smith as victims of weaponized homosexual innuendo, Clement is Origen’s Peter Jeffery or Stephen Carlson.

The Legacy of Misinterpretation

Epiphanius of Salamis, writing near the end of the fourth century but certainly drawing on much earlier material, represents the earliest survival of this line of attack against the Church Father. As Blossom Stefaniw notes, the Panarion represented Origen “as sexually deviant,” and his “focus on deviant sexual practices encourages the reader to see Origen as a pervert and an object of shame before the anecdotes about his life have even begun. It also associates sexual deviance with shameful textuality, a connection that appears again in the account of Origen’s life and work.”