Using to Theodore to Explain the "Mystic" Version of Mark 10:17 - 31 in Quis Dives Salvetur

 A recurring question in the Secret Mark debate is whether the Letter to Theodore’s story about a “more spiritual” Mark bears any resemblance to how Clement actually uses Mark in his extant works. One promising test case is his homily Quis Dives Salvetur? on Mark 10:17–31, the Rich Man pericope.

The letter to Theodore says that Mark, after writing the familiar Gospel in Rome, later “composed a more spiritual gospel” in Alexandria, adding certain mystic material “for the use of those being perfected,” functioning as a kind of written mystagogue into a seven-veiled inner sanctuary. Read alongside Quis Dives, this is less an alien intrusion and more a fairly exact description of Clement’s own preaching style.

1. Clement calls his exposition “mystic” and warns against a carnal hearing

Right at the start of Quis Dives, Clement insists that the Rich Man story must not be taken in a crude, literalist way. He says the Lord’s words must be heard “not in a merely human way” and explicitly characterizes his exposition as “mystic” (μυστικῶς) and “symbolic,” aimed at inner transformation rather than a blanket legal order to sell everything.

That stance is exactly what the Letter to Theodore presupposes: a higher Markan tradition whose sayings function as mystagogy, leading the τελειούμενοι (“those being perfected”) beyond fear and literalism into a deeper understanding of discipleship.

2. One Markan story, many voices: Clement’s harmonizing method

Formally, Clement announces that he is expounding “the Gospel according to Mark.” But in the very same breath he adds that “in all the other acknowledged Gospels, though the words vary a little, the same sense is exhibited,” and he grants himself permission to blend their wording while insisting on a single underlying meaning.

His running citation of the scene does exactly that:

• It preserves recognizably Markan details (e.g. “defraud not,” “for my sake and for the gospel”). 

• It also imports Matthean material that Mark lacks, above all the key clause, “If you would be perfect (εἰ θέλεις τέλειος εἶναι)…” from Matthew 19:21, which Mark’s text does not include. 

That Matthean phrase becomes the hinge of the sermon: Clement builds his entire ascent-scheme on perfection (τέλειος, τελείωσις), moving from simple commandment-keeping to full healing of the soul and likeness to God. He reinforces this by invoking Matthean beatitudes (“poor in spirit,” “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”) to show that dispossession is an interior state, not a mere financial transaction.

So whatever textual base he has in front of him, his method is: one Markan narrative, enriched with additional sayings and harmonized language, in order to extract a single “hidden” mystic sense.

3. How this matches the “more spiritual” Mark of the letter

Now put that beside the Letter to Theodore’s portrait of Mark in Alexandria:

• Mark “did not divulge things not to be uttered, nor did he write down the hierophantic teaching of the Lord” for catechumens, but later in Alexandria he composed a πνευματικώτερον εὐαγγέλιον (“more spiritual gospel”) for those being perfected, adding “yet other sayings” suitable for their advanced instruction.

• Those sayings are explicitly framed as mystagogical: they lead the hearer “through the seven veils” into the innermost sanctuary.

Clement’s Quis Dives behaves precisely as you would expect a sermon to behave if it is preached from that sort of “mystic Mark”:

• It takes the familiar story structure from Mark 10.

• It plugs in “further sayings” (here, Matthean phrases and beatitudes) that serve as interpretive keys.

• It treats the whole episode as an initiatory scene leading the hearer from basic law-keeping into perfection, as part of a graded pedagogy for the teleioi.

The result is exactly what the letter describes: not a new Gospel with a completely different plot, but a “more spiritual” handling of the same material, thickened with higher teaching and used as mystagogy.

4. A conservative reading is still available

None of this forces you to posit a physically distinct Alexandrian Markan codex. Everything Clement does in Quis Dives can be explained by his own, openly-avowed harmonizing technique:

• He acknowledges all four canonical Gospels as “authorized.”

• He feels free to weave their wording together whenever “the same sense” is present.

• He uses that composite wording to preach a single mystical meaning aimed at inner transformation.

On a historically conservative reading, he is doing with Mark and Matthew what he says he does: blending acknowledged texts to elicit a higher sense.

But crucially, if you do grant the letter’s scenario about a more spiritual Markal version used in Alexandria, Quis Dives looks exactly like what sermons from such a text would sound like. In either case, the patterns line up:

• One narrative spine (Mark 10).

• “Further sayings” that open the story inward.

• An explicit agenda of perfection and initiation.

• A refusal to read the passage “carnally.”

5. Implications for the Secret Mark debate

The implications are less about proving authenticity and more about shifting where the burden of proof lies.

First, Quis Dives shows that Clement’s way of handling Mark 10 already corresponds closely to the Letter to Theodore’s picture of a “mystic” Mark: same story, enriched sayings, initiatory exegesis for the perfected. That makes the concept of a more spiritual Markan gospel in Alexandria far from implausible; it is, in fact, a good description of what Clement is already doing.

Second, this convergence means that arguments against Secret Mark cannot lean on claims like “Clement would never treat a Gospel that way” or “this sort of mystagogical expansion is out of character.” On the contrary, his own homiletic practice shows him:

• harmonizing Gospels freely,

• importing perfecting logia to drive ascetical teleiōsis,

• and insisting on a mystic, non-carnal hearing of Mark. 

Third, the real debate thus moves away from alleged conceptual impossibility and toward the harder questions: who wrote the Letter to Theodore, when, and how its version of “mystic Mark” relates to the kind of spiritualized, initiation-oriented Mark we can already see in Clement’s extant works.

In that sense, Quis Dives Salvetur doesn’t settle the Secret Mark controversy—but it does tighten the fit between the letter’s claims and Clement’s actual practice, and it undercuts attempts to dismiss the letter’s picture of a “more spiritual” Markan tradition as intrinsically un-Clementine.