PG 41 - 47

PG 41 — μυστικ-/mystic- and γυμν-/nud-

PG 41 is the 41st volume in the survey. The procedure is simple: first establish the concordance, then ask which passages actually matter for the two problems under investigation—the possible meaning of Clement’s “Mystic Gospel” and the meaning of γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ in the Letter to Theodore.

For control against missed OCR hits, the 618-page volume was divided into three roughly equal sections: Part 1 = pp. 1–206; Part 2 = pp. 207–412; Part 3 = pp. 413–618. Each section was searched, verified and tabulated independently before work began on the next section.

The μυστικ-/mystic- audit produced 5 printed occurrences, representing 5 distinct contexts once duplicate search hits are collapsed. By section: Part 1 = 1; Part 2 = 2; Part 3 = 2.

Table 1A. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 41 — Part 1, pp. 1–206

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. VIII; PG 245–246; PDF p. 122	ὡς τοῦ Κυρίου μέλλοντος τὰ διὰ τοῦ νόμου μυστικῶς παραδοθέντα τελείως καὶ σωτηριωδῶς ἐπασφαλίζεσθαι	Quod nimirum quae lex mystice tradiderat, haec a Christo Domino consummari, munirique perfecte ac salubriter oportebat.	For what the law had handed down mystically was to be brought to completion and securely perfected for salvation by Christ the Lord.	Epiphanius’s own prose. Mystical scriptural/legal transmission brought to fulfillment in Christ.

Table 1B. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 41 — Part 2, pp. 207–412

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. XXX, VI; PG 413–414; PDF p. 221	πολλάκις διὰ τῶν γενομένων μυστικῶν, ἐν τῇ κατὰ τὸ λουτρὸν ὑποθέσει	Per idem tempus Josephi animum sollicitum habebant eorum recordatio, quae in baptismo fieri mystica arcanaque viderat...	Joseph’s mind was repeatedly troubled by the mystical and secret things he had seen taking place in connection with the baptism.	Especially important: baptism, secrecy and initiatory knowledge. The following narrative connects this experience with scriptural reading and patriarchal mystagogy.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. XXXIV, III; PG 587–588; PDF p. 308	ὦ πάρεδρε θεοῦ καὶ μυστικῆς πρὸ αἰῶνος Σιγῆς	O Dei ac mysticae ante saecula Siges assessor...	O assessor of God and of the mystical Silence before the ages...	Quoted heterodox redemption formula. Mystery, secrecy and initiatory language, but not Epiphanius’s own doctrinal voice.

Table 1C. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 41 — Part 3, pp. 413–618

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
Panarion, Haer. LV, editorial note 75; PG 973–974; PDF p. 501	τελετάς ... καὶ μετά τινος μυστικῆς παραδόσεως ἑορτάς	Editorial discussion: Teletae, feasts, sacrifices and mysteries; the Greek quotation itself is retained in the note.	Rites or initiations ... and feasts accompanied by a certain mystical tradition.	Editorial apparatus. Ritual, festival, mystery and mystical-tradition vocabulary occur together.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LVII, VII; PG 1005–1006; PDF p. 517	Διότι μυστικῶς τὰ πάντα οἰκονομεῖ θεὸς Λόγος ἀποσταλεὶς ἀπὸ Πνεύματος ἐν σαρκί...	Quoniam per mysterium administrat omnia cum in carne missus a Spiritu Deus Verbum...	Because God the Word administers all things mystically, having been sent by the Spirit in the flesh...	Strong Christological use. The immediate argument invokes Christ’s body as temple and his raising of it in three days.

The most important μυστικ- material is not simply the number of occurrences but the combinations in which the vocabulary appears. The Joseph passage brings baptism, concealed ritual knowledge and mystagogy into direct contact with the reading of Gospel and apostolic texts. The later passage in Haer. LVII applies mystical language to the incarnate economy of the Logos precisely while discussing Christ’s temple-body and its raising in three days. The earlier Haer. VIII passage likewise describes what the law transmitted mystically as reaching its completion in Christ.

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The γυμν-/nud-/denud- search produced 28 genuine printed occurrences after exercise-family vocabulary and OCR noise were removed. By section: Part 1 = 3; Part 2 = 6; Part 3 = 19. Repeated occurrences have been retained in their proper sectional concordance so that the audit remains reproducible. The excluded exercise-family hits include γυμνασίοις, γυμνάσιον and γυμνασίαν, where the sense is gymnasium, exercise or training rather than nakedness.

Table 2A. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 41 — Part 1, pp. 1–206

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
Vita S. Epiphanii, XII; PG 37–38; PDF p. 33	Τούτον ἰδὼν Ἐπιφάνιος γυμνὸν...	Cum eum vidisset Epiphanius nudum...	When Epiphanius saw him naked...	Literal bodily nakedness of a demoniac; nonsexual.
Vita S. Epiphanii; PG 45–46; PDF p. 37	ἔθος γὰρ ἦν περὶ τοὺς Πέρσας, γυμνοὺς ἄγειν τοὺς τεθνεῶτας	Mos est enim Persis mortuos nudos educere.	For it was the custom among the Persians to bring out the dead naked.	Literal funerary nakedness; unusually relevant because nakedness occurs in a corpse/burial setting.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. XXVI, V; PG 339–340; PDF p. 184	εὔχονται γυμνοὶ ὅλῳ τῷ σώματι...	... toto corpore nudi comprecentur...	They pray naked over the whole body.	Literal nakedness inside an explicitly sexual heresiological description. The sexual force comes from the surrounding sexual acts, not from γυμνός alone.

Table 2B. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 41 — Part 2, pp. 207–412

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. XXX, X; PG 421–422; PDF p. 225	ὃς γυμνὸς τὴν πόλιν περιῄει	... nudo corpore circumcursans...	He went about the city naked.	Literal nakedness caused by madness/demonic affliction.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. XXX, X; PG 421–422; PDF p. 225	θεώμενος τὴν ἰδίαν γύμνωσιν, ἑαυτὸν ἔκρυψε	Tum se nudum animadvertens occultare...	Seeing his own nakedness, he hid himself.	Literal exposure associated with restored consciousness and modesty.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. XXX, X; PG 421–422; PDF p. 225	μηκέτι φέρων ἰδεῖν τὴν ἰδίαν γύμνωσιν	... ac manibus pudenda protegere, eo se habitu corporis esse permoleste ferre.	No longer able to bear seeing his own nakedness.	Literal nakedness accompanied by covering the genitals and putting on clothing; shame/modesty, not a sexual act.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. XXXI, quotation from Irenaeus; PG 439–440; PDF p. 259	ἵνα μὴ γυμνωθεῖσα γένηται κατάφωρος	... ne suis integumentis evoluta deprehendi facile possit.	Lest, once stripped, it become plainly exposed.	Metaphorical stripping of error or falsehood; exposure of deception.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. XXXI; PG 531–532; PDF p. 280	... τῷ τῆς ἀληθείας σωματείῳ γυμνώσει, καὶ ἀνυπόστατον ἐπιδείξει τὸ πλάσμα αὐτῶν	... illorum nugas detegat atque inanes esse demonstret.	He will strip it against the body or structure of truth and demonstrate that their fabrication is without substance.	Metaphorical exposure/refutation.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. XXXIV; PG 591–592; PDF p. 310	ἵν’ ἐσίδῃς αὐτὴν γυμνήν, καὶ καταμάθοις τὸ κάλλος αὐτῆς	nudam ut eam inspiceres, ejusque pulchritudinem agnosceres	So that you might see her naked and learn her beauty.	Personified/mythological Truth displayed naked; aestheticized imagery in a heterodox system.

Table 2C. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 41 — Part 3, pp. 413–618

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
Panarion, summary catalogue, Adamiani entry VI; PG 847–848; PDF p. 438	Γυμνοὶ γάρ, ὡς ἐκ μητρός, ἄνδρες τε καὶ γυναῖκες ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ συνάγονται...	Nudi quippe, quales ex utero matris egressi sunt, viri perinde ac mulieres conveniunt...	Naked, as when they came from their mother’s womb, men and women assemble together.	Communal religious nakedness of the Adamites; men and women worship together unclothed.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. XLVIII; PG 851–852; PDF p. 440	Ἔπιε γάρ, φησὶ, Νῶε ἀπὸ τοῦ οἴνου, καὶ ἐγυμνώθη.	Nam Noemus, inquiunt, posteaquam vinum bibit, nudatus est.	Noah drank wine and was naked.	Scriptural nakedness in an argument concerning wine.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. XLVIII; PG 853–854; PDF p. 441	Καὶ ὡς ἐκεῖνος δι’ οἶνον ἐγυμνώθη, μηδὲν ἀδικηθείς...	Ut igitur ob vinum ille nudatus est...	And as he was made naked through wine, without having suffered harm...	Repeated scriptural use; retained as a separate printed occurrence.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LII, II; PG 955–956; PDF p. 492	ἕκαστος εἰσιών, ἤτοι ἀνήρ, ἤτοι γυνή, ἐκδυόμενος ἔξω εἴσεισι γυμνὸς, ὡς ἀπὸ μητρός, ὅλῳ τῷ σώματι	Tum intrantium quisque, tum vir quam femina, foris vestibus exuens sese, toto corpore, perinde ut ex utero matris exiit, nudus ingreditur.	Each person entering, whether man or woman, removes the clothes outside and enters naked over the whole body, as from the mother’s womb.	Exceptionally explicit ritual stripping: disrobing, entry and whole-body nakedness are all stated.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LII, II; PG 957–958; PDF p. 493	γυμνοὶ ὄντες τελοῦσιν	Jam vero lectiones ac reliqua id genus obeunt nudi.	They perform the readings and related observances while naked.	Religious/ritual nakedness during readings and observances.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LII, III; PG 957–958; PDF p. 493	οὐ μίαν ὥραν ἐκεῖνοι γυμνοὶ ἦσαν, ἀλλὰ διηνεκῶς	... non una duntaxat hora, sed perpetuo nudi...	They were not naked for one hour only, but continually.	Contrast between Adamite practice and primordial nakedness.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LII, III; PG 957–958; PDF p. 493	Τούτοις δὲ ... οὐ διὰ τὸ μὴ αἰσχύνεσθαι γύμνωσις...	At isti non quod pudore careant, propterea nudantur...	Their nakedness is not because they are without shame...	Epiphanius interprets the sectarian nakedness polemically and proceeds to supply an explicitly erotic motive.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LII, III; PG 957–958; PDF p. 493	παρὰ τῆς πεποιημένης αὐτῶν σχηματουργίας καὶ γυμνώσεως, καὶ αἰσχύνης καὶ χλεύης	... habitu ac nuditate pudendoque ac ridendo illo instituto...	By their contrived behavior and nakedness, shame and mockery.	Sexualizing heresiological polemic; the surrounding discussion explicitly invokes insatiable pleasure and visual attraction.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LIX; PG 1035–1036; PDF p. 532	ὅλον τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ γυμνητεύει	... oblitus toto se corpore esse nudatum...	His whole body is naked.	Bodily image used metaphorically for moral/doctrinal inconsistency.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LIX; PG 1035–1036; PDF p. 532	ὅλον μὲν τὸ σῶμα γυμνητεύουσιν...	... toto corpore nudi sunt...	They are naked over the whole body.	Continuation of the same ethical metaphor: keeping one command while abandoning the rest.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LXIV; PG 1095–1096; PDF p. 562	γυμνῶς παρίστησιν	palam istud ostendit	He sets it forth plainly/barely.	Adverbial metaphor: open or plain presentation, not bodily nudity.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LXIV; PG 1121–1122; PDF p. 575	ἀνάγκη δὴ σαρκῶν ὡσαύτως ἐκείνοις γυμνοὺς ἔσεσθαι δεῖν	necesse est ad eumdem modum carne nudari	It would therefore be necessary for us, like them, to be stripped of flesh.	Metaphysical bodily stripping in a discussion of humans and angels.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LXIV; PG 1129–1130; PDF p. 579	τὰ σπέρματα, πῶς γυμνά ... καὶ ἄσαρκα βάλλεται εἰς τὴν γῆν	Aspice semina, quae nuda ac carne destituta terrae mandantur.	Observe how the seeds are cast into the earth naked and without flesh.	“Bare” seeds in a resurrection analogy; nonhuman literal/metaphorical use.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LXIV; PG 1135–1136; PDF p. 582	πόσον οἴει γυμνωθέντας αὐτοὺς τῶν τοιούτων ὀνομάτων χλευασθήσεσθαι;	... istiusmodi vocabulis exutos...	How much do you think they would be mocked if stripped of such names?	Metaphorical stripping of names or labels.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LXIV; PG 1135–1136; PDF p. 582	ἐλευθέραν αὐτὴν καὶ γυμνὴν χρῆναι διαμεῖναι σώματος;	liberam illam ac corpore nudatam esse debere	Should the soul remain free and naked of the body?	Metaphysical separation of soul from body.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LXIV, XLVIII; PG 1149–1150; PDF p. 589	ἀπογυμνώσαι καὶ ταύτης αὐτοῖς τῆς προφητείας τὴν πρόφασιν	... illius oraculi declarare mentem.	To strip away or lay bare for them the pretext drawn from this prophecy.	Metaphorical exposure/refutation; the Latin renders the sense rather than the Greek image literally.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LXIV; PG 1183–1184; PDF p. 606	Τὴν φωνήν σου ἤκουσα, καὶ ἐκρύβην, ὅτι γυμνός εἰμι.	Vocem tuam audivi, et abscondi me eo quod nudus essem.	I heard your voice and hid myself because I was naked.	Genesis quotation; literal bodily nakedness used in a body/soul argument.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LXIV; PG 1183–1184; PDF p. 606	Γυμνὸν δὲ ἄρα ποῖον ἔλεγε; τὴν ψυχὴν ἔλεγεν ἢ τὸ σῶμα;	Nudum vero quid tandem dixit? animam an corpus?	What, then, did he call naked: the soul or the body?	Explicit semantic discussion of nakedness in relation to soul and body.
Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. LXIV; PG 1183–1184; PDF p. 606	Καὶ τίς σοι εἶπε ... ὅτι γυμνός εἶ;	Et quis tibi dixit, inquit, te esse nudum...?	And who told you that you were naked?	Second Genesis quotation in the same exegetical discussion.

What actually matters for our research

The strongest contribution of PG 41 to the “Mystic Gospel” problem is the Joseph of Tiberias narrative in Haer. XXX. Joseph secretly watches what the patriarch does at baptism, and Epiphanius describes what he has witnessed as τὰ γενόμενα μυστικά; the Latin makes the implication even more explicit with quae in baptismo fieri mystica arcanaque viderat, “the mystical and secret things which he had seen being done in baptism.” The narrative then continues beyond the lexical hit. Joseph gains access to books preserved in Hebrew, including the Gospel according to John, Acts and Matthew, and his reaction to reading them is placed alongside what Epiphanius calls the patriarch’s μυσταγωγία, his “mystagogy.” Thus within one continuous narrative complex PG 41 joins secret observation, baptism, mysteries, mystagogy and written Gospel texts. That combination is considerably more important for the present investigation than an isolated occurrence of μυστικός.

The passage in Haer. LVII supplies a different but complementary association. Epiphanius is explaining the incarnation and cites Christ’s saying, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it.” He then says that the divine Logos orders all things μυστικῶς, rendered in the Latin as per mysterium. Here “mystically” belongs directly to the economy of the incarnate Christ and occurs in an argument centered upon Christ’s body, death and resurrection in three days. PG 41 therefore contains a clear example in which mystical language is not merely attached to abstract esoteric knowledge: it belongs to the interpretation of the embodied, salvific and resurrection-centered activity of Christ.

The Haer. VIII occurrence adds a third component. What the law had been μυστικῶς παραδοθέντα, “handed down mystically,” is said to receive its complete and saving fulfillment in the Lord. We therefore have in this volume mystical transmission of Scripture, baptismal mysteries and mystagogy alongside Gospel reading, and a mystical interpretation of the incarnate Logos culminating in the raising of his temple-body. The editorial note at PG 973–974 is later evidence of the same semantic environment at the level of terminology: τελεταί, feasts, sacrifices, mysteries and μυστικὴ παράδοσις appear together in its discussion of ritual language.

For the historical problem, the force of this evidence is semantic rather than identificatory. Epiphanius cannot establish what Clement of Alexandria meant by τὸ μυστικὸν εὐαγγέλιον. What PG 41 does establish is that Christian Greek could comfortably place “mystical” language at the intersection of scriptural transmission, restricted ritual knowledge, baptismal mystagogy, Christological interpretation and resurrection. The expression “Mystic Gospel” therefore belongs to a recognizable Christian conceptual world rather than requiring “mystic” to denote simply a secret book.

The γυμν- evidence is even more useful as a semantic control because PG 41 gives several sharply different environments in which nakedness occurs. The strongest explicitly sexual example is Haer. XXVI. There men pray γυμνοὶ ὅλῳ τῷ σώματι, “naked over the whole body,” but the passage has already described sexual intercourse and the handling of sexual emissions in unmistakable terms. Nothing depends upon the word γυμνοί itself to communicate sexuality. The surrounding narrative has made the sexual setting explicit before the nakedness is mentioned.

The Adamite material is still more instructive. Epiphanius does not merely say that the Adamites are “naked.” He describes the procedure: a man or woman arriving at the meeting removes the clothing outside, enters γυμνὸς ... ὅλῳ τῷ σώματι, “naked over the whole body,” and then participates in readings and other religious observances while naked. This is an unambiguous example of deliberate ritual or communal stripping because the context supplies the stripping, the place of assembly, the religious activity and the mixed gathering. When Epiphanius wants to sexualize the practice, he again supplies additional language: he attributes it to insatiable pleasure and speaks of the attraction produced by looking at one another. Sexuality is conveyed by the contextual apparatus surrounding nakedness, not by γυμνός as an independent lexical signal.

The story of the naked demoniac at Tiberias gives the opposite control. The man wanders through the city γυμνός; after he is healed, he becomes aware of his γύμνωσις, hides himself, covers his genitals with his hands and accepts clothing. The entire scene concerns exposure, shame, sanity and clothing without becoming a sexual episode. Likewise, the Life of Epiphanius can state without elaboration that the Persians customarily brought their dead out γυμνούς, naked. Here nakedness belongs to a funerary setting.

The remainder of the concordance demonstrates how wide the lexical field is. Noah is naked after drinking wine; error is stripped of its covering; personified Truth can be displayed naked; a theological opponent can be stripped of names; the soul can be imagined naked of the body; human beings can be stripped of flesh; seeds are “naked” when placed in the earth; and Adam’s statement “I am naked” becomes the basis of an exegetical argument over whether Scripture is speaking about soul or body. PG 41 therefore provides unusually good evidence against treating γυμνός as a word whose sexual, ritual or initiatory significance can be determined in isolation. Its particular force is supplied by construction and context.

That distinction is directly relevant to γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ in the Letter to Theodore. PG 41 shows what Greek Christian prose looks like when an author intends to describe sexualized nakedness, deliberate ritual stripping, ordinary bodily exposure, funerary nakedness, metaphysical stripping or metaphorical exposure. In each case the surrounding language tells us which sense is operative. The mere presence of the γυμν- vocabulary does not perform that interpretive work by itself.

PG 41 — Result

PG 41 makes a substantial positive contribution to both sides of the investigation. For the “Mystic Gospel” problem, its strongest passage is the Joseph narrative, where baptismal μυστικά, secrecy, mystagogy and the reading of Gospel texts occupy the same narrative world. Haer. LVII adds a second important complex in which μυστικῶς characterizes the divine economy while Christ’s temple-body and its raising in three days are under discussion. Together with the mystical transmission fulfilled in Christ in Haer. VIII, these passages show how naturally mystical vocabulary could attach itself to Scripture, initiation and the saving story of Christ.

For γυμνός, the 28 genuine occurrences provide a particularly strong control corpus. PG 41 contains explicitly sexual nakedness, deliberately ritualized nakedness, madness and exposure, shame and reclothing, funerary nakedness, scriptural nakedness, bodily and metaphysical stripping, and several kinds of metaphorical “bareness.” The decisive semantic lesson is that the contextual markers—not the bare word γυμνός—identify which of these meanings is intended.

PG 42 — μυστικ-/mystic- and γυμν-/nud-

PG 42 is the forty-second volume in the survey. The procedure is simple: first establish the concordance, then ask which passages actually matter for the two problems under investigation—the possible meaning of Clement’s “Mystic Gospel” and the meaning of γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ in the Letter to Theodore.

For exhaustive control the 618-page PDF was searched in 13 closed audit batches of no more than 50 pages each. Only after those batch audits were completed were the results assembled into three presentation sections: Part 1 = pp. 1–206; Part 2 = pp. 207–412; Part 3 = pp. 413–618.

The μυστικ-/mystic- audit produced 4 printed occurrences. Of these, 2 belong to Epiphanius’s primary text; the other two occur in Petavius’s editorial material. By presentation section: Part 1 = 2; Part 2 = 0; Part 3 = 2.

The batch totals, final table rows, and whole-volume control search agree. Related μυστηρι-/μυστήριον vocabulary was not added to the μυστικ- total.

Table 1A. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 42 — Part 1, pp. 1–206

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 116 — Panarion 68, Petavius note on the Athanasius/Mareotis accusation	ποτήριον μυστικόν	Certum est ποτήριον μυστικὸν fuisse. Vide Athan. ipsum in Apol., Theodoretum, et alios.	“It is certain that there was a mystical cup. See Athanasius himself in the Apology, Theodoret, and others.”	EDITORIAL, BUT HIGHLY RELEVANT. Petavius identifies the vessel involved in the accusation against Athanasius in the Mareotis as a ποτήριον μυστικόν. This wording is Petavius’s note, not Epiphanius’s own expression, and must be cited accordingly.
PDF p. 153 — Epiphanius, Panarion 69, against the Arians	Ὅσα δὲ μυστικῶς, καὶ ἐν τῇ ἐνθέῳ αὐτοῦ σοφίᾳ πρὸς ἀσφάλειαν γνώσεως ἀληθεστάτης, ὁ Μονογενὴς διδάσκων ὑφηγεῖτο ...	Verum quae mystice, ac pro divina sua sapientia ad certissimae scientiae firmitatem ac munimentum Dei Filius docendo proposuit ...	“But the things which the Only-begotten, teaching mystically and in his divine wisdom, set forth for the security of the truest knowledge ...”	THE STRONGEST μυστικ- RESULT IN PG 42. Epiphanius directly applies μυστικῶς to the teaching of the Son. “Mystical” here characterizes divine instruction itself, not merely a later allegorical commentary.

Table 1B. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 42 — Part 2, pp. 207–412

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance

Table 1C. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 42 — Part 3, pp. 413–618

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 446 — Epiphanius, Expositio fidei, report on Cleanthes	καὶ τοὺς θεοὺς μυστικὰ σχήματα ἔλεγεν εἶναι καὶ κλήσεις ἱεράς.	deos mysticas esse quasdam figuras, sacraque nomina.	“He said that the gods were certain mystical figures and sacred names.”	PRIMARY EPIPHANIUS, PAGAN CONTEXT. A genuine authorial use of mystikos, but Epiphanius is reporting Stoic theology rather than describing Christian teaching or rites.
PDF p. 598 — Petavius, De veteribus quibusdam Ecclesiae ritibus	—	Quanquam et sacramenta scio etiam absolute pro quibuslibet mysticis signis usurpari ...	“I know that sacramenta can also be used absolutely for any mystical signs ...”	EDITORIAL LATIN. Petavius discusses sacramental terminology in connection with catechumens, Eucharistic material, and restricted ecclesiastical practice. Useful for later semantics, but not an Epiphanian occurrence.

The two passages that matter most are therefore quite different in status. Epiphanius himself says that the Only-begotten teaches μυστικῶς; Petavius, commenting on the Mareotis accusation, explicitly calls the disputed vessel a ποτήριον μυστικόν. The former is primary fourth-century evidence; the latter is later editorial terminology and must remain distinguished from it.

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The γυμν-/nud-/denud- audit produced 35 genuine printed occurrences after exercise-family vocabulary, OCR false positives, and duplicate scan pages were removed. By presentation section: Part 1 = 6; Part 2 = 16; Part 3 = 13.

One scanning peculiarity required special control: PDF pp. 342, 352, and 362 reproduce the same printed PG page. The occurrence of γυμνῶς there is therefore one printed occurrence, not three.

Table 2A. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 42 — Part 1, pp. 1–206

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 30 — Epiphanius, Panarion 66, Manichaeans	τὰ γὰρ παρελθόντα πάντα κατὰ ἱστορίαν ὑφηγησάμην.	Nam quae hactenus diximus nudam de illo historiam continent.	“What we have said so far contains the bare history concerning him.”	TRANSLATIONAL NUD- USE. The Greek has no γυμν- word here; the facing Latin uses nudam for history presented simply as history. Nakedness vocabulary can mean “bare/plain” at the level of narrative.
PDF p. 47 — Epiphanius, Panarion 66, Manichaeans	Πῶς δὲ οἱ ἐκδαρέντες οἰστροῦνται ...; πῶς δὲ μετὰ τὸ σταυρωθῆναι ἐξεδάρησαν;	quomodo, postquam in crucem acti sunt, pelle nudati sunt?	“How, after being crucified, were they stripped of their skin?”	PHYSICAL STRIPPING. The imagery concerns flaying or removal of skin. It is violent bodily stripping, not sexual nakedness.
PDF p. 133 — Epiphanius, Panarion 69	οὐχ ἁπλῶς ὄνομά τι, ἀλλὰ Υἱὸν κατὰ φύσιν Υἱόν.	non nudum penes illum residere vocabulum ... sed esse natura Filium.	“not a bare name ... but Son by nature.”	ABSTRACT. Latin nudum means merely nominal, corresponding to Greek “not simply a name.”
PDF p. 155 — Epiphanius, Panarion 69	Ἦσαν γάρ, φησίν, γυμνοί, καὶ οὐκ ᾐσχύνοντο.	Erant, inquit Scriptura, nudi, nec pudore afficiebantur.	“They were naked, and they were not ashamed.”	LITERAL ADAMIC NAKEDNESS. Adam and Eve are physically naked before the fall.
PDF p. 155 — Epiphanius, Panarion 69	γυμνῶν δὲ αὐτῶν ὄντων ... εἰδότες δὲ καὶ ὁρῶντες, ἀλλήλους ἐπεγίνωσκον.	Atqui tum nudi erant ... utrique se mutuo cognoscebant ac videbant.	“While they were naked ... they knew and saw one another.”	EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. Epiphanius immediately distinguishes this knowledge by sight and understanding from the later knowledge involving χρῆσις, “use/action,” that is, sexual intercourse. Two naked persons can see and know one another without the nakedness itself denoting sexual activity.
PDF p. 169 — Epiphanius, Panarion 69	ἄρα καὶ αὐτὸς ἔσται καθ’ ἡμᾶς ψιλὸς ἄνθρωπος ...	nihil in eo praeter nudam hominis naturam inesse ...	“then he would be, like us, a mere/bare man.”	CHRISTOLOGICAL. The nakedness word in Latin translates Greek ψιλός: “mere man,” not an unclothed man.

Table 2B. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 42 — Part 2, pp. 207–412

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 222 — Panarion 73, embedded Semiarian theological document	... μόνην λαμβανομένην ἔννοιαν ...	quoniam creaturae nuda ratio Filium constituere nequit ...	“since the bare notion of a creature cannot constitute the Son ...”	ABSTRACT / TRANSLATIONAL. Latin nuda expresses a concept reduced to itself. The Greek has no γυμν- form in the corresponding wording.
PDF p. 231 — Panarion 73, embedded Semiarian material	Τὸ τῆς οὐσίας ὄνομα γυμνῶς μὲν ἐν Παλαιᾷ καὶ Καινῇ οὐ κεῖται Γραφῇ ...	The Latin renders the sense as the term not occurring explicitly in Scripture.	“The name ‘substance’ does not occur plainly/explicitly in the Old and New Scripture ...”	IMPORTANT WRITTEN-TEXT USE. Γυμνῶς means plainly or explicitly in Scripture. It has nothing to do with bodily nakedness.
PDF p. 289 — Aetius, proposition quoted in Panarion 76	Εἰ ψιλὸν ὄνομά ἐστιν ἐπὶ θεοῦ τὸ ἀγέννητον ...	Si ingenitum nuda in Deo est appellatio ...	“If ‘unbegotten’ is a bare appellation in God ...”	CITED HERETICAL TEXT. Nuda means a mere name or designation.
PDF p. 322 — Aetius, proposition reprinted before Epiphanius’s refutation	Εἰ ψιλὸν ὄνομά ἐστιν ἐπὶ θεοῦ τὸ ἀγέννητον ...	Si ingenitum nuda in Deo est appellatio ...	“If ‘unbegotten’ is a bare appellation in God ...”	GENUINE REPEATED PRINTING. The same proposition appears again in the refutation sequence and is therefore retained as a second printed occurrence.
PDF p. 322 — Epiphanius’s refutation of Aetius	Οὔτε ψιλὸν ὄνομα ἐπὶ θεοῦ ἐστὶ τὸ ἀγέννητον ...	Neque nudum in Deo nomen est ingenitum ...	“Nor is ‘unbegotten’ a bare name in God ...”	PRIMARY EPIPHANIUS. Another purely nominal sense of nakedness vocabulary.
PDF p. 323 — Epiphanius, Panarion 76	οὔτε τὰ κτίσματα ψιλῆς ὀνομασίας ἐστὶ σημαντικά.	neque naturae nudam appellationem significant.	“nor do created things signify a bare appellation.”	ABSTRACT. Nakedness vocabulary marks a merely verbal designation.
PDF p. 323 — Epiphanius, Panarion 76	οὐδοποτέρου τῶν λεγομένων ψιλῇ ὀνομασίᾳ ὀνομαζομένου ...	cum neutrum vocabulum sola ac nuda appellatione constet ...	“since neither expression consists in a simple and bare appellation.”	ABSTRACT. Again, “bare” means verbal only.
PDF p. 323 — Epiphanius, Panarion 76	οὔτε κατὰ ψιλὴν ὀνομασίαν λεγομένου τοῦ Υἱοῦ μονογενοῦς ...	neque nuda appellatione dicatur ...	“nor is the Only-begotten Son spoken of by a bare appellation.”	CHRISTOLOGICAL / ABSTRACT. No bodily reference.
PDF p. 334 — Epiphanius, Panarion 76	ἀλλὰ μόνως ψιλῇ τῇ λέξει κέχρηται ...	quem nudo ac simplici vocabulo declaravit.	“whom he designated by a bare and simple word.”	LINGUISTIC. Nakedness terminology describes an unqualified word or title.
PDF p. 336 — Epiphanius, Panarion 76	μόνον δὲ διὰ λόγου πείθουσιν ἑαυτῶν τὴν διάνοιαν ...	tametsi nihil praeter nuda verba teneant ...	“although they possess nothing except bare words ...”	RHETORICAL. Latin nuda verba means words without corresponding knowledge or reality.
PDF p. 342 — Epiphanius, Panarion 77	κἀγὼ τὰ παρ’ ἐκείνων, ὡς εἴρηται, γυμνῶς πεποίηκα ἐγγραφῆναι τῇ ἐπιστολῇ ...	eorumdem ego dogmata ... nude huic epistolae attexenda curavi ...	“I caused their doctrines to be written plainly/barely into the letter ...”	VERY IMPORTANT WRITTEN-TEXT USE. Epiphanius uses γυμνῶς of putting teachings plainly into a written letter. PDF pp. 352 and 362 reproduce the same scanned printed page and are not additional occurrences.
PDF p. 393 — Epiphanius, Panarion 77	Οὐ γὰρ ψιλὸς ἡμῖν ἄνθρωπος ὁ Χριστός ...	Christus non simplex ac nudus homo fuit ...	“Christ was not for us a simple and mere/bare man ...”	CHRISTOLOGICAL. Nudus homo translates ψιλὸς ἄνθρωπος, “mere man.” It emphatically does not describe physical nakedness.
PDF pp. 393–394 — Epiphanius, Panarion 77	οὕτω καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἱματίου, οὐκ ἐνδυομένου, καὶ ἐκδυομένου ...	Sic et in veste ... quod id indui exuique soleat.	“So too with a garment, insofar as it is put on and taken off ...”	CLOTHING / STRIPPING. Ordinary removal of a garment used as a theological analogy.
PDF p. 412 — Epiphanius, Panarion 78	ἡ πρώτη σοφὴ Εὔα ... τὸν Ἀδάμ, ὃνπερ ἐγύμνωσεν αὐτή ...	Eva illa prior ... Adamo, quem ipsa nudaverat ...	“the first wise Eve ... Adam, whom she herself had stripped/naked ...”	ADAMIC / THEOLOGICAL. Eve is said to have caused Adam’s naked condition.
PDF p. 412 — Epiphanius, Panarion 78	ἐπειδὴ γὰρ δι’ αὐτῆς ἡ γύμνωσις εὕρηται ...	Quod enim nuditas illius opera reperta fuerat ...	“since through her nakedness/stripping had come about ...”	ADAMIC. Nakedness belongs to the fall and the need for clothing.
PDF p. 412 — Epiphanius, Panarion 78	διὰ τὴν γύμνωσιν τὴν αἰσθητήν.	ut ad externam nuditatem tegendam ...	“to cover the perceptible/external nakedness.”	LITERAL BODILY NAKEDNESS WITH THEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE. Clothing covers the exposed body produced by the fall.

Table 2C. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 42 — Part 3, pp. 413–618

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 420 — Epiphanius, Panarion 79, on deaconesses	καὶ ὅτε γυμνωθείη σῶμα γυναιός, ἵνα μὴ ὑπὸ ἀνδρῶν ἱερουργούντων θεαθείη, ἀλλ’ ὑπὸ τῆς διακόνου ...	sive ut cum nudandum est mulieris corpus, interveniat; ne virorum, qui sacris operantur, aspectui sit exposita; sed a sola diaconissa videatur.	“when a woman’s body must be uncovered, so that it is not seen by men performing sacred duties, but by the deaconess.”	MAJOR ECCLESIASTICAL MODESTY PARALLEL. Bodily exposure occurs within regulated church practice. Baptism is also mentioned in the preceding list of a deaconess’s functions, but the text does not require us to identify this particular nakedness specifically with baptism.
PDF p. 420 — Epiphanius, Panarion 79	ἐν τῇ ὥρᾳ τῆς τοῦ σώματος αὐτῆς γυμνώσεως ...	The Latin compresses both Greek nakedness expressions into the preceding nudandum est mulieris corpus.	“at the time of the uncovering of her body ...”	SECOND GREEK LEXICAL OCCURRENCE. The same ecclesiastical-modesty discussion contains a second distinct γυμν- form.
PDF p. 427 — Epiphanius, Panarion 80, Massalians	οὕτως ἐν ἀέρι καὶ αἰθρίῳ τόπῳ ἐστὶ κατασκευασθείς ...	sine tecto ac nudo coelo subjectum.	“unroofed and under the bare/open sky.”	NON-BODILY. Latin nudus describes an open sky.
PDF p. 429 — Epiphanius, Panarion 80, Massalians	Νηστείαν δὲ οὐδ’ ὅλως οἴδασιν ...	Quod ad jejunium vero spectat, hoc apud illos nudum est omnino.	“As for fasting, it is completely absent among them.”	IMPORTANT CONTEXTUAL CONTROL. The same passage separately discusses men and women sleeping together and possible λαγνεία, yet this nudum has nothing sexual about it. Context, not the word itself, supplies sexual meaning.
PDF p. 447 — Epiphanius, Expositio fidei	τῶν τε γυμνοσοφιστῶν, τῶν τε Βραχμάνων ...	Gymnosophistarum et Brachmanorum ...	“the Gymnosophists (‘naked sages’) and the Brahmans ...”	ASCETIC / ETHNOGRAPHIC COMPOUND. The γυμνο- element denotes the traditional naked sages, not exercise vocabulary.
PDF p. 448 — Epiphanius, Expositio fidei, Eleusinian rites	τῶν ἐκεῖσε ἀδύτων τὰ αἰσχρουργήματα, γυναικῶν ἀπογυμνώσεις ...	quae illic in penetralibus obscena committi solent, velut cum mulieres denudantur ...	“the obscene acts in the inner sanctuaries, such as women being stripped ...”	THE CLEAREST SEXUAL/OBSCENE CONTROL. Here stripping belongs to an explicitly obscene ritual context. Crucially, that force comes from αἰσχρουργήματα and the surrounding description of the rites; the γυμν- word alone does not create the sexual meaning.
PDF p. 461 — Petavius note on the deaconess passage	καὶ ὅτε γυμνωθείη σῶμα γυναιός ...	quo tempore vestibus exuitur.	“when she is stripped of her clothes.”	EDITORIAL REPEAT. Petavius paraphrases the Greek passage already printed earlier. The Latin exuitur is a separate printed occurrence, though not a second Epiphanian Greek occurrence.
PDF p. 463 — Epiphanius, Expositio fidei, ascetic practices	Πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ χαμευνοῦσιν, ἄλλοι δὲ οὐδὲ ὑποδέννυνται ...	Plerique humi cubitant, alii nudis pedibus ac sine calceamentis incedunt ...	“Many sleep on the ground; others go with bare feet and without shoes ...”	ASCETIC BARENESS. Bodily bareness functions as an ascetic practice, without erotic implication.
PDF p. 477 — Anacephalaeosis, summary of the Ebionites	κατὰ καιρὸν ἐνδυόμενον αὐτὸν τὸν Ἀδάμ, καὶ πάλιν ἐκδυόμενον ...	certo tempore induisse ipsum Adamum rursumque exuisse ...	“at one time he put on Adam and again put him off ...”	METAPHORICAL CLOTHING. Heresiological incarnational language of putting on and putting off Adam.
PDF p. 481 — Anacephalaeosis, Adamiani	Γυμνοὶ γὰρ ὡς ἐκ μητρὸς ἄνδρες τε καὶ γυναῖκες ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ συνάγονται, καὶ οὕτως τὰς ἀναγνώσεις καὶ τὰς εὐχὰς καὶ πᾶν ὁτιοῦν ἐπιτελοῦσι, δήθεν μονάζοντες καὶ ἐγκρατευόμενοι ὄντες, καὶ γάμον μὴ δεχόμενοι, τὴν αὐτῶν Ἐκκλησίαν παράδεισον ἡγούμενοι.	Nudi quippe quales ex utero matris egressi sunt, viri perinde ac mulieres conveniunt, atque ita lectionibus et orationibus ac caeteris religionis officiis funguntur ... nuptiasque condemnant; Ecclesiam vero suam paradisum nuncupant.	“Naked as they came from their mother’s womb, men and women gather together, and in this way perform readings, prayers, and their other religious observances, supposedly living as monastics and practicing continence, rejecting marriage and regarding their church as paradise.”	ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT RESULTS OF THE ENTIRE SURVEY. Naked men and women are explicitly together in a religious assembly. The description simultaneously characterizes them as practicing continence and rejecting marriage. Mixed-sex nakedness is therefore not, by itself, equivalent to sexual activity.
PDF p. 481 — Anacephalaeosis, Theodotians	ἐπενόησε λέγειν ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν Χριστόν ...	ut Christum nudum esse hominem assereret ...	“he devised the claim that Christ was a mere/bare man ...”	CHRISTOLOGICAL. Latin nudum hominem translates Greek ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον. It means “mere man,” not physically naked Christ.
PDF p. 600 — analytical index, Adamiani	—	Nudi caeremonias et mysteria sua peragunt, tam viri quam feminae, 459.	“Naked, both men and women perform their ceremonies and mysteries.”	EDITORIAL INDEX OCCURRENCE. A genuine repeated printing of the Adamiani information, retained because the protocol counts index material separately.
PDF p. 610 — analytical index, Theodotus	—	Eundem esse nudum hominem asseruit, 463.	“He asserted that the same one was a mere/bare man.”	EDITORIAL INDEX OCCURRENCE. Repeats the Theodotian Christological usage in the index.

What actually matters for our research

Epiphanius can describe the teaching of Christ as μυστικῶς

The most important μυστικ- passage in PG 42 is not editorial and not pseudonymous. In the anti-Arian discussion Epiphanius says that there are things which the Only-begotten, διδάσκων, “teaching,” set forth μυστικῶς. The collocation is unusually valuable because the adverb qualifies the teaching activity of Christ himself. It establishes directly that “mystical” could describe the mode or level of divine teaching.

This does not identify any particular written Gospel as a “Mystic Gospel.” It does, however, strengthen the semantic case that a Christian author could naturally distinguish teaching apprehended at a mystical level from its more immediately accessible formulation.

The “mystical cup” belongs to the Mareotis dossier, but the wording is Petavius’s

PDF p. 116 is important for a different reason. In the discussion of the accusation that Athanasius’s followers broke a sacred vessel in the Mareotis, Petavius comments: Certum est ποτήριον μυστικὸν fuisse. The expression “mystical cup” is therefore genuinely printed in PG 42 in precisely the Athanasian-Mareotic context that concerns us.

But source status matters. Epiphanius himself speaks of a σκεῦος τι μυστηρίων, “a certain vessel of the mysteries,” in reporting the accusation. The exact phrase ποτήριον μυστικόν occurs in Petavius’s note, where he directs the reader to Athanasius and Theodoret. It is useful evidence for how the disputed vessel was understood in the scholarly and ecclesiastical tradition, not an Epiphanian use of μυστικός.

The Adam and Eve passage directly separates nakedness from sexual action

The strongest γυμν- result is PDF p. 155. Epiphanius begins with Genesis: Ἦσαν ... γυμνοί, καὶ οὐκ ᾐσχύνοντο. He then emphasizes that while Adam and Eve were naked they were not blind: they saw one another and knew one another. He subsequently distinguishes this first kind of knowing, which consists in sight and understanding, from the later knowledge of Eve that involves χρῆσις, “use” or action.

This is unusually direct evidence for the present problem. Epiphanius can imagine two naked people together, looking at and knowing one another, and then expressly distinguish that situation from sexual intercourse. Consequently, the bare fact that one naked person is “with” another cannot itself establish a sexual meaning.

The Adamiani make the same point in an actual communal setting

The Adamiani passage on PDF p. 481 is even more striking as social evidence. Men and women gather together γυμνοὶ ... ὡς ἐκ μητρός, “naked as from the mother’s womb,” and in that condition perform readings and prayers. Yet the same sentence says that they present themselves as monastics, practice continence, reject marriage, and call their church Paradise.

Whatever Epiphanius thinks of the sect, his description is incompatible with the assumption that mixed-sex nakedness automatically signifies intercourse. Here naked men and women are together precisely in a religious assembly whose professed ideology is continence.

Ecclesiastical nakedness can also be governed by ritual modesty

The discussion of deaconesses on PDF p. 420 supplies another control. Epiphanius explains that the deaconess may attend when a woman’s body must be uncovered, so that male clergy do not see her nakedness. The surrounding list also mentions the deaconess’s presence at baptism and her attendance when a woman has suffered bodily affliction.

This demonstrates bodily nakedness functioning inside regulated ecclesiastical practice. It would be excessive to conclude from the passage alone that the particular stripping described must be baptismal; the text itself gives several possible situations. What it does show securely is that γυμν- language can belong to ritual and pastoral modesty without an erotic meaning.

When Epiphanius means obscene stripping, he supplies the obscene context

The Eleusinian material on PDF p. 448 provides the necessary counterexample. Here Epiphanius speaks of τῶν ἐκεῖσε ἀδύτων τὰ αἰσχρουργήματα, γυναικῶν ἀπογυμνώσεις: the “obscene acts” in the inner sanctuaries, including the stripping of women. The Latin likewise speaks of things obscena occurring when women denudantur.

This is what a genuinely obscene nakedness context looks like in Epiphanius. The sexual or shameful force does not arise from ἀπογύμνωσις alone. It is established by αἰσχρουργήματα, the ritual setting, and the larger catalogue of sexualized pagan practices. That comparison is particularly important when evaluating attempts to derive a sexual meaning from Clement’s γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ merely from the adjective.

γυμνῶς can simply mean “plainly” in writing

Two further passages demonstrate the enormous semantic distance between the γυμν- family and sexuality. In the Semiarian material on PDF p. 231, γυμνῶς means that a term does not occur plainly or explicitly in Scripture. More significantly for Epiphanius himself, on PDF p. 342 he says that he caused the doctrines he was exposing to be γυμνῶς ... ἐγγραφῆναι τῇ ἐπιστολῇ: written plainly into the letter.

The same lexical family can therefore describe naked bodies, bare feet, the stripping of women, the fall of Adam, and the plain written presentation of an argument. The surrounding syntax and subject matter determine which sense is intended.

PG 42 — Result

For the “Mystic Gospel” investigation, PG 42 makes one especially useful primary contribution: Epiphanius can say that the Only-begotten teaches μυστικῶς. The volume also preserves Petavius’s striking description of the Athanasian vessel from the Mareotis as a ποτήριον μυστικόν, although that wording must remain explicitly identified as editorial rather than Epiphanian.

For the interpretation of γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ, the evidence is substantially stronger. Epiphanius explicitly describes Adam and Eve as naked, seeing and knowing one another, while distinguishing that condition from later sexual action. The Adamiani furnish an actual mixed-sex religious assembly in which naked men and women pray and read while professing continence and rejecting marriage. Conversely, where stripping is genuinely obscene, as in the Eleusinian passage, Epiphanius marks the obscenity with explicit contextual vocabulary.

PG 42 therefore gives no support to treating γυμνός itself as a sexual term. Its meaning ranges from literal bodily exposure to ascetic barefootness, ritual modesty, metaphorical clothing and stripping, “mere man,” “bare name,” and even the plain written presentation of doctrine. A sexual reading of Clement’s phrase would have to be established from the surrounding context; it cannot be extracted from γυμνός alone.

Audit time: approximately 35 minutes, from 6:02 to 6:37 a.m. local time.

PG 43 — μυστικ-/mystic- and γυμν-/nud-

PG 43 is the forty-third volume in the survey. The procedure is simple: first establish the concordance, then ask which passages actually matter for the two problems under investigation—the possible meaning of Clement’s “Mystic Gospel” and the meaning of γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ in the Letter to Theodore.

The container copy has 713 physical PDF pages, but its final four pages are blank. The substantive 709-page corpus was therefore searched in 15 closed audit batches of no more than 50 pages each: pp. 1–50, 51–100, 101–150, and so forth, ending with pp. 701–709. Only after those audits were completed were the results assembled into three presentation sections: Part 1 = pp. 1–236; Part 2 = pp. 237–473; Part 3 = pp. 474–709.

The μυστικ-/mystic- audit produced 14 printed occurrences. None belongs securely to Epiphanius’s genuine works. One occurs in a work transmitted among the dubia aut spuria, one in the later Heinsius material, and twelve in the Addenda containing liturgical material. By presentation section: Part 1 = 0; Part 2 = 1; Part 3 = 13.

Table 1A. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 43 — Part 1, pp. 1–236

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance

Table 1B. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 43 — Part 2, pp. 237–473

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 287 — Homilia VI in festo Palmarum, dubia aut spuria	Χαῖρε σφόδρα, θύγατερ Σιών, ἡ νέα Ἱερουσαλήμ, ἡ τοῦ Θεοῦ Ἐκκλησία· σκόπησον τὰ τῆς ἑορτῆς σου μυστικώτερα· δράμε τῶν ὁρωμένων ὑψηλότερον, ἵνα γνῷς ἀναγωγικῶς καὶ τὰ αἰσθητῶς τελούμενα.	Gaude admodum, filia Sion, nova Jerusalem, Dei Ecclesia; intuere arcana solemnitatis tuae mysteria; supra omnia quae videntur exturre, ut quae externis ac sensibilibus signis administrantur sublimiori quodam sensu intelligentiaque cognoscas.	“Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion, new Jerusalem, Church of God; contemplate the more mystical things of your feast; rise above the things seen, so that you may know anagogically the things performed perceptibly.”	VERY IMPORTANT, BUT SPURIOUS. The passage explicitly joins Palm Sunday, Jerusalem, feast, mystical significance, visible ritual actions and anagogical understanding. It is later semantic evidence for a mystical Paschal reading, not evidence for Epiphanius’s own usage.

Table 1C. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 43 — Part 3, pp. 474–709

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 592 — Daniel Heinsius, exegetical notes	περὶ τῆς προσηγορίας τοῦ μυστικοῦ καθαρμοῦ διαλεχθῶμεν.	—	“Let us discuss the designation of the mystical purification.”	LATER EDITORIAL MATERIAL. The surrounding discussion concerns purification and baptismal interpretation. It is not Epiphanius.
PDF p. 697 — Addenda, Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, first antiphon	ἣν ὁ ἱερεὺς μυστικῶς λέγει.	Oratio primi antiphoni, quam sacerdos secreto dicit.	“which the priest says mystically,” i.e. secretly or quietly.	LITURGICAL. Here μυστικῶς describes the priest’s mode of reciting a prayer within worship.
PDF p. 698 — Addenda, second antiphon	Εὐχὴ ἀντιφώνου δευτέρου, ἣν ὁ ἱερεὺς λέγει μυστικῶς.	Oratio antiphoni secundi, quam sacerdos secreto dicit.	“Prayer of the second antiphon, which the priest says mystically.”	LITURGICAL. A second independent printed use for quiet or concealed priestly prayer.
PDF p. 698 — Addenda, third antiphon	ὁ δὲ ἱερεὺς τὴν εὐχὴν τοῦ τρίτου ἀντιφώνου μυστικῶς λέγει.	sacerdos orationem tertii antiphoni secreto dicit.	“the priest says the prayer of the third antiphon mystically.”	LITURGICAL. Same established liturgical sense in a separately printed occurrence.
PDF p. 699 — Addenda, entrance prayer	καὶ λέγει τὴν εὐχὴν ταύτην ὁ ἱερεὺς μυστικῶς.	sacerdos hanc orationem secreto dicit.	“and the priest says this prayer mystically.”	LITURGICAL. Again the adjective belongs to restricted priestly recitation.
PDF p. 700 — Addenda, prayer of the ectene	τὴν εὐχὴν πάντων ὁ ἱερεὺς λέγει μυστικῶς.	—	“the priest says the prayer of all mystically.”	LITURGICAL. Another independent occurrence attached to priestly prayer.
PDF p. 701 — Addenda, prayer for catechumens	ὑπὲρ τῶν κατηχουμένων μυστικῶς.	—	“for the catechumens, mystically.”	INITIATORY CONTEXT. The term now occurs specifically in the catechumenal portion of the service, close to prayers for Gospel illumination and preparation for enlightenment.
PDF p. 702 — Addenda, prayer	ἣν ὁ ἱερεὺς λέγει μυστικῶς.	—	“which the priest says mystically.”	LITURGICAL. Quiet/restricted sacerdotal prayer.
PDF p. 702 — Addenda, first prayer of the faithful, Morellian reading	Εὐχὴ πιστῶν πρώτη. ... μυστικῶς.	—	“First prayer of the faithful ... mystically.”	EDITORIAL/LITURGICAL VARIANT. Retained as a genuine printed occurrence.
PDF p. 702 — Addenda, second prayer of the faithful, Morellian reading	Εὐχὴ πιστῶν δευτέρα. ... μυστικῶς.	—	“Second prayer of the faithful ... mystically.”	EDITORIAL/LITURGICAL VARIANT. A separate printed occurrence.
PDF p. 703 — Addenda, Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts	Ἰδοὺ γὰρ τὸ ἄχραντον αὐτοῦ σῶμα, καὶ τὸ ζωοποιὸν αἷμα ... τῇ μυστικῇ ταύτῃ προτίθεσθαι μέλλει τραπέζῃ, ὑπὸ πλήθους στρατιᾶς οὐρανίου ἀοράτως δορυφορούμενα ...	Ecce enim immaculatum ejus corpus, et vivificus ejus sanguis ... in hac mensa mystica proponenda sunt, quae multitudine caelestis exercitus invisibiliter stipantur ...	“Behold, his immaculate body and life-giving blood are about to be set forth upon this mystical table, invisibly attended by a multitude of the heavenly host.”	EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT LATER PARALLEL. “Mystical” directly qualifies the Eucharistic table on which Christ’s body and blood are placed; invisible heavenly participation is explicit.
PDF p. 703 — Addenda, Barberini variant	ἰδοὺ θυσία μυστικῶς τετελειωμένη δορυφορεῖται· πίστει καὶ φόβῳ προσέλθωμεν ...	—	“Behold, a sacrifice mystically accomplished is escorted; let us approach with faith and fear.”	EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT LATER PARALLEL. The variant expressly joins sacrifice and μυστικῶς.
PDF p. 705 — Addenda, Morellian liturgical note	εἴρηται μυστικῶς.	—	“it is said mystically.”	EDITORIAL/LITURGICAL. Final printed μυστικ- occurrence in the volume.

The most important μυστικ- evidence is therefore late rather than genuinely Epiphanian. The Palm Sunday homily tells the Church as the “new Jerusalem” to rise above the visible rites of the feast and contemplate their μυστικώτερα; the Addenda later place Christ’s body and blood on a μυστικὴ τράπεζα and speak of a sacrifice μυστικῶς τετελειωμένη.

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The γυμν-/nud-/denud-/exu- audit produced 59 genuine printed occurrences after exercise-family vocabulary, OCR noise and duplicated scan pages were removed. By presentation section: Part 1 = 13; Part 2 = 26; Part 3 = 20.

One scanning problem required explicit control. PDF pp. 32, 34 and 36 reproduce the same printed PG page. The four γυμν- occurrences on that page are therefore counted once each, not three times each.

Table 2A. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 43 — Part 1, pp. 1–236

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 22 — Epiphanius, Ancoratus	ὃς ἐν τῇ νηῒ ἐπὶ τῆς Τιβεριάδος γυμνὸς πάλιν ... ἠλίευεν.	nudus iterum in navi in Tiberiadis lacu piscatus.	“who again fished naked in the boat on the Sea of Tiberias.”	PRIMARY EPIPHANIUS. Peter’s nakedness while fishing is ordinary physical nakedness, without sexual content.
PDF p. 32 — Epiphanius, Ancoratus	Ἦσαν, φησί, γυμνοὶ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ, καὶ οὐκ ᾐσχύνοντο.	Erant, inquit, nudi in paradiso, et non erubescebant.	“They were naked in Paradise and were not ashamed.”	PRIMARY EPIPHANIUS. Literal Adamic nakedness.
PDF p. 32 — Epiphanius, Ancoratus	γυμνοὶ ὄντες, οὐκ ᾐσχύνοντο βλέποντες.	nudi cum essent ...	“being naked, they were not ashamed while looking.”	PRIMARY EPIPHANIUS. Nakedness and mutual sight are explicitly combined.
PDF p. 32 — Epiphanius, Ancoratus	καὶ γυμνοὶ ὄντες ἑαυτοὺς ᾔδεισαν· ᾔδεισαν δὲ κατὰ εἴδησιν, καὶ οὐ κατὰ πρᾶξιν.	nudi ... sese mutuo cognoverant ... non actione.	“and being naked they knew one another; they knew by cognition, and not by action.”	CRITICAL SEMANTIC CONTROL. Epiphanius directly distinguishes naked mutual knowledge from sexual action.
PDF p. 32 — Epiphanius, Ancoratus	ἑώρων ἀλλήλους γυμνοὶ ὄντες, καὶ ᾔδεισαν ἑαυτοὺς τῇ ὁράσει, ἀλλ’ οὐ τῇ πράξει. Τὸ δὲ ἀλλήλους συναφθῆναι γνώσιν εἶπεν ἡ Γραφή.	Seipsos enim, nudi cum essent, videbant, et aspectu sese, non actione cognoverant. Mutuam vero copulationem Scriptura cognitionem nominat.	“They saw one another while naked and knew one another by sight, but not by action. Scripture called their mutual joining ‘knowledge.’”	ONE OF THE STRONGEST PASSAGES IN THE ENTIRE PG SURVEY. Epiphanius explicitly separates naked persons seeing one another from their later sexual joining.
PDF p. 46 — Epiphanius, Ancoratus	ἄνθρωπον δὲ ψιλὸν μόνον αὐτὸν ἐνόμιζον.	nudum illum hominem esse suspicabantur.	“they supposed him to be a mere man.”	PRIMARY EPIPHANIUS / LATIN NUD- CONTROL. Latin nudum renders Greek ψιλόν, “mere, simple,” with no reference to clothing.
PDF p. 62 — Epiphanius, Ancoratus	ὡς ἄνθρωπον αὐτὸν ἀπεφήνατο, ἀλλ’ οὐ ψιλόν.	non tamen nudum simplicemque.	“he revealed himself as man, but not as a mere/simple man.”	PRIMARY EPIPHANIUS / ABSTRACT. Another unambiguous Latin nudus = Greek ψιλός.
PDF p. 85 — Epiphanius, Ancoratus	γυμνὸς ἄρα ἐφαίνετο τοῖς μαθηταῖς ἀναστὰς ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν ...	nudus utique ...	“then he would have appeared naked to the disciples after rising from the dead.”	MAJOR TOMB/LINEN CONTROL. The argument begins from Christ leaving the burial linens in the tomb. Nakedness is inferred as a physical consequence of leaving the grave clothes behind.
PDF p. 85 — Epiphanius, Ancoratus	δηλονότι οὐκ ἦν γυμνός.	non erat nudus.	“obviously he was not naked.”	RESURRECTION CONTROL. Epiphanius denies the inference after appealing to the appearances of the risen Jesus.
PDF p. 135 — editorial discussion in the Epiphanian apparatus	—	errorem animo jam exuisse.	“to have already cast off error from the mind.”	EDITORIAL / METAPHORICAL. Latin stripping vocabulary applied to intellectual error.
PDF p. 144 — Epiphanius, ethnographic list	Σκύθαι, Χίονες, Γυμνοσοφισταί, Χαλδαῖοι ...	Gymnosophistae.	“Gymnosophists,” literally the “naked sages.”	PRIMARY EPIPHANIAN COMPOUND. The γυμνο- component denotes the traditional naked ascetics/sages, not exercise.
PDF p. 160 — Epiphanius, De mensuris et ponderibus	καὶ τοὺς γυμνοὺς ἐνέδυσα.	et nudis vestimenta dividerem.	“and I clothed the naked.”	PRIMARY EPIPHANIUS. Literal nakedness in a charitable context.
PDF p. 232 — De vitis prophetarum, dubia aut spuria	εὗρεν νεκρὸν κείμενον γυμνόν.	mortuum enim nudum in via jacentem reperit.	“he found a dead man lying naked on the road.”	SPURIOUS / DEATH. Nakedness of a corpse, completely non-erotic.

Table 2B. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 43 — Part 2, pp. 237–473

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 248 — alternative text of De vitis prophetarum, dubia aut spuria	εὗρε νεκρὸν κείμενον γυμνὸν ἐσφαγμένον.	nudum	“he found a corpse lying naked and slaughtered.”	REPEATED PRINTING / DEATH. A separate textual form of the same tradition.
PDF p. 258 — Homilia II in Sabbato Magno, dubia aut spuria	Ἰησοῦ τοῦ κρεμαμένου, τοῦ γυμνοῦ ...	Jesu suspensi, nudi.	“Jesus who was hanging, naked.”	VERY IMPORTANT PASSION CONTROL. Nakedness belongs directly to the crucified Jesus.
PDF p. 259 — Homilia II in Sabbato Magno	Δός μοι, ὦ ἡγεμών, τοῦτον τὸν ἐπὶ ξύλου γυμνόν.	Da mihi, o praeses, hunc in ligno nudum.	“Give me, governor, this one naked upon the wood.”	PASSION/BURIAL. Joseph requests the naked body of Jesus for burial.
PDF p. 259 — Homilia II in Sabbato Magno	σκεπάσω τὸν τῆς ἐμῆς φύσεως σκεπάσαντα γύμνωσιν.	qui meae naturae cooperuit nuditatem.	“let me cover the one who covered the nakedness of my nature.”	THEOLOGICAL NAKEDNESS. Christ’s literal exposure is paired with humanity’s Adamic nakedness.
PDF p. 259 — Homilia II in Sabbato Magno	θεὸν ἐν σαρκὶ γυμνόν, καὶ ἄνθρωπον οὐ ψιλόν.	Deum in carne nudum, et hominem non simplicem.	“God in flesh naked, and a man who was not merely a man.”	STRIKING CHRISTOLOGICAL USE. Physical nakedness and the “mere man” sense of ψιλός are explicitly differentiated in the same sentence.
PDF p. 259 — apparatus variant	γρ. θεὸν οὐ γυμνόν.	—	“variant: God not naked.”	APPARATUS. A genuine separately printed γυμν- occurrence and therefore retained.
PDF p. 259 — Homilia II in Sabbato Magno	οὕτως τῆς θείας ἐκείνης σαρκὸς ἀπογυμνοῖς τὸ λέντιον;	divinae illius carnis denudas linteum?	“Do you thus strip the linen from that divine flesh?”	EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT BURIAL/LINEN PARALLEL. Nakedness vocabulary, Christ’s body and the removal of linen occur in one Passion-burial scene.
PDF p. 260 — Homilia II in Sabbato Magno	ὁ ἄνω ἡμῖν τοῖς ἀσωμάτοις ὡς θεὸς γυμνός, ἀθεώρητος ...	ut Deus nudus, non est visibilis.	“above, to us incorporeal beings, as God naked, he is unseen.”	THEOLOGICAL. The homily exploits the semantic flexibility of nakedness in a paradoxical Christological construction.
PDF p. 260 — Homilia II in Sabbato Magno	κάτω βροτοῖς γυμνὸς εὐθεώρητος.	in terra mortalibus nudus est spectatu facilis.	“below, to mortals, naked, he is readily seen.”	PHYSICAL/CHRISTOLOGICAL. A second printed occurrence in the same antithesis.
PDF p. 267 — spurious resurrection homily	Ἐκρύβης ἀπὸ Θεοῦ ὡς γυμνός.	Occultatus eras Deo ut nudus.	“You hid from God as one naked.”	ADAMIC. Refers to Adam hiding after the fall.
PDF p. 267 — spurious resurrection homily	ἀλλ’ ἰδοὺ ἔκρυψας ἐν ἑαυτῷ θεὸν γυμνόν.	verum ecce occuluisti in te Deum nudum.	“but behold, you concealed within yourself God naked.”	ADAM/CHRIST TYPOLOGY. The nakedness of Adam and Christ is deliberately juxtaposed.
PDF p. 272 — Homilia III in die Resurrectionis Christi, spurious	ὁ γυμνωθεὶς ὡς κακοῦργος ὑπὸ ἀνόμων.	tanquam maleficus nudatus es.	“you who were stripped as a criminal by lawless men.”	PASSION/HUMILIATION. Stripping is imposed upon Christ as part of his suffering.
PDF p. 273 — spurious resurrection homily	ἴδε τὴν γύμνωσιν, καὶ δὸς τὴν ἀνάβασιν.	aspice nuditatem.	“Look upon the nakedness, and grant the restoration/ascent.”	PRAYER / DEPRIVATION. Nakedness appears among conditions of misery requiring divine relief.
PDF p. 276 — Homilia IV in Assumptionem Christi, spurious	καὶ πανταχόθεν με πτεροκοπήσας εἰς γῆν κατέρραξεν.	omnique ex parte alis exutum in terram deturbavit.	“having stripped me of my wings on every side, he cast me to the earth.”	LATIN EXU- CONTROL. Metaphorical stripping, with no bodily nakedness.
PDF p. 287 — Homilia VI in festo Palmarum, spurious	ἡ τῆς Συναγωγῆς ἄσχημος γύμνωσις ὁμοῦ καὶ ἐρήμωσις.	Synagogae nudationem ac desolationem.	“the shameful stripping and desolation of the Synagogue.”	METAPHORICAL. Nakedness means deprivation/desolation within Palm Sunday exegesis.
PDF p. 288 — conclusion of Homilia VI in festo Palmarum, spurious	ἀπεκδυόμενοι τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον.	veterem hominem exuunt.	“putting off the old man.”	ASCETIC/BAPTISMAL METAPHOR. Clothing vocabulary describes moral transformation.
PDF p. 292 — Tractatus de numerorum mysteriis, spurious	ἕκτην ὥραν γυμνωθέντα παρὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ... ἐζήτησεν.	Sexta hora nudatum a peccato ...	“at the sixth hour he sought [Adam], stripped by sin.”	VERY RELEVANT THEOLOGICAL USE. Nakedness is explicitly the result of sin and is inserted into a sixfold chronological typology.
PDF p. 299 — Physiologus, spurious	καὶ ἐκβάλλει τὸ γῆρας, καὶ ἀποβαλὼν αὐτὸ ...	cutemque exuit, qua deposita ...	“and it casts off its skin.”	LATIN EXU- / ANIMAL STRIPPING. The serpent’s shedding of its skin.
PDF p. 299 — Physiologus	ὁραθεὶς δὲ γυμνὸς καταθαρρεῖ αὐτοῦ.	quod si nudum videt, illum petit.	“but if it sees him naked, it attacks him boldly.”	LITERAL NAKEDNESS. A serpent attacks the unprotected naked person.
PDF p. 299 — Physiologus	ὅταν δὲ γυμνὸς ἔμεινε, τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ παραβάς, τότε ὁ Πονηρὸς ἐκράτησεν αὐτόν.	cum vero ... nudus mansit, tunc vicit illum diabolus.	“when he remained naked, having transgressed God’s commandment, then the Evil One overcame him.”	ADAMIC/THEOLOGICAL. Nakedness becomes a metaphorically charged condition of lost divine protection.
PDF p. 301 — Physiologus	πεινᾶν, δίψαν, γύμνωσιν, ἐγκράτειαν καὶ χαμαικοιτίαν.	famem, sitim, nuditatem, continentiam ...	“hunger, thirst, nakedness, continence and sleeping on the ground.”	ASCETIC. Nakedness is listed with fasting, continence and bodily austerity—an explicitly nonsexual ascetic semantic environment.
PDF p. 352 — later dissertation Adversus Claudium Salmasium, quotation of a Pythagorean precept	μηδ’ ἀπογυμνωθείς.	neque ... denudatus.	“nor stripped/naked.”	LATER QUOTED PAGAN MATERIAL. Retained because it is a genuine printed lexical occurrence.
PDF p. 417 — Nonnus, Paraphrasis in Joannem, Cana	Οἴνου ... θυώδεες ἀμφιφορῆες / Πάντες ἐγυμνώθησαν ...	amphorae omnes vacuae erant.	“all the wine-jars were stripped/emptied.”	NON-BODILY. γυμνόω can mean emptying a container.
PDF p. 463 — Nonnus, Paraphrasis in Joannem, Lazarus	καὶ μελέων βαρύδεσμον ἐγυμνώσαντο καλύπτρην.	membrorum ... vincula nudarunt.	“they stripped away the constricting covering from his limbs.”	IMPORTANT TOMB/BURIAL CONTROL. Nakedness vocabulary is used for removing Lazarus’s grave bindings. The parallel is directly relevant to burial clothing but remains canonically explicable from John 11.
PDF p. 465 — Nonnus, Palm Sunday	ἀπ’ εὐδένδροιο δὲ κήπου / ἀκροκόμους φοίνικας ἐγυμνώσαντο κορύμβων.	palmas nudavit corymbis.	“they stripped the tall palms of their clusters.”	PALM SUNDAY / NON-BODILY. The γυμν- family describes stripping vegetation during the Palm Sunday scene.
PDF p. 468 — Nonnus, Paraphrasis in Joannem 12	ἢ τίνι παγγενέταο Θεοῦ γυμνοῦτο βραχίων;	Vel cui ... Dei nudatum est brachium?	“to whom was the arm of God laid bare?”	SCRIPTURAL/METAPHORICAL. Nakedness vocabulary means revelation or uncovering of the divine arm.

Table 2C. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 43 — Part 3, pp. 474–709

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 493 — Nonnus, Paraphrasis in Joannem 20	καὶ τάφον ἔδρακε γυμνόν, ὅπη βαρύφορτος Ἰωσὴφ Ἰησοῦν ... θῆκε.	Et sepulcrum videt nudum ...	“and she saw the tomb bare/empty, where Joseph had placed Jesus.”	VERY IMPORTANT TOMB CONTROL. A tomb itself can be γυμνός: bare, emptied of its occupant.
PDF p. 494 — Nonnus, Paraphrasis in Joannem 20	ὑπὲρ δαπέδοιο δὲ γυμνοῦ ...	super pavimentum autem nudum ...	“upon the bare pavement.”	NON-BODILY. Ordinary adjective for an uncovered surface.
PDF p. 495 — Nonnus, Paraphrasis in Joannem 20	ὅττι μεταχθονίου γυμνούμενα γυῖα χιτῶνος, Χριστὸν ἴδε ...	terrestri nudatum membris tunica Christum ...	“that she had seen Christ’s limbs stripped of the earthly tunic.”	RESURRECTION/CLOTHING. Stripping imagery is used for transformation beyond the earthly body.
PDF p. 497 — Nonnus, Paraphrasis in Joannem 21	Γυμνὸν γὰρ δέμας εἶχεν, ἐς ἠόνα δίκτυον ἕλκων.	Nudum enim corpus habebat.	“for he had a naked body as he dragged the net toward shore.”	LITERAL PETER NAKEDNESS. Nonnus elaborates the physical sense of John 21.
PDF p. 497 — canonical Gospel text printed alongside Nonnus	Σίμων οὖν Πέτρος ... τὸν ἐπενδύτην διεζώσατο· ἦν γὰρ γυμνός.	—	“Simon Peter ... girded on his outer garment, for he was naked.”	CANONICAL QUOTATION / REPEATED PRINTING. Retained separately from Nonnus’s poetic paraphrase.
PDF p. 528 — Heinsius, later exegetical discussion	φαντασίᾳ ψιλῇ καὶ σχήματι διακένῳ σώματος ἀνθρωπίνου.	imaginatione nuda, et inani quadam forma corporis.	“in a bare imagination and empty form of a human body.”	LATIN NUD- / ABSTRACT. Nuda again corresponds to Greek ψιλή, not bodily nakedness.
PDF p. 542 — Heinsius, later exegetical discussion	περιείλετο τὴν στολὴν αὐτοῦ ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ, καὶ ἐνεδύσατο σάκκον.	Vestis autem, quam exuta illa induit ...	“the garment which, having put off the former, he put on ...”	LATIN EXU- CONTROL. Ordinary garment-removal vocabulary.
PDF p. 557 — Heinsius/index-like lexical discussion	Γυμνοῦσθαι, de amphoris, ex Hebraeorum ritu.	de amphoris, ex Hebraeorum ritu.	“γυμνοῦσθαι, concerning amphorae, from Hebrew usage.”	EDITORIAL LEXICAL NOTE. Explicitly recognizes the non-bodily “empty a vessel” sense.
PDF p. 562 — Heinsius quoting Nonnus	Πάντες ἐγυμνώθησαν.	—	“all were emptied.”	GENUINE REPEATED PRINTING. Repeats the Cana amphora passage while discussing its semantics.
PDF p. 562 — Heinsius, lexical gloss	ὅπερ ἐστὶ γυμνοῦν.	—	“which is γυμνοῦν, ‘to empty/strip.’”	EDITORIAL LEXICAL OCCURRENCE.
PDF p. 562 — Heinsius, Hebrew-scriptural comparison	Καὶ ἐγύμνωσε τὴν ὑδρίαν.	Et vacuam hydriam reddit, id est, exinanivit.	“and she emptied the pitcher.”	VERY USEFUL NON-BODILY CONTROL. The verb can mean completely emptying a vessel.
PDF p. 592 — Heinsius, lexical/exegetical discussion	γυμνῇ τῇ κεφαλῇ ἁμαρτεῖν.	aperto capite peccare.	“to sin with a bare head.”	BODILY BUT NONSEXUAL. Bare-headedness, not whole-body nudity.
PDF p. 618 — Heinsius repeating Nonnus/Isaiah	ἢ τίνι παγγενέταο Θεοῦ γυμνοῦτο βραχίων;	Dei nudatum est brachium.	“to whom was God’s arm laid bare?”	GENUINE REPEATED PRINTING. Repeats the metaphorical scriptural occurrence.
PDF p. 621 — notes Ad Nonni Metaphrasin in Joannem	ῥίζα δεῖται ἐπιμελείας πρὸ τῶν κλημάτων, περισκαπτομένη καὶ γυμνουμένη.	—	“the root requires care before the branches, being dug around and laid bare.”	BOTANICAL/METAPHORICAL. A root can be “stripped” or exposed.
PDF p. 623 — notes Ad Nonni Metaphrasin in Joannem	γυμνῇ ... κεφαλῇ.	capite aperto.	“with a bare head.”	EDITORIAL REPEAT. Retains the semantic discussion of bare-headedness.
PDF p. 641 — Greek index	ἁμαρτεῖν γυμνῇ τῇ κεφαλῇ 354.	—	“to sin with the bare head.”	INDEX / REPEATED PRINTING.
PDF p. 642 — Greek index	γυμνοῦσθαι, de amphoris, Hebraicum.	de amphoris, Hebraicum.	“γυμνοῦσθαι, of amphorae, a Hebrew usage.”	INDEX / REPEATED LEXICAL ENTRY.
PDF p. 653 — Latin index	Γυμνῇ κεφαλῇ.	capite aperto.	“with a bare head.”	INDEX / REPEATED PRINTING.
PDF p. 660 — Nonnus, Dionysiaca fragment	γυμνώσας ὅλα γυῖα λιπορρίνου νομήος.	—	“having stripped all the limbs of the flayed shepherd.”	VIOLENT PHYSICAL STRIPPING. The context is the flaying of Marsyas, not sexuality.
PDF p. 680 — Nonnus, Dionysiaca fragment	καὶ νιφετοῦ κελάδοντος ἐγυμνώθησαν ἐρίπναι.	—	“and the cliffs were laid bare by the roaring snow/flood.”	NON-BODILY. Landscape can be “stripped bare.”

What actually matters for our research

1. The strongest γυμνός evidence is in genuine Epiphanius

The most important result in PG 43 is the passage in the Ancoratus on Adam and Eve. Epiphanius does not merely mention their nakedness. He repeatedly insists that they were γυμνοί, could see one another and could know one another, while expressly distinguishing that knowledge from πρᾶξις, sexual action. He then identifies their subsequent joining as the kind of “knowledge” Scripture uses for intercourse.

This is considerably stronger than a generic collection of nonsexual uses of γυμνός. It addresses almost exactly the disputed inference. Naked people can be together, see one another and know one another while their nakedness remains categorically distinct from sexual union. In Epiphanius’s argument, sexual meaning requires the additional idea of πρᾶξις or συνάπτεσθαι; it is not contained in γυμνός itself.

2. Epiphanius also connects nakedness with resurrection, tomb and linen

The Ancoratus passage on the risen Jesus is unusually important for the other side of the investigation. Epiphanius reasons from the fact that Jesus left the burial linens in the tomb: if those were his clothes, one might suppose that he appeared γυμνός after the Resurrection. He then rejects that conclusion. The conceptual sequence nevertheless explicitly contains burial linen, tomb, Resurrection appearance and nakedness in one argument.

This does not establish an Alexandrian Mark tradition; the material is canonically explicable. But it demonstrates that late-antique Christian exegesis could very naturally bring γυμνός into direct contact with the problem of the garments left in Jesus’s tomb.

3. The Holy Saturday homily supplies a remarkable Passion-burial complex

The spurious Homilia II in Sabbato Magno is one of the most conceptually useful texts in the volume, provided its status is kept clear. Immediately before Joseph of Arimathea receives Christ’s corpse, the homily calls the event a μυστήριον μυστηρίων ἀπόκρυφον, a “hidden mystery of mysteries,” and describes Joseph and Nicodemus as two hidden disciples dealing with the hidden mystery of the hidden God in the flesh. It then repeatedly calls the crucified Christ γυμνός, speaks of him as ἐπὶ ξύλου γυμνόν, and asks how Joseph can ἀπογυμνοῖς τὸ λέντιον, strip the linen from the divine flesh. The same sequence therefore combines secrecy/mystery, Passion, nakedness, burial and linen.

This cannot be assigned to Epiphanius and does not prove the meaning of Clement’s Mystic Gospel. But as later Christian semantic evidence it is extremely close to the conceptual nexus under investigation: the hidden Paschal mystery is expressed through the crucified and buried body, its nakedness and its linen covering.

4. PG 43 also gives ascetic and ritual controls on nakedness

The Physiologus lists γύμνωσις with hunger, thirst, continence and sleeping on the ground as hardships practiced by monks. Nakedness therefore sits naturally inside an ascetic vocabulary whose explicit companion is ἐγκράτεια, continence.

The same work uses Adam’s nakedness to represent the loss of the divine garment and vulnerability to the serpent. Elsewhere the volume applies the family to bare heads, empty vessels, exposed roots, stripped palm trees, naked corpses, flaying, a bare tomb and the uncovered arm of God. The lexical range is extraordinarily broad.

5. Nonnus strengthens the tomb-and-clothing side of the investigation

Nonnus’s paraphrase of John supplies several closely clustered uses. Lazarus’s grave covering is stripped away; on Easter morning the tomb itself is γυμνός; the risen Christ is described through the removal of an earthly tunic; and Peter’s physical nakedness at the Sea of Tiberias is stated both in Nonnus’s paraphrase and in the canonical text printed beside it.

Again, these are not evidence for a lost Alexandrian Mark. They are valuable semantic controls showing how naturally Greek Christian poetry could deploy the γυμν- family around tombs, grave coverings, Resurrection, clothing and bodily exposure without making the vocabulary sexual.

6. The strongest “Mystic Gospel” contribution is later Paschal and liturgical usage

PG 43 contains no secure μυστικ- occurrence in the genuine works of Epiphanius, so the volume should not be used to claim Epiphanius himself spoke this way. Its positive contribution comes from the later material. The Palm Sunday homily tells the new Jerusalem to contemplate the μυστικώτερα of her feast and to rise above what is visibly enacted in order to understand it anagogically.

The Addenda make the sacramental development still more explicit. Priestly prayers are repeatedly said μυστικῶς; catechumens and illumination belong to the surrounding ritual sequence; Christ’s immaculate body and life-giving blood are placed upon a μυστικὴ τράπεζα; and a textual variant speaks of a sacrifice μυστικῶς τετελειωμένη.

The adjacent vocabulary is also revealing even though it is correctly excluded from the μυστικ- count: the liturgy speaks of God as the God of ἀρρήτων καὶ ἀθεάτων μυστηρίων and of hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Thus in this later liturgical stratum “mystical” belongs to a structured world of restricted priestly speech, initiation, Eucharistic body and blood, sacrifice, invisible heavenly participation and sacred mysteries.

PG 43 — Result

PG 43 makes an unusually strong contribution to the interpretation of γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ. In genuine Epiphanius, Adam and Eve can be naked, see one another and know one another while Epiphanius explicitly distinguishes that condition from sexual πρᾶξις and subsequent joining. That is direct evidence against treating γυμνός, even in the presence of another naked person, as intrinsically sexual.

For the Mystic Gospel/Mystic Pascha investigation, the strongest material is later and must be identified as such. A Palm Sunday homily speaks of the μυστικώτερα of the feast lying above its visible enactments; the Holy Saturday material binds hidden mystery, the naked crucified body, burial and linen into one Paschal complex; and the later liturgy speaks explicitly of a mystical Eucharistic table and a mystically accomplished sacrifice. PG 43 therefore does not furnish genuine Epiphanian evidence for a “Mystic Gospel,” but it does provide substantial evidence for the later Christian conceptual architecture in which Gospel events, Paschal ritual, hidden meaning, Eucharistic sacrifice and mystikos language could naturally converge.

PG 44 — μυστικ-/mystic- and γυμν-/nud-

PG 44 is the forty-fourth volume in the survey and contains the first volume of the works of Gregory of Nyssa. The procedure is simple: first establish the concordance, then ask which passages actually matter for the two problems under investigation—the possible meaning of Clement’s “Mystic Gospel” and the meaning of γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ in the Letter to Theodore.

For exhaustive control the 718-page PDF was searched in 15 closed audit batches of no more than 50 pages each: pp. 1–50, 51–100, 101–150, and so forth, ending with pp. 701–718. Only after those batch audits were completed were the results assembled into three presentation sections: Part 1 = pp. 1–239; Part 2 = pp. 240–478; Part 3 = pp. 479–718.

The μυστικ-/mystic- audit produced 9 printed occurrences. Of these, 6 belong to Gregory’s Greek authorial text; the remaining three occur in bibliographical/editorial material or in the Latin title supplied to a work. By presentation section: Part 1 = 2; Part 2 = 6; Part 3 = 1.

Table 1A. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 44 — Part 1, pp. 1–239

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 14 — Fabricius, bibliographical notice	—	ex mystice enarrata ... interpretatione super Psalmorum inscriptiones	“from a mystically expounded interpretation concerning the inscriptions of the Psalms.”	EDITORIAL/BIBLIOGRAPHICAL. A genuine printed mystic- occurrence, but not Gregory’s own language.
PDF p. 170 — Gregory of Nyssa, De vita Moysis, heading	ΘΕΩΡΙΑ ΕΙΣ ΤΟΝ ΤΟΥ ΜΩΣΕΩΣ ΒΙΟΝ.	MYSTICA INTERPRETATIO VITAE MOYSIS.	“Mystical Interpretation of the Life of Moses.”	LATIN TITLE. The Greek title says theōria, “contemplation,” while the facing Latin explicitly renders the work as a mystica interpretatio. It is therefore a printed mystic occurrence but not a Greek μυστικ- occurrence.

Table 1B. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 44 — Part 2, pp. 240–478

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 263 — Gregory, In Psalmos	Τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς ἐπιγραφαὶ μὲν εἰσὶν ἐκκλησιαστικαί τε καὶ μυστικαί, καὶ τῆς κατὰ τὸ μυστήριον ἡμῶν εὐσεβείας σημαντικαί, ἀλλὰ τοῖς Ἑβραίοις οὐκ εἰσί.	Aliis autem praefiguntur inscriptiones, sed ecclesiasticae et mysticae, mysteriique, quod ad nostrae pietatis disciplinam pertinet, significatrices ...	“But to the others are prefixed inscriptions which are ecclesiastical and mystical, and signify the mystery belonging to our religion, although they are not found among the Hebrews.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — VERY IMPORTANT. Written scriptural headings are explicitly called both “ecclesiastical” and “mystical,” and Gregory immediately associates them with the Christian mystērion.
PDF p. 364 — Gregory, In Ecclesiasten	Εἰ δὲ ψιλότητι παραμένῃ τῷ γράμματι, οὐκ οἶδα ὅπως τὸ θεοπρεπὲς ἐν τῷ νόμῳ λογίσαιτο. ... ταῦτα τῷ καὶ ὁπωσοῦν μυστικὸν ἐπαγαγόντι λόγον.	Sed si nuda maneat littera, non video quemadmodum in lege cogitari possit quod Deo dignum sit ... satis clara ei qui utcunque sensum induxerit mysticum.	“But if one remains with the bare letter, I do not know how anything worthy of God can be conceived in the law ... these things are clear to anyone who introduces even in some fashion a mystical interpretation.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. Gregory places the “bare letter” and a mystikos logos in explicit opposition. This is direct evidence for “mystical” as a level of reading beyond the surface wording.
PDF p. 389 — Gregory, In Canticum canticorum	Ταῦτα διαμαρτύρομαι μέλλων ἅπτεσθαι τῆς ἐν τῷ Ἄσματι τῶν ᾀσμάτων μυστικῆς θεωρίας.	Haec testificor tractaturus contemplationem mysticam Cantici canticorum.	“I make these declarations as I am about to undertake the mystical contemplation contained in the Song of Songs.”	PRIMARY GREGORY. A biblical book possesses a mystikē theōria; Gregory immediately relates it to the soul’s spiritual and incorporeal union with God.
PDF p. 391 — Gregory, In Canticum canticorum	τότε διὰ τοῦ Ἄσματος τῶν ᾀσμάτων μυστικῶς εἰσάγει τὴν διάνοιαν ἐπὶ τὰ θεῖα ἄδυτα.	tunc per Canticum canticorum mystice introduxit cogitationem ad divina adyta.	“Then through the Song of Songs he mystically introduces the mind into the divine inner sanctuaries.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — HIGHLY RELEVANT. Mystical interpretation is represented spatially as entry into the divine adyta, the inaccessible inner places.
PDF p. 393 — Gregory, In Canticum canticorum	πῶς χρὴ διακεῖσθαι τὴν ψυχὴν τῶν μυστικῶν ῥημάτων ἀκουόντων.	quemadmodum affectam oporteat esse animam eorum qui verba mystice audiunt.	“how the soul of those hearing the mystical words ought to be disposed.”	PRIMARY GREGORY. The vocabulary is applied not merely to interpretation in the abstract but to the words as spiritually apprehended by a properly prepared hearer.
PDF p. 413 — Gregory, In Canticum canticorum	εἰ μὴ διὰ τοῦ μυστικοῦ ὕδατος τῆς τοῦ ἀντικειμένου δουλείας ἐλευθερούμενος, πᾶν Αἰγυπτιακὸν νόημα καὶ πᾶσαν ἀλλόφυλον κακίαν τε καὶ ἁμαρτίαν τῷ ὕδατι καταλιπών, καθαρὸς ἀναδύῃ.	nisi per aquam mysticam liberatus a servitute adversarii ... omni externo vitio et peccato in aqua relicto, purus emergat.	“unless, being liberated from the adversary’s slavery through the mystical water, he leaves every Egyptian thought and every alien vice and sin in the water and emerges pure.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MAJOR INITIATORY PARALLEL. Mystical water effects liberation, abandonment of sin in the water, and emergence purified. Whatever its typological level, the language belongs unmistakably to the conceptual world of purification through water.

Table 1C. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 44 — Part 3, pp. 479–718

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 702 — Variorum notae on the Canticles	—	praeter sensum historicum multis in Scripturae locis allegoricum mysticumque sensum esse quaerendum.	“besides the historical sense, in many places of Scripture an allegorical and mystical sense must be sought.”	EDITORIAL. A later note, not Gregory’s own wording, but an explicit statement of the interpretive distinction that the Greek text itself repeatedly exemplifies.

The strongest mystic evidence is concentrated in Gregory’s exegetical works. Scriptural headings can be ἐκκλησιαστικαί τε καὶ μυστικαί; the “bare letter” can be surpassed by a μυστικὸς λόγος; the Song possesses a μυστικὴ θεωρία which conducts the mind into the divine adyta; and the Exodus becomes a purification through μυστικὸν ὕδωρ.

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The γυμν-/nud-/denud- audit produced 41 genuine printed occurrences after exercise-family vocabulary and OCR noise were removed. By presentation section: Part 1 = 12; Part 2 = 15; Part 3 = 14.

Table 2A. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 44 — Part 1, pp. 1–239

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 41 — introductory/editorial philosophical discussion	—	singula sunt tenues quaedam nudaeque notiones.	“the individual things are certain thin and bare notions.”	EDITORIAL / ABSTRACT. Latin nudus means conceptually bare or unqualified.
PDF p. 77 — Gregory, De hominis opificio	Ἡ δὲ τῆς σαρκὸς γυμνότης ἀναγκαίαν τὴν τῶν προβάτων ἐπιστασίαν ἐποίησεν.	Corporis nuditas ...	“The nakedness of the body made care of sheep necessary.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — LITERAL. Human bodily nakedness explains the need for wool and clothing. Completely nonsexual.
PDF p. 87 — Gregory, De hominis opificio	εἰ δέ πως ἔξω γένοιτο τούτου, γυμνοῦσθαι τοῦ κάλλους ἐν ᾧ ἦν.	tota illa pulchritudine ... spoliari.	“if it should fall outside this, it is stripped of the beauty in which it existed.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — METAPHORICAL. The soul or mind loses its archetypal beauty.
PDF p. 106 — Gregory, De hominis opificio	τὸ κακὸν ... καθ’ ἑαυτὸ κατὰ τὴν ἰδίαν φύσιν φαινόμενον.	malum plane nudum, ut est natura sua, nunquam nobis appareat.	“evil never appears to us completely naked, as it is in its own nature.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN NUD-. “Naked” means evil without the deceptive appearance of good.
PDF p. 118 — Gregory, De hominis opificio	ψιλῆς ... τῆς ὁμολογίας.	nudae potius professioni ...	“to a merely bare profession.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / ABSTRACT. Latin nuda renders Greek psilē, “mere/bare,” not bodily exposure.
PDF p. 159 — Gregory, De vita Moysis	ἀλλ’ ἐκλύσαντα τῶν ποδῶν τὸ ὑπόδημα, οὕτω τῆς γῆς ψαύειν ἐκείνης.	solvereque jussit calceamenta, ac demum nudo pede terram illam attingere.	“he ordered him to remove his sandals and then touch that ground with a bare foot.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — LITERAL, SACRED SETTING. Bodily bareness belongs to the approach to holy ground without having any erotic implication.
PDF p. 170 — Gregory, De vita Moysis	γυμνά τε καὶ ἀπρονόητα τῷ ῥεύματι τὰ τέκνα διαδιδόασι.	—	“they hand the children over to the river naked and unprovided for.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — LITERAL EXPOSURE. Naked infants exposed to danger.
PDF p. 173 — Gregory, De vita Moysis	ὅτε διὰ τῆς παρακοῆς τοῦ θείου θελήματος ἐγυμνώθημεν.	cum divinae voluntati non paruissimus, nudati sumus.	“when through disobedience to the divine will we were stripped naked.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ADAMIC/THEOLOGICAL. Nakedness is the result of humanity’s primordial disobedience.
PDF p. 175 — Gregory, De vita Moysis	τὰ αἰνίγματα διαλύοιτο, γυμνότερον ἐκθήσομαι ...	—	“to resolve the riddles, I shall set it forth more plainly.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — INTERPRETIVE. Comparative gymnos language means explicit or unveiled explanation.
PDF p. 197 — Gregory, De vita Moysis	ἐν μέρει τὸ ἐν τούτοις μυστήριον τοῦ Παύλου παραγυμνώσαντος ...	—	“Paul having in part laid bare the mystery contained in these things ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — IMPORTANT SEMANTIC COMBINATION. The act of “stripping bare” is the disclosure of a mystērion. Nakedness vocabulary can therefore denote revelation of hidden meaning.
PDF p. 210 — Gregory, De vita Moysis	ἀπογυμνῶν τῶν ἐν αἰνίγματι ῥηθέντων εἰς τὸ ἐμφανὲς τὴν διάνοιαν.	—	“stripping bare into the manifest sense the meaning of things spoken enigmatically.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. Apogymnoō is virtually the opposite of speaking in riddles: the concealed sense is stripped into visibility.
PDF p. 218 — Gregory, De vita Moysis	τοῦ ἄνθρακος γυμνῷ τῷ ποδί ...	—	“the coal against the bare foot ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — LITERAL. A bare foot exposed to fire; no sexual or initiatory implication.

Table 2B. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 44 — Part 2, pp. 240–478

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 295 — Gregory, In Psalmos	λόγον τρανότερον ἀπογυμνῶσαι ...	—	“to lay bare the argument more clearly.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — INTERPRETIVE. Stripping means making a discourse explicit.
PDF p. 321 — Gregory, In Ecclesiasten	γυμνωθεῖσα ... πρὸς τὸν ἐλπιζόμενον ...	—	“having been stripped ... toward that which is hoped for ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ESCHATOLOGICAL. The language concerns divestment of present attachments in relation to the hoped-for life.
PDF p. 343 — Gregory, In Ecclesiasten	ἀπογυμνῶν τὸν Χριστιανόν ...	—	“stripping the Christian ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ECONOMIC DEPRIVATION. The image is dispossession by exploitation, not erotic stripping.
PDF p. 344 — Gregory, In Ecclesiasten	ψιλὸν ... ὄνομα.	non est enim nudum ac solum nomen pocillatorum.	“it is not merely the bare name ‘cupbearers.’”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN NUD-. Another purely verbal sense of “bare.”
PDF p. 349 — Gregory, In Ecclesiasten	πτωχός, ἀλήτης, γυμνός, λιμῷ καὶ δίψει κατατρυχόμενος.	—	“poor, wandering, naked, worn down by hunger and thirst.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — POVERTY/ASCETIC SUFFERING. Bodily nakedness occurs with hunger, thirst and hardship.
PDF p. 349 — Gregory quoting Romans 8:35	λιμὸς, ἢ γυμνότης, ἢ κίνδυνος, ἢ μάχαιρα;	fames? an nuditas, an periculum, an gladius?	“famine? or nakedness? or danger? or sword?”	SCRIPTURAL QUOTATION. Nakedness is one affliction among persecution, hunger, danger and the sword.
PDF p. 362 — Gregory, In Ecclesiasten	ἐν τῇ ψιλῇ διανοίᾳ τῶν γεγραμμένων ...	in nudo sensu eorum quae scripta sunt.	“in the bare sense of what is written.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN NUD-. The Latin “bare sense” corresponds to Greek psilē dianoia.
PDF p. 364 — Gregory, In Ecclesiasten	Εἰ δὲ ψιλότητι παραμένῃ τῷ γράμματι ...	Sed si nuda maneat littera ...	“But if the letter remains bare ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY / CRUCIAL CONTROL. This is the same passage that immediately contrasts the bare letter with a μυστικὸς λόγος. “Naked/bare” and “mystical” become complementary hermeneutical terms.
PDF p. 381 — Gregory, In Ecclesiasten	καὶ μονωθεὶς τῶν σπουδαζομένων γυμνὸς οἴχεται, ἐπαγόμενος μεθ’ ἑαυτοῦ τῶν τῇδε πραγμάτων οὐδέν.	ab iis quorum studio tenebatur desertus, abit nudus, rerum quae hic sunt nihil secum afferens.	“separated from the things for which he labored, he goes away naked, carrying none of the things of this world with him.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DEATH/ESCHATOLOGICAL. Nakedness expresses departure from life without possessions.
PDF p. 385 — Gregory, In Ecclesiasten	ἐπὶ ψιλῶν ... τῶν πραγμάτων.	si steterimus in nudis rebus.	“if we remain with the bare things themselves.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / ABSTRACT. Another Latin nudus rendering of Greek psilos.
PDF p. 428 — Gregory, In Canticum canticorum	—	nudo capiti.	“with the bare head.”	PRIMARY TEXT / LATIN NUD-. Bodily bareness limited to the head.
PDF p. 441 — Gregory, In Canticum canticorum	οἱ κλάδοι τῶν φύλλων γυμνωθέντες ...	rami nudati foliis ...	“branches stripped bare of their leaves.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — NON-BODILY. Trees and branches are described with the same lexical family.
PDF p. 441 — Gregory, In Canticum canticorum	καὶ ἐγυμνώθη τοῦ κάλλους τῆς ἀθανασίας ὁ ἄνθρωπος.	et nudatus fuit homo a pulchritudine immortalitatis.	“and man was stripped of the beauty of immortality.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ADAMIC. Human nakedness is theological deprivation: the loss of immortality.
PDF p. 469 — Gregory, In Canticum canticorum	γυμνῷ τῷ ὀδόντι κατὰ φύσιν ὄντι ...	dentem a natura nudum ...	“the tooth which is naturally bare.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — BARE OBJECT/BODY PART. The adjective has the straightforward sense “uncovered.”
PDF p. 470 — Gregory, In Canticum canticorum	πρῶτον λελαμμένους εἶναι, τουτέστι πάσης ὑλικῆς ἀχθηδόνος γεγυμνωμένους· εἶτα τῷ λουτρῷ τῆς συνειδήσεως ...	primum esse lotos, hoc est nudatos pondere materiali; deinde lavacro conscientiae ...	“first to have been washed, that is, stripped of every material burden; then by the bath of conscience ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — IMPORTANT RITUAL/ASCETIC CONTROL. Stripping and a “bath of conscience” occur together. The nakedness is explicitly the removal of material burden; the context, not gymnos alone, supplies the purificatory force.

Table 2C. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 44 — Part 3, pp. 479–718

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 509 — Gregory, In Canticum canticorum	ἀνυπόδετον καὶ ἐλεύθερον ...	sacerdotalis pedis erat ornamentum esse nudum et liberum ab omni indumento.	“the adornment of the priestly foot was to be bare and free from every covering.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — PRIESTLY/RITUAL. Bare feet belong specifically to priestly imagery. This is ritual bareness without sexual content.
PDF p. 521 — Gregory, In Canticum canticorum	Πῶς οὖν ἡ γυμνωθεῖσα παντὸς περιβλήματος ...	—	“How then does she who has been stripped of every covering ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — CLOTHING/ASCENT. The bride’s progressive divestment is spiritual and exegetical.
PDF p. 521 — Gregory, In Canticum canticorum	μετὰ τὴν γύμνωσιν ἐκείνην ...	post nudationem illam ...	“after that stripping ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — SPIRITUAL DIVESTMENT. Gregory continues the clothing metaphor while describing ascent beyond successive coverings.
PDF p. 524 — Gregory, In Canticum canticorum	Εἶτα ἐπὶ τούτοις γυμνοῖ τὸ κάλλος τῆς ὄψεως, τῶν φυλάκων αὐτῆς περιελόντων τὸ θέριστρον.	deinde ... ostendit denudatam faciei venustatem, posteaquam ei peplum custodes ademerunt.	“Then after these things she lays bare the beauty of her appearance, after her guards have removed the veil.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — UNVEILING. Removal of a garment reveals beauty. The context supplies the spiritual sense; the nakedness vocabulary itself remains ordinary uncovering.
PDF p. 572 — Gregory, De Oratione Dominica	ὁ Παῦλος γυμνότερον διέρχεται ...	—	“Paul sets this out more plainly ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — INTERPRETIVE. Again gymnoteron means more openly or explicitly.
PDF p. 578 — Gregory, De Oratione Dominica	τὴν πρώτην, ἧς ἐγυμνώθη διὰ τῆς παρακοῆς ...	stola ... prima, qua per inobedientiam nudatus erat.	“the first robe, of which he had been stripped through disobedience.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ADAMIC. Salvation restores the robe lost through the primordial disobedience.
PDF p. 578 — Gregory, De Oratione Dominica	γυμνὸν ἑαυτὸν θεασάμενος ...	nudum sese conspicatus.	“seeing himself naked ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ADAMIC. Literal Genesis imagery is integrated into the theology of the lost and restored garment.
PDF p. 578 — Gregory, De Oratione Dominica	—	ne nudo ... pede serpentis ...	“lest with a bare foot he approach the serpent ...”	PRIMARY TEXT / LATIN NUD-. Another bare-foot image in the same theological complex.
PDF p. 582 — Gregory, De Oratione Dominica	ψιλῶς τῆς προσευχῆς ἐκτεθέντα τὰ ῥήματα.	verba orationis nude exposita.	“the words of the prayer set forth bare/plainly.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN NUD-. Nakedness terminology again describes words presented without deeper elaboration.
PDF p. 606 — Gregory, De Oratione Dominica	—	a temperantia, sobrietate atque modestia nudus et inops ...	“bare and destitute of temperance, sobriety and modesty.”	PRIMARY TEXT / METAPHORICAL. Nakedness means moral deprivation.
PDF p. 608 — Gregory, De Oratione Dominica	κρανία σαρκῶν γεγυμνωμένα ...	calvarias carnibus nudatas ...	“skulls stripped bare of flesh.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DEATH. One of the starkest literal uses in the volume: exposed skulls in a meditation on mortality.
PDF p. 621 — Gregory, De Beatitudinibus	ἐν ᾧ γυμνότερον τὸ τοιοῦτον δόγμα ἡμῖν σαφηνίζεται.	in quo ejusmodi doctrina nobis apertius ...	“in which this teaching is made more plainly clear to us.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — INTERPRETIVE. Gymnoteron once more means clearer, more explicit exposition.
PDF p. 652 — Gregory, De Beatitudinibus	—	mortuariarum pellium, quas post inobedientiam vita nudati indueramus ...	“the mortal skins which we had put on after being stripped of life through disobedience ...”	PRIMARY TEXT — ADAMIC. Another development of the loss of primal life and assumption of mortal coverings.
PDF p. 706 — Variorum notae	—	Si quis saltem ipsa nuda verba, et omnibus obvia intueatur.	“If one should at least consider the bare words themselves, obvious to everyone.”	EDITORIAL. Later exegetical terminology, but consistent with Gregory’s repeated distinction between bare wording and deeper interpretation.

What actually matters for our research

The “bare letter” and the mystical meaning form an explicit pair

The most important conjunction in PG 44 occurs in Gregory’s Ecclesiastes. He asks what could be worthy of God if one remains with the ψιλότης of the written letter; the Latin makes the image explicit as nuda littera, the “bare letter.” He immediately says that the passage becomes intelligible to the person who introduces a μυστικὸς λόγος. The opposition is therefore not something imposed on Gregory from outside. The text itself contrasts what is bare at the level of the written wording with what is apprehended mystically.

This matters for the expression “Mystic Gospel.” PG 44 does not provide that exact phrase, but Gregory demonstrates that mystikos can qualify the interpretive dimension of a written biblical text precisely in contrast to its bare wording. In the Psalms, moreover, written headings themselves are ἐκκλησιαστικαί τε καὶ μυστικαί and signify the Christian mystery. A scriptural text can therefore have features which Gregory straightforwardly calls “mystical.”

The Song takes the reader inside

The language becomes still stronger in the Homilies on the Song of Songs. Gregory announces the μυστικὴ θεωρία of the Song and then says that through the Song the mind is led μυστικῶς into the θεῖα ἄδυτα, the divine inner sanctuaries. Mystical reading is thus conceived not simply as intellectual allegory but as passage from an exterior level into an interior sacred space.

This is particularly useful semantic evidence for Clement. It does not prove that Clement’s μυστικὸν εὐαγγέλιον had Gregory’s fourth-century exegetical framework. It does show that in Christian Greek the adjective could very naturally mark a biblical text as apprehended at an interior, sacred and advanced level.

Mystical water belongs to purification

The μυστικὸν ὕδωρ passage adds a second dimension. Gregory describes liberation from the adversary through “mystical water”: Egyptian thoughts, alien vice and sin are left behind in the water and the person emerges clean. This is not merely an isolated occurrence of mystikos. Water, release from slavery, abandonment of sin, purification and emergence occur as one conceptual sequence.

Consequently PG 44 supplies unusually good evidence that mystikos was at home both in advanced scriptural interpretation and in an initiatory or purificatory symbolic complex.

Gregory repeatedly uses γυμν- for disclosure rather than sexuality

Several passages are especially important for controlling the interpretation of γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ. Gregory can say that Paul παραγυμνοῖ a mystery; Christ or the interpreter ἀπογυμνοῖ what was spoken in riddles so that its meaning becomes manifest; an argument is ἀπογυμνοῦσθαι when it is stated more clearly; and a teaching is expressed γυμνότερον when it is made more explicit. The lexical family is repeatedly associated with disclosure, explicitness and removal of obscurity.

This is especially striking beside the μυστικ- evidence. Gregory can speak of mystical meaning as what lies beyond the bare letter, while elsewhere “stripping” a saying means exposing what had been hidden in an enigma. The same broad semantic field can therefore describe both concealment and disclosure without any erotic implication whatever.

Nakedness also belongs to Adam, ascetic deprivation and death

Literal bodily nakedness occurs freely in contexts wholly unrelated to sexuality: the body’s natural nakedness creates the need for clothing; children are exposed naked; Moses stands barefoot on holy ground; Paul is naked amid poverty, hunger and thirst; and skulls are stripped bare of flesh. Gregory also repeatedly interprets Adamic nakedness as the stripping away of beauty, immortality or the primal robe through disobedience.

The Song supplies still another use. The bride is progressively stripped of coverings and her beauty is uncovered when her veil is removed. Gregory develops the imagery as spiritual divestment and ascent. Again, the semantic force comes from the surrounding theological argument, not from an intrinsic sexual meaning of gymnos.

Stripping and washing can occur together without making γυμνός a technical baptismal term

PDF p. 470 is a useful control against the opposite overreading. Gregory speaks of being γεγυμνωμένους, “stripped,” of every material burden, and immediately speaks of the λουτρὸν τῆς συνειδήσεως, the “bath of conscience.” Stripping and washing therefore can belong to the same purificatory complex. But the text itself tells us what the stripping means: removal of material burden. It would be unjustified to infer from the verb alone that every γυμν- passage is baptismal.

The same methodological rule applies to sexual interpretations. If γυμνός occurs in an erotic passage, its erotic force must be established from the surrounding action. PG 44 demonstrates too many other senses—physical exposure, bare feet, poverty, death, deprivation, scriptural explicitness, unveiling and spiritual stripping—for the word itself to carry a sexual meaning.

PG 44 — Result

PG 44 is unusually valuable for the Mystic Gospel investigation because Gregory repeatedly makes “mystical” a property of biblical interpretation itself. Psalm headings are “ecclesiastical and mystical”; the mystical interpretation transcends the “bare letter”; the Song possesses a “mystical contemplation” that leads the mind into the divine inner sanctuaries; and “mystical water” effects a symbolic purification in which sin is left behind. None of this historically identifies Clement’s Gospel, but it substantially strengthens the semantic architecture within which a Christian biblical text could naturally be called mystikos.

For γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ, the evidence is equally important. Gregory’s γυμν- vocabulary ranges from ordinary bodily nakedness and bare feet to poverty, death, Adamic deprivation, the uncovering of beauty, the exposure of hidden meaning, and the clearer expression of doctrine. Indeed, Gregory repeatedly uses “stripping bare” specifically for making riddles and mysteries intelligible. PG 44 therefore supplies particularly strong evidence that neither sexuality nor initiation can be inferred from γυμνός by itself; the surrounding context must establish the particular sense.

PG 45 — μυστικ-/mystic- and γυμν-/nud-

PG 45 is the forty-fifth volume in the survey and the second PG volume devoted to Gregory of Nyssa. The procedure is simple: first establish the concordance, then ask which passages actually matter for the two problems under investigation—the possible meaning of Clement’s “Mystic Gospel” and the meaning of γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ in the Letter to Theodore.

For exhaustive control the 696-page PDF was searched in 14 closed audit batches of no more than 50 pages each: pp. 1–50, 51–100, 101–150, and so forth, ending with pp. 651–696. Only after those batch audits were completed were the results assembled into three presentation sections: Part 1 = pp. 1–232; Part 2 = pp. 233–464; Part 3 = pp. 465–696.

The μυστικ-/mystic- audit produced 30 printed occurrences. Of these, 27 occur in Gregory’s own Greek text. One further Greek occurrence belongs to Peter of Sebaste’s letter to Gregory on PDF p. 134; one Latin mystice on p. 537 translates Gregory’s Greek μυσταγωγούμενοι and is therefore a Latin-only member of the headline concordance; and one occurrence on p. 682 belongs to an editorial note quoting Chrysostom. By presentation section: Part 1 = 12; Part 2 = 11; Part 3 = 7.

Table 1A. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 45 — Part 1, pp. 1–232

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 40 — Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna	πάντα ὅσα παρὰ τοῦ νόμου δι’ αἰνιγμάτων τοῖς μυστικοῖς ἐπαΐειν δυναμένοις διήρηται	quaecunque a lege per aenigmata iis qui mystice audire possunt ...	“all that the Law set forth through enigmas for those able to hear mystically.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — VERY IMPORTANT. The Law communicates through enigmas to persons capable of mystical hearing. The passage immediately contrasts this deeper apprehension with adherence to the outward Jewish rites after Christ.
PDF pp. 53–54 — Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna	Ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ μέρος τι τῶν μυστικῶν διδαγμάτων καὶ ἡ περὶ τὸ λουτρὸν ἐστὶν οἰκονομία ...	Sed quoniam mysticorum documentorum pars est etiam aliqua, quae in lavacro fit dispensatio ...	“But since the dispensation concerning the bath is also a part of the mystical teachings ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MAJOR BAPTISMAL EVIDENCE. Gregory explicitly classifies the bath—whether called baptism, illumination or regeneration—as part of the “mystical teachings.”
PDF p. 55 — Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna	τοῖς διὰ τῆς μυστικῆς ταύτης οἰκονομίας ἀναγεννωμένοις	iis qui regenerantur per hanc mysticam dispensationem	“those who are regenerated through this mystical dispensation.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — BAPTISMAL/INITIATORY. Mystical dispensation is directly connected with regeneration.
PDF p. 58 — Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna	οὐχ ὕδωρ μυστικόν, οὐκ ἐπίκλησις θείας δυνάμεως, οὐχ ἡ μεταμελείας ὄρθωσις ...	non aqua mystica, non divinae virtutis invocatio ...	“no mystical water, no invocation of divine power, no correction through repentance ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MAJOR SACRAMENTAL CONTROL. Mystical water is one of the means of purification which Gregory says the hardened sinner has failed to undergo.
PDF p. 58 — Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna	οἱ διὰ τοῦ ὕδατος τοῦ μυστικοῦ τὸν τῆς κακίας ῥύπον ἀποκλυσάμενοι	qui per aquam mysticam vitii sordes abluerunt	“those who have washed away the filth of vice through mystical water.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — VERY IMPORTANT. Mystical water is explicitly a purifying water by which the pollution of evil is washed away.
PDF p. 63 — Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna	λουσάμενοι τῷ μυστικῷ τούτῳ λουτρῷ, καθαροὶ τὰς προαιρέσεις γινοίμεθ’	si ... mystico lavacro loti, mundi efficiamur ...	“if, washed in this mystical bath, we become pure in our choices ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — BAPTISMAL. The mystical bath must correspond to an actual transformation of life; Gregory contrasts the initiated life with the uninitiated life immediately afterward.
PDF p. 71 — Gregory, Quod non sint tres Dii ad Ablabium	πῶς ἐπὶ τῶν μυστικῶν δογμάτων τὰς τρεῖς ὑποστάσεις ὁμολογοῦντες ...	quo pacto in mysticis decretis tres hypostases confitentes ...	“how, in the mystical doctrines, while confessing the three hypostases ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY. Mystikos qualifies specifically Christian Trinitarian doctrine.
PDF p. 84 — Gregory, De fide ad Simplicium	βροντὴ γὰρ ὁ μυστικὸς λόγος τὸ Εὐαγγέλιον ὀνομάζει.	tonitruum enim mysticus sermo Evangelium nominat.	“For the mystical discourse calls the Gospel thunder.”	EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. This is the strongest direct lexical result in PG 45 for the present investigation: μυστικός and Εὐαγγέλιον occur in the same sentence. Gregory then speaks of faith in the Gospel becoming firm and transforming those who believe.
PDF p. 125 — Gregory, Epistola canonica ad Letoium	Οὐδέποτε γὰρ μυστικῆς ἐπιτελουμένης εὐχῆς, μετὰ τοῦ λαοῦ προσκυνῆσαι τὸν θεὸν καταξιοῦται.	Nunquam enim, si mystica peragatur oratio, Deum una cum populo adorare dignus censebitur.	“Whenever the mystical prayer is being performed, he is not deemed worthy to worship God together with the people.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — RESTRICTED LITURGICAL ACCESS. Mystical prayer belongs to ecclesiastical worship from which the penitent may be excluded.
PDF p. 125 — Gregory, Epistola canonica ad Letoium	ἀμέτοχος τῶν μυστικῶν ἁγιασμάτων μέχρι τῆς ἐξόδου γινόμενος	mysticorum sacramentorum ad vitae exitum usque expers	“remaining without participation in the mystical holy things / sacraments until death.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — VERY IMPORTANT. The mystical holy things are restricted ecclesiastical realities in which one can be formally denied participation.
PDF p. 134 — Peter of Sebaste, Epistola ad Gregorium Nyssenum	ὁ λόγος μὴ τοῖς μυστικωτέροις τῶν τοῦ θεοῦ ῥημάτων ἐφηδυνόμενος	—	“the discourse, if it were not sweetened by the more mystical sayings of God ...”	NON-GREGORIAN TEXT WITHIN THE VOLUME. This belongs to Peter of Sebaste’s letter to Gregory. It nevertheless shows the comparative mystikōteros naturally applied to divine scriptural sayings.
PDF p. 161 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	τὸ δόγμα τὸ μυστικὸν ἐπαγγειλάμενος ἡμῖν ἐκθήσεσθαι, ὥσπερ διορθούμενος τὰς εὐαγγελικὰς φωνάς ...	pollicitus dogma mysticum nobis exponere, tanquam correcturus voces evangelicas ...	“having promised to set forth the mystical doctrine for us, as though correcting the evangelical words ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — VERY IMPORTANT. “Mystical doctrine,” “evangelical words,” and the Lord’s transmission of the mystery through Father, Son and Holy Spirit occur in one polemical complex.

Table 1B. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 45 — Part 2, pp. 233–464

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 295 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium II	βαπτίζων δὲ Ἀπολλώς, διὰ τῆς μυστικῆς ἀναγεννήσεως προσάγων τοὺς παρὰ Παύλου κατηχουμένους τῷ μυστηρίῳ	Apollo baptizando, per mysticam sive initialem regenerationem eos qui a Paulo instituebantur adducens ad mysterium.	“Apollos, baptizing, brings those catechized by Paul to the mystery through mystical—or initiatory—regeneration.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. Baptism, catechesis, initiation, regeneration and mystery are explicitly joined to mystikos. The Latin’s mysticam sive initialem makes the initiatory interpretation explicit.
PDF p. 361 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium V	Τοῦτο καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ μυστικοῦ λόγου σαφῶς διὰ τῆς τοῦ Πέτρου φωνῆς διδασκόμεθα ...	hoc etiam in mystico sermone plane per vocem Petri docemur ...	“This also we are clearly taught in the mystical discourse through the voice of Peter.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — APOSTOLIC. A Petrine scriptural saying is characterized as belonging to mystical discourse.
PDF p. 384 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium VII	τὸ αὐτὸ τοῦτο καλῶς καὶ μυστικῶς ... κατὰ τὴν εὐαγγελικὴν παράδοσιν ὑπογράφων	hoc idem praeclare et mystice, id est arcano ... secundum evangelicam traditionem designans.	“marking this same truth well and mystically—that is, secretly—according to the evangelical tradition.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. Gregory explicitly places mystikōs, understood by the Latin as arcano, in direct relation to the “evangelical tradition.”
PDF p. 451 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XI	μάταιον μὲν ἀποδεικνὺς τὸ τῆς παλιγγενεσίας μυστήριον, ἀνόνητον δὲ τὴν μυστικὴν δωροφορίαν ...	mysterium regenerationis vanum demonstrare, vilem etiam mysticam donorum oblationem ...	“making the mystery of regeneration vain and the mystical offering of gifts useless ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — SACRAMENTAL. Mystical offering appears in a cluster explicitly concerned with regeneration and participation.
PDF p. 452 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XI	οὔτε τὰ ἔθη τῆς Ἐκκλησίας, οὔτε τὰ μυστικὰ σύμβολα κυροῖ τὴν εὐσέβειαν	neque ritus Ecclesiae, neque mystica symbola confirmant pietatem.	“neither the customs of the Church nor the mystical symbols confirm piety.”	PRIMARY GREGORY. This is the position Gregory attributes to and attacks in Eunomius.
PDF p. 452 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XI	τῇ τῶν μυστικῶν ἐθῶν τε καὶ συμβόλων κοινωνίᾳ τὴν σωτηρίαν κρατύνεσθαι	mysticorum rituum et symbolorum communione salutem confirmari.	“that salvation is strengthened by participation in the mystical rites and symbols.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MAJOR SACRAMENTAL RESULT. Immediately before this Gregory cites birth from water and Spirit and eating Christ’s flesh and drinking his blood. Mystical rites and symbols therefore occur in a baptismal-Eucharistic context.
PDF p. 452 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XI	περιορᾷ δὲ τὴν τῶν μυστικῶν συμβόλων τε καὶ ἐθῶν κοινωνίαν, ἐν οἷς ὁ Χριστιανισμὸς τὴν ἰσχὺν ἔχει	despicit autem mysticorum symbolorum et rituum communionem, in quibus Christianismus robur habet.	“he despises participation in the mystical symbols and rites in which Christianity has its strength.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — VERY IMPORTANT. Gregory places mystical symbols and rites among constitutive practices of Christian life.
PDF p. 452 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XI	μηδὲ τὰ μυστικὰ σύμβολα φυλακτήρια μὲν τῶν περὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ἀγαθῶν ...	neque mystica symbola ...	“nor [does he regard] the mystical symbols as safeguards of the goods of the soul ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY. The surrounding list includes ecclesiastical customs, baptismal language, confession and moral transformation.
PDF p. 453 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XI	καὶ διαχλευάζουσι τὰ μυστικὰ σύμβολα, καὶ τὰ διατηρούμενα παρὰ τῶν μεμυημένων ἔθη	subsannant mystica symbola, ritusque ... quae ab initiatis observantur.	“and they ridicule the mystical symbols and the customs observed by the initiated.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. The association between mystikos and initiation is explicit: the mystical symbols accompany customs kept by the initiated.
PDF p. 453 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XI	τὸν ἐκ τῶν μυστικῶν συμβόλων ἁγιασμὸν ἀντ’ οὐδενὸς εἶναι κρίνοντες	ex mysticis symbolis sanctificationem pro nihilo ducunt.	“judging the sanctification that comes from the mystical symbols to be worth nothing.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — SACRAMENTAL. Mystical symbols are explicitly productive of sanctification.
PDF p. 454 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XI	μεταλλάξαι τὴν πίστιν ἀπὸ τῶν θείων ὀνομάτων, καὶ τῶν μυστικῶν ἐθῶν, καὶ συμβόλων εἰς τὴν ἰδίαν ἀπάτην	a divinis nominibus et mysticis ritibus ac symbolis ...	“to transfer the faith from the divine names and the mystical rites and symbols into his own deception.”	PRIMARY GREGORY. Mystical rites and symbols stand beside the divine names as received constituents of Christian faith.

Table 1C. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 45 — Part 3, pp. 465–696

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 500 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	νέος ἐξηγητὴς τῶν μυστικῶν διδαγμάτων ...	novus explanator mysticorum documentorum ...	“a new interpreter of the mystical teachings ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — VERY IMPORTANT. The immediate continuation contrasts mystical teaching with remaining at the “bare letter” and presenting a bare word-for-word reading of Scripture.
PDF p. 508 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	ἐν ταῖς μυστικαῖς ἱερουργίαις, συμβολικῶς καὶ δι’ αἰνίγματος ψυχωφελῆ τινα δόγματα ὑφηγούμενος	in mysticis sacris ... symbolice et per aenigmata ...	“in the mystical sacred rites, teaching certain soul-benefiting doctrines symbolically and through enigma.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. Mystical sacred rites, symbols, enigmas and doctrine explicitly form one conceptual unit.
PDF p. 537 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII, facing Latin translation	ἀλλὰ παρ’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ τὰ ῥήματα ταῦτα μυσταγωγούμενοι τοῖς μέτροις ἐνείρουσι	sed ab ipso Deo haec verba mystice edocti versibus suis inserunt.	“but, taught mystically these words by God himself, they insert them in their verses.”	LATIN-ONLY MYSTIC- OCCURRENCE. The Greek has μυσταγωγούμενοι, a related but different lexical family. The Latin mystice is therefore counted as a printed Latin occurrence without being misrepresented as a Greek μυστικ- form.
PDF p. 575 — Gregory, Adversus Apollinarem	καὶ τὰς μυστικὰς ῥάβδους ἐμβάλη τῷ γλυκεῖ καὶ ποτίμῳ νάματι τῆς διδασκαλίας	mysticas ... virgas in dulcia ... doctrinae fluenta injiciat.	“and let him cast the mystical rods into the sweet and drinkable stream of teaching.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — TYPOLOGICAL. The rods of Jacob are incorporated into a mystical typology of Christian teaching.
PDF p. 642 — Gregory, Adversus Apollinarem	τῷ μυστικῷ ὕδατι διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσματος ἐνθαπτόμενοι· Συνετάφημεν γὰρ αὐτῷ ... διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσματος εἰς τὸν θάνατον	mystica ... in aqua per baptismum sepulti; ... Consepulti ... sumus cum illo per baptismum in mortem.	“being buried in the mystical water through baptism; for we were buried with him through baptism into death.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ONE OF THE STRONGEST RESULTS IN PG 45. Mystical water, baptism, burial, Christ’s voluntary death and imitation of the Resurrection form one continuous Paschal-initiatory argument.
PDF p. 661 — Gregory, Adversus Arium et Sabellium	μυστικῶς ἄρα μετὰ ταπεινοφροσύνης τὴν ἀλήθειαν διεξεληλυθώς ...	sed mystice modesteque veritatem exponens ...	“thus, mystically and with humility expounding the truth ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY. The context is the Gospel dialogue with the rich young man. It is canonically explicable, but it demonstrates mystical exposition operating directly on Gospel material.
PDF p. 682 — Variorum notae, quotation of Chrysostom	Ὅρα πῶς λαμπρῶς καὶ περιφανῶς τὴν μυστικὴν ἡρμήνευσε τράπεζαν, τὴν ἀναίμακτον θυσίαν.	Vide quam luculenter ... mysticam interpretatus est mensam, quae est incruentum sacrificium.	“See how clearly he interpreted the mystical table, the bloodless sacrifice.”	EDITORIAL QUOTATION — EUCHARISTIC. This is Chrysostom quoted in the later notes, not Gregory. It is retained in the exhaustive printed concordance and provides later semantic evidence explicitly equating the mystical table with the Eucharistic sacrifice.

The strongest μυστικ- results are unusually concentrated. Gregory can say directly that ὁ μυστικὸς λόγος τὸ Εὐαγγέλιον ὀνομάζει; he calls the baptismal bath part of the “mystical teachings”; he speaks of mystical regeneration bringing catechumens to the mystery; he describes something as being expressed μυστικῶς ... κατὰ τὴν εὐαγγελικὴν παράδοσιν; and he repeatedly connects mystical rites and symbols with baptism, Eucharistic flesh and blood, initiation and sanctification. The later Adversus Apollinarem passage adds mystical water, baptism, burial into Christ’s death and imitation of the Resurrection in one continuous complex.

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The γυμν-/nud-/denud- audit produced 67 genuine printed occurrences after exercise-family vocabulary and OCR noise were removed. By presentation section: Part 1 = 20; Part 2 = 24; Part 3 = 23.

Table 2A. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 45 — Part 1, pp. 1–232

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 29 — Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna	οἱ πρῶτοι ἄνθρωποι ... τῆς μακαριότητος ἐκείνης ἀπεγυμνώθησαν	primi homines ... nudati sunt beatitudine	“the first human beings were stripped of that blessedness.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ADAMIC. Nakedness vocabulary expresses the loss of humanity’s primal blessed condition.
PDF p. 41 — Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna	ὅτι οὐ γυμνὸν τὸ κατὰ πρόθεσιν ἀγαθόν ...	non nudum ... bonum ...	“the good that exists in intention is not bare ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ABSTRACT. Gymnos describes something considered without the additional conditions that complete it.
PDF p. 43 — Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna	τὸν πυθμένα γυμνοῦντος τοῖς παροδεύουσι	fundum ... nudante ...	“laying bare the bottom for those passing through.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — NON-BODILY. The Red Sea’s bottom is uncovered for Israel.
PDF p. 43 — Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna	ἀμήχανον ἦν γυμνῇ προσβλέψαι τῇ τοῦ θεοῦ φαντασίᾳ	Dei nudam aspicere speciem ...	“it was impossible to look upon the bare/direct manifestation of God.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — THEOPHANIC. “Naked” means uncovered or unmediated divine manifestation.
PDF p. 44 — Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna	γυμνὴν ὑποστῆναι αὐτοῦ τὴν ἐμφάνειαν	ferret nudam ejus apparitionem.	“to endure his bare/uncovered appearance.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — THEOPHANIC. Direct divine appearance is called “naked.”
PDF p. 46 — Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna	οὐ γυμνῇ τῇ θεότητι, ἀλλ’ ὑπὸ τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης φύσεως κεκαλυμμένῃ	non nuda Divinitate, sed tecta ab humana natura.	“not in naked divinity, but covered by human nature.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — CHRISTOLOGICAL. Nakedness denotes divinity without the covering of human nature.
PDF p. 50 — Gregory, Oratio catechetica magna	οὕτω γυμνῷ τῷ πάθει τὴν ἰατρείαν προσάγουσιν	ita nudae affectioni medicinam ...	“thus they apply the remedy to the bare/exposed affection.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MEDICAL METAPHOR. The condition is exposed so that its remedy can be applied.
PDF p. 141 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	τῷ γε μὴ ψιλὴν ἱστορίαν διηγήσασθαι βουλομένῳ ...	qui non nudam historiam se profiteri scribit ...	“one who professes not to write a bare history ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN NUD-. Latin nuda translates Greek psilē: a simple historical narrative without further argumentative purpose.
PDF p. 141 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	γυμνῇ καὶ ἀπηρυθριασμένῃ φωνῇ τὰ ἐκ τῆς ἁμάξης προσφέρει	nuda et impudenti voce ...	“he utters the abuse with a bare and shameless voice.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — RHETORICAL. Gymnē phōnē means open, undisguised speech.
PDF p. 149 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	ψιλὰ τῆς λοιδορίας ἐστὶ τὰ ῥήματα ...	convicia sint nuda verba ...	“the insults are bare words ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN NUD-. Nakedness vocabulary describes unsupported words.
PDF p. 170 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I; Greek counterpart begins on preceding page	οὐ ψιλὴν ἐνέργειαν, ἀλλ’ ἐνεργὸν οὐσίαν δι’ ἑαυτῆς ὑπεστήσατο	non nudam operationem, sed substantiam agendi facultate praeditam ...	“not a bare operation, but a substance endowed with power to act.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN NUD-. Latin nudam corresponds to Greek psilēn, “mere/bare.”
PDF p. 171 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	ἐν οἷς γὰρ γυμνότερον ἐκκαλύπτει τὸ ἀσεβὲς τοῦ φρονήματος ...	nudius ... detegit ...	“in these he more plainly uncovers the impiety of his thought.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DISCLOSURE. Comparative gymnoteron means more openly or explicitly.
PDF p. 172 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	ψιλὴν καὶ ἀκατάσκευον ... τῆς ἀσεβείας τὴν ἔκθεσιν	nudam et exilem impietatis expositionem ...	“a bare and unsupported exposition of impiety.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN NUD-. Again nudus represents Greek psilos.
PDF p. 177 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	οὐδὲν αὐτῷ πλὴν ψιλοῦ ὀνόματος καταλείπουσα	nihil ei nisi nudum nomen relinquens.	“leaving him nothing except a bare name.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / NOMINAL. Nakedness vocabulary marks a title deprived of substantive reality.
PDF p. 181 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	ἐάν τις αὐτὴν ψιλώσας ... τῶν ἐπιθεωρουμένων ποιοτήτων τε καὶ ἰδιωμάτων ...	si quis eam nude et per se ... ab omnibus qualitatibus et proprietatibus sejunclam consideret.	“if one considers it bare and by itself, separated from the qualities and properties contemplated in it.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — PHILOSOPHICAL ABSTRACTION. Stripping means mentally removing accidental qualities from the underlying thing.
PDF p. 184 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	ψιλὰ καὶ ἀνερμήνευτα ...	nude et sine explicatione ...	“bare and unexplained ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY / EXEGETICAL. The Latin nakedness word denotes material presented without interpretation.
PDF p. 197 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	διάνοια γυμνοῦσά ποτε τὸν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸν τῆς τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος δόξης	Deum ... gloria Filii et Spiritus sancti denudet ...	“a conception that strips the God over all of the glory of the Son and Holy Spirit.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — THEOLOGICAL METAPHOR. Nakedness means doctrinal deprivation.
PDF p. 201 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	ἀπογυμνώσας τῶν προκαλυμμάτων τὴν νόσον	ablatis velamentis ... morbum nudum ...	“having stripped the disease of its coverings.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DISCLOSURE. The hidden doctrinal disease is exposed by removing its coverings.
PDF p. 209 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	γυμνῇ τῇ φωνῇ	nuda voce	“in a bare/plain voice.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — RHETORICAL. Plain, explicit utterance.
PDF p. 211 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	οὐχ εὐθὺς ἀπογυμνώσας τοῦ λόγου τὸ βούλημα	non statim ... sententiam sermonis denudans ...	“not immediately laying bare the intention of the discourse.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — HERMENEUTICAL. To strip something bare is to disclose what the argument means.

Table 2B. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 45 — Part 2, pp. 233–464

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 238 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium I	παραγυμνοῦν τε καὶ φανερὸν ποιεῖν ... τὸ βλάσφημον	... nudare et manifestum facere ...	“to lay the blasphemy bare and make it manifest.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DISCLOSURE. The γυμν- family is explicitly parallel to “make manifest.”
PDF p. 279 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium II	οὐ ... ψιλῆς τῆς θεότητος ἐπωνυμίᾳ τετιμημένος	non cognomento tantum honoratus nuda deitatis ...	“not honored merely with a bare title of deity.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN NUD-. “Bare” means merely nominal.
PDF p. 293 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium II	γυμνὴν καὶ ἀκατάσκευον ... ἀσέβειαν	nudam et incompositam ... impietatem.	“bare and unconstructed impiety.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — RHETORICAL. The impiety is displayed without disguise.
PDF p. 310 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium III	οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἐφ’ ἑαυτῶν ψιλὰ τὰ ὀνόματα τῆς τῶν σημαινομένων ἐμφάσεως διεζευγμένα ...	Non enim in seipsis nuda nomina ab emphasi significatorum disjuncta ...	“For bare names, separated from the force of the things signified ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY / SEMANTIC. Nakedness marks language separated from its underlying meaning.
PDF p. 311 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium III	οὐκ ἐν ψιλαῖς θεωρεῖται ταῖς τῶν ὀνομάτων φωναῖς	non nudis nominum vocibus spectatur.	“it is not contemplated in the bare sounds of names.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / SEMANTIC. The reality signified cannot be reduced to bare vocabulary.
PDF p. 325 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium IV	τὸ δὲ γυμνὸν τοῦ Λόγου ἐλέγχοιτο	pars vero nuda Verbo redarguatur.	“the bare aspect concerning the Word is refuted.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ABSTRACT.
PDF p. 328 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium IV	τὸ στόμα πρὸς τὴν βλασφημίαν καταγεγύμνασται	os ad blasphemiam ... nudatum ...	“his mouth has been laid bare/open for blasphemy.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — RHETORICAL.
PDF p. 336 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium IV	γυμνὸν μὲν προσεγγίζοντα τὸν σίδηρον φεύγουσι	nudum ferrum ... fugiunt.	“they flee the bare iron when it approaches.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — LITERAL OBJECT. A fish avoids an exposed hook.
PDF p. 336 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium IV	οἱ δὲ γυμνὸν περιχαίνουσι τῆς ἀσεβείας τὸ ἄγκιστρον	circum nudum impietatis hamum hiant.	“but they gape around the bare hook of impiety.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — METAPHOR. The metaphor depends on the ordinary meaning “uncovered/exposed.”
PDF p. 345 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium IV	γυμνὸν προσίεσθαι τὸ φθοροποιὸν δηλητήριον	nudum ... venenum ...	“to receive the destructive poison bare/unconcealed.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — METAPHORICAL.
PDF p. 346 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium IV	ἰδοὺ γὰρ γυμνὴν ἡμῖν ἐκτίθεται τὴν βλασφημίαν	Ecce enim nobis nudam exponit blasphemiam.	“Behold, he sets the blasphemy before us bare.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DISCLOSURE.
PDF p. 346 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium IV	εἴγε καὶ ψιλοῖς ῥήμασι λέγομεν Υἱὸν καὶ γεννητόν ...	sive nudis et exilibus verbis dicamus Filium et genitum ...	“even if we say ‘Son’ and ‘begotten’ in bare/simple words ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN NUD-. “Bare” is a linguistic category.
PDF p. 348 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium IV	οὐ ψιλὴν ἀναλαβὼν ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῦ τὴν μορφήν ...	non nudam et simplicem in seipso formam assumpsit ...	“not assuming in himself a bare and simple form ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY / CHRISTOLOGICAL. Latin nuda renders Greek psilē.
PDF p. 357 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium V	πολὺ ... γυμνότερον αὐτὴν τὴν οὐσίαν ὀνομάζει Κύριον	multo nudius ipsam essentiam nominat Dominum.	“much more plainly he calls the essence Lord.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXPLICITNESS.
PDF p. 358 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium V	σαφῶς εὗρον γυμνῇ τῇ λέξει ταύτην ἐκτεθεῖσαν ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ τὴν βλασφημίαν	manifeste nuda dictione ... blasphemiam ...	“I found this blasphemy set out by him clearly, in bare wording.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — IMPORTANT OCR-RECOVERED USE. The printed Greek is γυμνῇ τῇ λέξει: plain, explicit wording.
PDF p. 368 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium VI	γυμνότερον μὲν ἐν τοῖς τελευταίοις τοῦ λόγου κατασκευάζεται	nudius ...	“it is established more plainly in the latter part of the argument.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXPLICITNESS.
PDF p. 369 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium VI	αὐτοῦ τοῦ Παύλου γυμνότερον ... σαφηνίσαντος ἡμῖν μυστήριον	Paulo ... nudius ... mysterium declarans ...	“Paul himself having made the mystery more plainly clear to us.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. Here the semantic relationship is explicit: to state something gymnoteron is to disclose a mystērion more clearly.
PDF p. 384 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium VII	οἷον προσωπείου τινὸς γυμνωθεῖσαν ἀνακαλύπτεσθαι τὴν ἐγκειμένην δόξαν τῷ γράμματι	persona quadam nudatam revelari gloriam littera involutam.	“as though stripped of a mask, the glory wrapped in the letter is revealed.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MAJOR HERMENEUTICAL CONTROL. Stripping is precisely the uncovering of a spiritual reality concealed within the written letter.
PDF p. 385 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium VII	Τὰ ῥήματα ἃ ἐγὼ λαλῶ πνεῦμά ἐστι καὶ ζωή, ὡς γυμνὰ ὄντα τοῦ σωματικοῦ προκαλύμματος	Verba ... ut quae nuda sint ... corporali velamento.	“The words that I speak are spirit and life, being bare of the bodily covering.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — GOSPEL CONTROL. Gregory explicitly applies nakedness vocabulary to Gospel words once their bodily covering is removed. The result is spiritual meaning, not sexuality.
PDF p. 440 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XI	παραγυμνοῦν τῷ λόγῳ τὸν ὄλεθρον	oratione ... nudare ...	“to lay the destruction bare through argument.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DISCLOSURE.
PDF p. 440 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XI	παντὸς ἀπατηλοῦ προσωπείου τὸ ψεῦδος ἀπογυμνώσας	mendacio omni fallaci persona denudato ...	“having stripped falsehood of every deceptive mask.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DISCLOSURE. Again stripping removes a false covering so that reality is visible.
PDF p. 447 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XI	οὐ γὰρ δὴ ... πρὸς τὸν τοῦ ῥήματος ἦχον διενεχθήσεται	Non enim ... de nudo vocabuli sono litigabit.	“he will not dispute over the bare sound of a word.”	PRIMARY TEXT / LATIN NUD-. The Greek expresses the concept without a γυμν- form; the Latin supplies the nakedness vocabulary.
PDF p. 451 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XI	δι’ ὧν ἀπογυμνοῦται πλέον ἡ βλασφημία	per quae denudatur planius blasphemia.	“through which the blasphemy is laid more fully bare.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DISCLOSURE.
PDF p. 461 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	νῦν δὲ γυμνῇ τῇ φωνῇ προφερόμενον	nunc autem nuda voce prolatum.	“now uttered in a bare/plain voice.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXPLICIT SPEECH.

Table 2C. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 45 — Part 3, pp. 465–696

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 465 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	οὐ ψιλὴν νοοῦμεν τοῦ φωτὸς τὴν φωνὴν δίχα τινὸς διανοίας	non exilem et nudam vocem lucis absque aliqua sententia ...	“we do not understand ‘light’ as a bare word without meaning.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN NUD-. Bare language is language severed from its conceptual content.
PDF p. 467 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	πρόκωπόν τε καὶ γυμνὴν οἷόν τινα ῥομφαίαν τὴν βλασφημίαν ... προτείνων	velut nudum gladium ... blasphemiam ...	“extending the blasphemy like a drawn and naked sword.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — OBJECT/METAPHOR. “Naked” means unsheathed.
PDF p. 476 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	γυμνῶς καὶ ἀκατασκεύως τὴν καθαίρεσιν τῆς μεγαλειότητος τοῦ Χριστοῦ συμβουλεύοντα	nude ... suadentem ...	“openly and without disguise counselling the overthrow of Christ’s majesty.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXPLICITNESS.
PDF p. 478 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	γυμνῇ τε καὶ ἀπαρακαλύπτῳ τῇ γνωστικῇ δυνάμει	nuda et revelata cognitrice potestate.	“with a bare and unveiled cognitive power.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — INTELLECTUAL. The adjective is explicitly paired with “unveiled.”
PDF p. 487 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	καὶ ψιλώσας τῶν ποιοτήτων ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῦ κατανοῆσαι ... τὸ ὑποκείμενον	subjectum qualitatibus denudatum in seipso cognoscere.	“to contemplate the underlying thing stripped of its qualities.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / PHILOSOPHICAL. Mental abstraction is expressed as stripping.
PDF p. 493 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	μὴ ἐπὶ ψιλῆς τῆς δηλώσεως ...	non pro nuda significatione ...	“not according to the bare signification ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY / SEMANTIC.
PDF p. 500 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	Οὐκοῦν εἰ ψιλῷ παραμένει τῷ γράμματι ...	Igitur si in nuda littera permanet ...	“Therefore, if he remains with the bare letter ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. This occurs immediately after Gregory calls Eunomius a “new interpreter of the mystical teachings.” The polarity between mystical teaching and the bare letter is explicit.
PDF p. 500 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	Προφέρει δὲ ψιλὴν ἐπὶ ῥήματος ἡμῖν τὴν τῶν γραμμάτων ἀνάγνωσιν	Nobis enim nudam ad verbum profert litterarum lectionem.	“he presents to us a bare word-for-word reading of the letters.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — HERMENEUTICAL. Bare reading means literal verbal reading without penetration to the intended sense.
PDF p. 510 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	ὁ τοίνυν πρὸς τὸ γράμμα ψιλὸν βλέπων ...	Qui igitur ad exilem et nudam litteram spectat ...	“the one who looks to the bare letter ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — HERMENEUTICAL.
PDF p. 515 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	οὐχὶ ψιλὴ προσηγορία φωτός	neque nuda lucis appellatio.	“not a bare appellation of light.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / NOMINAL.
PDF p. 515 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	θεὸς πραγμάτων ἐστὶ δημιουργός, οὐ ῥημάτων ψιλῶν	Deus rerum ... non verborum nudorum.	“God is creator of things, not of bare words.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — LANGUAGE/REALITY.
PDF p. 518 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	παριστᾶν τε καὶ ἀπογυμνοῦν τὴν διάνοιαν ...	repraesentare et denudare sive aperire sensum ...	“to represent and lay bare—that is, open—the meaning.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DECISIVE SEMANTIC CONTROL. The Latin itself glosses denudare with aperire: to strip bare is to open the meaning.
PDF p. 533 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	εἰ δυνατὸν ἦν γυμνὰ προδεικνύειν ἀλλήλοις τὰ τῆς διανοίας κινήματα	si possemus nudas mentis impulsiones ... palefacere.	“if it were possible to show one another the bare movements of thought.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MENTAL DISCLOSURE. “Bare” means directly accessible without linguistic mediation.
PDF p. 533 — Gregory, Contra Eunomium XII	Εἰ δέ πως ἦν ἀπογυμνοῦν ἑτέρως τὰ τῆς διανοίας κινήματα ...	si ... liceret cogitationis agitationes denudare ...	“if it were possible otherwise to lay bare the movements of thought ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DISCLOSURE.
PDF p. 575 — Gregory, Adversus Apollinarem	τὸν τῆς ἐπιγραφῆς νοῦν ἀπογυμνώσας ...	inscriptionis sensum ... nudans ...	“having laid bare the meaning of the title ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXEGETICAL. Stripping a text means disclosing what its title actually means.
PDF p. 582 — Gregory, Adversus Apollinarem	οὕτως ἀπογυμνοῖ τοῦ ἰδίου βουλήματος τὴν διάνοιαν	propositi sui sensum ... aperit.	“thus he lays bare the meaning of his own intention.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DISCLOSURE.
PDF p. 583 — Gregory, Adversus Apollinarem	εἴτε γὰρ ἐπὶ τῆς λέξεως ψιλῆς ἐξετάζοις τὸν λόγον ...	Sive enim, prout nuda verba sonant ...	“whether you examine the discourse according to the bare words as they sound ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY / HERMENEUTICAL.
PDF p. 586 — Gregory, Adversus Apollinarem	πρότερον ἀπογυμνώσω τοῦ ζόφου τῆς λέξεως τὴν ἐγκειμένην διάνοιαν	primum verborum caligine discussa, insitum ipsis sensum in lucem proferam.	“first I shall strip the underlying meaning from the darkness of the wording.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. Nakedness vocabulary is the removal of linguistic darkness so that hidden meaning comes into the light.
PDF p. 610 — Gregory, Adversus Apollinarem	τὸ μὲν ἄτονον τε καὶ ἀσήμαντον τῆς ἑρμηνείας ...	qui nuda verba attendit, auctoris mentem non assequatur ...	“the person who attends to the bare words does not grasp the author’s meaning.”	PRIMARY TEXT / LATIN NUD- — HERMENEUTICAL. One of the clearest statements in the volume that bare wording and intended meaning are not identical.
PDF p. 618 — Gregory, Adversus Apollinarem	δι’ ὧν γὰρ κατασκευάζει τὸ ψεῦδος, ἐν τῇ ἀτονίᾳ τῆς συνηγορίας ἀπογυμνοῖ τὴν ἀσέβειαν	... denudat impietatem ...	“by the very arguments with which he constructs the falsehood, he lays the impiety bare.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DISCLOSURE.
PDF p. 673 — Gregory, Adversus Macedonianos	οὐ γάρ ἐστί τι μέρος ὃ γυμνόν ἐστιν ἀφῆς τῷ μύρῳ	nulla ... pars ... nuda ab unctionis contactu ...	“there is no part that is bare of contact with the ointment.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ANOINTING IMAGE. Nakedness here means untouched or uncovered; the surrounding image of anointing supplies the ritual/theological force.
PDF p. 679 — Gregory, Adversus Macedonianos	οὐ ψιλὴν προσάγουσι τοῖς κρατοῦσι τὴν αἴτησιν	haud nudas his offerunt preces.	“they do not offer bare petitions to rulers.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / RHETORICAL. The prayers are accompanied by bodily gestures of humility; nudus means an unaccompanied request.
PDF p. 684 — Variorum notae, quotation of Chrysostom	Εἰ μὲν γὰρ ἀσώματος εἶ, γυμνὰ ἂν αὐτά σοι τὰ ἀσώματα παρέδωκε δῶρα ...	Nam si tu incorporeus esses, nuda ipsa dona incorporea tradidisset tibi ...	“If you were incorporeal, he would have handed the incorporeal gifts to you bare ...”	EDITORIAL QUOTATION — SACRAMENTAL CONTROL. Chrysostom’s point is that intelligible gifts are given through sensible forms because the human soul is joined to a body. “Bare” means without sensible covering.

What actually matters for our research

Gregory actually puts μυστικός and Εὐαγγέλιον together

The outstanding result is PDF p. 84: βροντὴ γὰρ ὁ μυστικὸς λόγος τὸ Εὐαγγέλιον ὀνομάζει — “For the mystical discourse calls the Gospel thunder.” This is not the phrase μυστικὸν εὐαγγέλιον, but it substantially narrows the semantic distance. In Gregory’s own Christian Greek, a μυστικὸς λόγος can speak directly about what the Gospel is and can interpret its nature. The sentence is followed immediately by Gregory’s description of faith “in the Gospel” becoming firm and transforming believers from flesh to spirit.

PG 45 therefore goes considerably beyond merely showing that mystikos was a common adjective. It places mystical discourse and Gospel within one sentence and one act of Christian interpretation.

The baptismal evidence is explicit and repeated

The Oratio catechetica gives us a remarkably dense cluster. The bath is part of the μυστικὰ διδάγματα; regeneration occurs through a μυστικὴ οἰκονομία; the purifying water is ὕδωρ μυστικόν; and Gregory speaks of washing in the μυστικὸν λουτρόν. This is not a modern reconstruction of an initiatory context. Gregory himself repeatedly attaches mystikos to baptismal water, washing, regeneration and transformation of life.

Contra Eunomium II makes the connection still more precise. Apollos brings Paul’s catechumens to the mystery διὰ τῆς μυστικῆς ἀναγεννήσεως; the Latin renders this per mysticam sive initialem regenerationem, “through mystical, that is initiatory, regeneration.” The lexical connection between “mystical” and initiation could scarcely be clearer.

Mystical rites, Eucharistic flesh and blood, and the initiated occur in one complex

The cluster on PDF pp. 451–454 is among the strongest bodies of evidence yet encountered in the PG survey. Gregory speaks repeatedly of μυστικὰ σύμβολα and μυστικὰ ἔθη. Immediately before saying that salvation is strengthened by participation in these mystical rites and symbols, he cites being born from water and Spirit and eating Christ’s flesh and drinking his blood. He then speaks of customs observed by the μεμυημένοι, the initiated, and of sanctification proceeding from the mystical symbols.

Here “mystical” is not simply a synonym for allegorical. The word belongs to an ecclesiastical system of initiation, baptism, Eucharistic participation and sanctification.

Gregory also connects μυστικῶς with the evangelical tradition

PDF p. 384 is particularly useful because Gregory says that the theological truth under discussion is expressed καλῶς καὶ μυστικῶς ... κατὰ τὴν εὐαγγελικὴν παράδοσιν. The Latin makes the intended force explicit with mystice, id est arcano: “mystically, that is secretly,” according to the evangelical tradition.

Taken together with the p. 84 “mystical discourse” and Gospel passage, PG 45 establishes that mystikos vocabulary could operate naturally inside the semantic world of Gospel and evangelical tradition, not merely beside sacramental ritual.

Mystical water becomes burial with Christ

The Adversus Apollinarem passage on PDF p. 642 is unusually important for the Mystic Pascha hypothesis. Gregory says that Christians voluntarily die with Christ by being τῷ μυστικῷ ὕδατι διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσματος ἐνθαπτόμενοι, “buried in the mystical water through baptism.” He immediately cites being “buried with him through baptism into death” so that imitation of the Resurrection may follow imitation of death.

The conceptual sequence is therefore explicit: mystical water, baptism, burial, Christ’s death and resurrection. It does not prove that Clement called a Passion narrative the “Mystic Gospel.” It does show that Christian mystikos language could be bound directly to ritual participation in the death-burial-resurrection sequence at the heart of Pascha.

PG 45 is even more decisive for the semantics of γυμνός

The dominant γυμν- evidence in this volume is not bodily exposure at all. Gregory repeatedly uses the family to mean plain, explicit, uncovered, disclosed or stripped of a concealing layer. A blasphemy is set forth γυμνῇ τῇ λέξει; Paul makes a mystery clearer γυμνότερον; the glory enclosed in the written letter is γυμνωθεῖσα from its mask and revealed; and arguments repeatedly “strip bare” the concealed intention of a discourse.

The passage on PDF p. 369 is particularly important: Paul makes a μυστήριον clear γυμνότερον. Here the semantic relationship between mystery and nakedness is almost the inverse of the sexualizing interpretation sometimes imposed on γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ. To make something “more naked” is to disclose a mystery more explicitly.

The “bare letter” provides the clearest hermeneutical control

On PDF p. 500 Gregory mocks a “new interpreter of the mystical teachings” and immediately faults him for remaining with the ψιλὸν γράμμα, rendered in Latin as the nuda littera, and for supplying a nudam ad verbum ... lectionem, a “bare word-for-word reading.” On p. 510 the same opposition returns with the person who looks only to the “bare letter.”

This agrees perfectly with the γυμν- verbs elsewhere in the volume. On p. 518 the Latin actually glosses the operation as denudare sive aperire sensum: to “strip bare, that is, open the meaning.” On p. 586 Gregory says he will first ἀπογυμνώσω the underlying meaning from the darkness of the wording. Nakedness language therefore belongs to a systematic vocabulary of textual disclosure.

Even Gospel words can be γυμνά

One of the most striking controls occurs on PDF p. 385. Gregory cites Jesus’ “The words that I speak are spirit and life” and says that the words are γυμνά of their bodily covering. In other words, Gospel language itself becomes “naked” when the corporeal veil is removed and its spiritual significance is apprehended.

This usage is especially damaging to any attempt to treat γυμνός as though it carried an intrinsically erotic force. In Gregory, the same lexical family can describe an uncovered seabed, bare iron, an unsheathed sword, direct divine manifestation, an unveiled intellectual power, the stripping of falsehood, the disclosure of a mystery and the spiritual apprehension of Gospel words.

PG 45 — Result

PG 45 is one of the strongest volumes so far for the conceptual naturalness of a “Mystic Gospel.” Gregory explicitly puts μυστικὸς λόγος and Εὐαγγέλιον together; speaks of something being transmitted μυστικῶς according to the “evangelical tradition”; repeatedly calls baptismal water, regeneration and teaching mystical; and places mystical rites and symbols in a context of initiation, baptism, Eucharistic flesh and blood, and sanctification. The later Adversus Apollinarem passage then joins mystical water to baptismal burial in Christ’s death and the imitation of his Resurrection. This remains semantic and conceptual evidence rather than proof of Clement’s historical usage, but the architecture is exceptionally close to the problem under investigation.

The γυμν- evidence is equally consequential. Gregory uses nakedness vocabulary over and over for the removal of coverings from words, arguments and mysteries so that their meaning becomes manifest. He can speak of a mystery being stated “more nakedly,” the glory inside the letter being stripped of its mask, Gospel words becoming naked of corporeal covering, and the meaning of a text being “stripped bare” from the darkness of its wording. PG 45 therefore makes it especially difficult to derive a sexual meaning from γυμνός itself. In Gregory’s Greek, “naked” is above all a profoundly flexible word for what is uncovered, unmediated, explicit or deprived of a covering; any sexual sense would have to be established independently by the surrounding context.

PG 46 — μυστικ-/mystic- and γυμν-/nud-

PG 46 is the forty-sixth volume in the survey and the third PG volume devoted to Gregory of Nyssa. The procedure is simple: first establish the concordance, then ask which passages actually matter for the two problems under investigation—the possible meaning of Clement’s “Mystic Gospel” and the meaning of γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ in the Letter to Theodore.

For exhaustive control the 654-page PDF was searched in 14 closed audit batches of no more than 50 pages each: pp. 1–50, 51–100, 101–150, and so forth, ending with pp. 651–654. Only after those batch audits were completed were the results assembled into three presentation sections: Part 1 = pp. 1–218; Part 2 = pp. 219–436; Part 3 = pp. 437–654.

The μυστικ-/mystic- audit produced 66 printed occurrences. Of these, 16 occur in works securely presented here as Gregory’s primary text; one belongs to an attribution-discussed epistle, one to a fragment, six to dubia/spuria, and 42 are separately printed occurrences in the analytical index. By presentation section: Part 1 = 3; Part 2 = 10; Part 3 = 53.

The analytical index at the end of this volume is Latin-only. Accordingly, the dashes in the Greek column for those index rows indicate that no Greek text is printed there; wherever the main text actually prints Greek, the Greek is included below.

Table 1A. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 46 — Part 1, pp. 1–218

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 74 — Gregory, De anima et resurrectione	ἐν τῇ τυπικῇ τοῦ ναοῦ κατασκευῇ ...	in figurata ac mystica templi fabricatione ...	“in the figurative and mystical construction of the temple ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN MYSTIC-. The Greek has typikē; the Latin independently characterizes the typological temple as “mystical.” The surrounding discussion concerns restricted access to the interior of the sanctuary.
PDF p. 142 — Gregory, De perfecta Christiani forma	ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τοῦ μυστικοῦ πάθους ὁ γενναιότατος ἐκεῖνος βουλευτής, ἀσπίλῳ καὶ καθαρᾷ τῇ σινδόνι τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Κυρίου διαλαβών, καινῷ τε καὶ καθαρῷ μνημείῳ ἐναπέθετο.	cum mysticae passionis tempore nobilis ille senator immaculata mundaque sindone involvens Domini corpus in novo et puro monumento posuit.	“At the time of the mystical Passion, that noble senator, wrapping the Lord’s body in a spotless and clean linen, placed it in a new and clean tomb.”	EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. Gregory places mystikos directly on the Passion and immediately combines it with Joseph of Arimathea, the Lord’s body, a clean sindōn, and the new tomb. He then uses this burial image to explain worthy reception of the Lord’s body.
PDF p. 166 — Gregory, Adversus eos qui castigationes aegre ferunt	καὶ τὸ πῦρ ἀνῆπτον τὸ μυστικόν, ὃ πρὸ τοῦ θυμιάματος τοὺς θυμιῶντας κατέφλεξε.	ignemque mysticum accenderunt, quod ante incensum suffientes exussit.	“and they kindled the mystical fire, which before the incense burned those offering it.”	PRIMARY GREGORY. The reference belongs to the Korah/Dathan/Abiram priestly rebellion and applies mystikos to sacred fire.

Table 1B. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 46 — Part 2, pp. 219–436

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 219 — Gregory, Adversus eos qui baptismum differunt	Ἔλθοις τῷ μυστικῷ λαῷ καὶ μάθε λόγους ἀπορρήτους.	Inire populo mystico, et arcanos disce sermones.	“Come to the mystical people and learn secret words.”	EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. Gregory addresses the person still lingering among the catechumens when the mystery is about to be spoken. The “mystical people” learn logoi aporrētoi, secret words, and the Ethiopian eunuch’s baptism follows as the model.
PDF p. 299 — Gregory, In Baptismum Christi	ἡ τοῦ Πνεύματος ἐπιφοίτησις, μυστικῶς ἐρχομένη πρὸς τὴν ἡμετέραν ἐλευθερίαν.	Spiritus, qui mystice ad nostram libertatem venit ...	“the visitation of the Spirit, coming mystically for our liberation.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — BAPTISMAL. The Spirit’s mystical coming supplies what ordinary water cannot accomplish.
PDF p. 299 — Gregory, In Baptismum Christi	διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς μυστικῆς πράξεως αὐτῇ προσλαμβάνομεν, τῷ αἰσθητῷ πράγματι τὴν ἀσώματον δηλοῦντες λαμπρότητα.	propterea etiam in mystica actione eam adhibemus ...	“therefore we employ it also in the mystical action, signifying through the sensible thing the incorporeal brightness.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — SACRAMENTAL. Gregory explicitly distinguishes the sensible water from the incorporeal reality signified in the mystical action.
PDF p. 302 — Gregory, In Baptismum Christi	Ὅρα τοίνυν τύπον μυστικόν ...	Vide igitur typum mysticum ...	“See then a mystical type ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — BAPTISMAL TYPOLOGY. The Hagar/Ishmael water episode becomes a mystical type of salvation through living water.
PDF p. 306 — Gregory, In Baptismum Christi	δείξατέ μοι μετὰ τὴν μυστικὴν χάριν τὴν τῶν τρόπων ἐναλλαγήν ...	ostendite mihi post mysticam gratiam morum mutationem ...	“show me after the mystical grace the change of conduct ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — BAPTISMAL. Mystical grace is expected to produce visible moral transformation.
PDF p. 330 — Gregory, In Christi resurrectionem, Oratio II	μετὰ τὸ δεῖπνον τὸ μυστικὸν ἐξελθόντων αὐτῶν εἰς τὸ ὄρος τῶν Ἐλαιῶν μετὰ τὸ ὑμνῆσαι ...	post coenam mysticam ... in montem Olivarum ...	“after the mystical supper, when they went out to the Mount of Olives after singing the hymn ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MAJOR PASCHAL RESULT. The Last Supper is explicitly “mystical” within the sequence leading directly into the Passion.
PDF p. 354 — Gregory, In ascensionem Christi	μετὰ ταῦτα παρακαλέσας τῇ βακτηρίᾳ τοῦ Πνεύματος ... τὴν μυστικὴν προτίθησι τράπεζαν ...	mensam mysticam proponit ...	“then ... he sets forth the mystical table.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EUCHARISTIC. The mystical table of the Spirit is contrasted with the table of demons.
PDF p. 405 — Gregory, In laudem fratris Basilii	οὐκ ἐπειδὴ τῷ μυστικῷ λουτρῷ τὸν τῆς ἀγνοίας τε καὶ ἀπάτης ῥύπον ἐναπέθετο ...	in mystico lavacro deposuit ...	“because in the mystical bath he laid aside the stain of ignorance and error ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — BAPTISMAL.
PDF p. 414 — Gregory, In laudem fratris Basilii	Τί δεῖ λέγειν τὴν μυστικὴν κιβωτόν ...;	Quid dicam mysticam arcam ...?	“What need is there to speak of the mystical ark ...?”	PRIMARY GREGORY — TYPOLOGICAL. The soul receives the tablets of the covenant as a mystical ark.
PDF p. 436 — Gregory, De Meletio episcopo Antiocheno	πλὴν εἰ μή τις κατὰ τὸ μυστικὸν εἰς τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν μεταλάβοι τὸ ποίμνιον.	nisi quis secundum mysticum sensum gregem ad Ecclesiam traducat.	“unless one transfers the flock to the Church according to the mystical sense.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXEGETICAL.

Table 1C. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 46 — Part 3, pp. 437–654

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 460 — Gregory, Vita Gregorii Thaumaturgi	μαθητὴς τοῦ Εὐαγγελίου καθίσταται· καὶ πρὶν ἀχθῆναι διὰ τῆς μυστικῆς τε καὶ ἀσωμάτου γεννήσεως ...	discipulus Evangelii fit; ac priusquam per mysticam et incorpoream nativitatem ...	“he becomes a disciple of the Gospel; and before being brought through the mystical and incorporeal birth ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. “Disciple of the Gospel” and mystical birth occur in immediate sequence, with the latter referring to Christian regeneration.
PDF p. 464 — Gregory, Vita Gregorii Thaumaturgi	Τὰ δὲ τῆς μυσταγωγίας ῥήματα, ταῦτά ἐστιν ...	Porro mysticae illius disciplinae verba haec sunt ...	“The words of that mystical instruction are these ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN MYSTIC-. The Greek uses the distinct family mystagōgia; the Latin has a genuine printed mysticae. It is counted only as a Latin mystic- occurrence.
PDF p. 495 — Gregory, Vita Macrinae	ταῖς μυστικαῖς ἑαυτοῦ ἱερουργίαις ἀφιερώσας.	mysticis sacris suis fratrem consecrans.	“consecrating his brother through his own mystical sacred rites.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ECCLESIASTICAL/RITUAL.
PDF p. 521 — Epistola IV, attribution discussed in the PG material	ἀλλ’ ὁ μυστικὸς χρυσός, ὁ τῇ πίστει τῶν Χριστιανῶν ... ἐνειλημμένος ...	sed mysticum aurum, quod Christianorum fide ... involutum ...	“but the mystical gold, wrapped as it were in the faith of Christians ...”	ATTRIBUTION-DISCUSSED MATERIAL.
PDF p. 564 — fragment	οὕτως προσμένωμεν τῇ μυστικῇ τραπέζῃ, ἐν ᾗ τῶν οὐρανίων μεταλαμβάνομεν.	sic mysticae mensae adhaereamus in qua coelestia participamus.	“so let us remain at the mystical table, at which we partake of heavenly things.”	FRAGMENT — EUCHARISTIC. Mystical table and heavenly participation are directly joined.
PDF p. 584 — De occursu Domini, dubia/spuria	ἡ τῆς θείας βροντῆς ἐν τῷ μυστικῷ τροχῷ τοῦ Εὐαγγελίου ...	illa divini tonitrui in mystica Evangelii rota ...	“that divine thunder in the mystical wheel of the Gospel ...”	DUBIA/SPURIA — DIRECT GOSPEL COMBINATION. The lexical association with Gospel is exceptionally close, although the work cannot be used as secure Gregory.
PDF p. 584 — De occursu Domini, dubia/spuria	καθάπερ τινὰ μυστικώτατον σύγκλητον, τὸν τῆς Ἐκκλησίας λαόν, τὸ βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα ...	velut mysticissimum senatum ...	“like a most mystical assembly, the people of the Church, the royal priesthood ...”	DUBIA/SPURIA — ECCLESIAL.
PDF p. 585 — De occursu Domini, dubia/spuria	τῆς νηστείας ... ἀναγωγικῶς νοουμένης ...	jejunium ... mystico sensu intelligendum est ...	“the fast is to be understood in a mystical sense.”	LATIN-ONLY MYSTIC- IN DUBIA/SPURIA. The Greek uses anagogical terminology rather than the μυστικ- family.
PDF p. 585 — De occursu Domini, dubia/spuria	—	sententiam mysticam translatione facta, indicat ...	“by the transfer it indicates a mystical meaning ...”	LATIN-ONLY MYSTIC- IN DUBIA/SPURIA. The facing Greek expresses the interpretation with different vocabulary; no Greek μυστικ- form is printed for this Latin occurrence.
PDF p. 586 — De occursu Domini, dubia/spuria	τῶν μυστικῶν ὑδάτων πληρώσασα ...	Dei mysticis aquis repleta ...	“filled with the mystical waters ...”	DUBIA/SPURIA. Mystical-water imagery appears again.
PDF p. 597 — De occursu Domini, dubia/spuria	καὶ ἄλλοις ἄλλοθεν προφητικῶν λογίων μυστικοῖς ἄνθεσι ...	aliis aliunde sumptis mysticis propheticorum oraculorum floribus ...	“and with other mystical flowers of prophetic oracles gathered from elsewhere ...”	DUBIA/SPURIA — SCRIPTURAL.
PDF p. 633 — analytical index	—	Aaron Moysis frater ... quid mystice denotet.	“what Aaron, brother of Moses, signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 633 — analytical index	—	Aegyptii plagae ... quid mystice significent.	“what the plagues of Egypt signify mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 633 — analytical index	—	aer ater et tenebrosus Aegyptiis quid mystice.	“what the dark and gloomy air of the Egyptians signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 633 — analytical index	—	Agar in deserto baptismum mystice figurabat.	“Hagar in the desert mystically prefigured baptism.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX — BAPTISMAL. This index entry explicitly summarizes a baptismal mystical interpretation.
PDF p. 634 — analytical index	—	Aquae in sanguinem conversae ... quid mystice.	“what the waters changed into blood signify mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 634 — analytical index	—	Arcula in qua Moyses aquis expositus quid mystice.	“what the little ark in which Moses was exposed on the waters signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 634 — analytical index	—	Auleorum tabernaculi mystica expositio.	“the mystical exposition of the tabernacle curtains.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 634 — analytical index	—	Baculus mystice quid.	“what the staff signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 635 — analytical index	—	Candelabrum tabernaculi quid mystice.	“what the tabernacle lampstand signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 635 — analytical index	—	Carmelus mystice quid.	“what Carmel signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 635 — analytical index	—	Clitharae et cannae musicae quid mystice.	“what the lyre and musical pipe signify mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 635 — analytical index	—	Cithara et ejus concentus quid mystice.	“what the lyre and its harmony signify mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 635 — analytical index	—	Columnae tabernaculi quid mystice.	“what the tabernacle columns signify mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 635 — analytical index	—	Cortinae tabernaculi quid mystice.	“what the tabernacle curtains signify mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 636 — analytical index	—	Eliae cibus quid mystice.	“what Elijah’s food signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 636 — analytical index	—	Equitatus Pharaonis quid mystice designat.	“what Pharaoh’s cavalry designates mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 636 — analytical index	—	Ebrietas mystice quid.	“what drunkenness signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 637 — analytical index	—	Hyacinthinus color in veste pontificis quid mystice.	“what the hyacinth color in the high-priestly garment signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 638 — analytical index	—	Iter trium dierum quid mystice.	“what the three-day journey signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 639 — analytical index	—	Manus Moysis in sinu commutata quid mystice.	“what Moses’ transformed hand in his bosom signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 639 — analytical index	—	Maris Rubri transitus mystice.	“the crossing of the Red Sea mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 639 — analytical index	—	Moysis vita ... ejus mystica interpretatio.	“the Life of Moses ... its mystical interpretation.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 639 — analytical index	—	Nardi odor quid mystice.	“what the odor of nard signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 639 — analytical index	—	ejus mystica expositio.	“its mystical exposition.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX. A separately printed second nard entry.
PDF p. 639 — analytical index	—	Nubes Mosaica quid etiam mystice.	“what the Mosaic cloud also signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 640 — analytical index	—	Primogenitorum Aegypti exterminatio quid mystice.	“what the destruction of the Egyptian firstborn signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 640 — analytical index	—	masculina et foeminea mystice quid.	“what the masculine and feminine signify mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 640 — analytical index	—	Propitiatorium quid mystice.	“what the propitiatory signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 641 — analytical index	—	Pulchritudo corporis et membrorum Christi ... mystice explanatur.	“the beauty of Christ’s body and members is explained mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 641 — analytical index	—	Racemus ex ligno dependens quid mystice.	“what the cluster hanging from the wood signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 641 — analytical index	—	Ranarum immunda multitudo mystice quid designet.	“what the unclean multitude of frogs designates mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 641 — analytical index	—	Rubus ardens Mosaicus ... quid mystice.	“what Moses’ burning bush signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 641 — analytical index	—	Sancta sanctorum in tabernaculo quid mystice.	“what the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 641 — analytical index	—	Serpentes magorum Aegyptiorum mystice quid.	“what the serpents of the Egyptian magicians signify mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 641 — analytical index	—	Somnium mortis similitudo ... quid mystice.	“what the resemblance of sleep to death signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 642 — analytical index	—	Syriae forma duplex, et quid mystice.	“the twofold form of Syria and what it signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 642 — analytical index	—	Unguentum effusum quid mystice.	“what the poured-out ointment signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 642 — analytical index	—	Urim tabernaculi quinam mystice.	“what the Urim of the tabernacle signify mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 642 — analytical index	—	Vectes tabernaculi mystice quid.	“what the bars of the tabernacle signify mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 642 — analytical index	—	Vinea quid mystice.	“what the vineyard signifies mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 643 — analytical index	—	Virga Aaronis sola floruit ... quid per hoc mystice designatum.	“Aaron’s rod alone blossomed ... what is designated mystically by this.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.
PDF p. 643 — analytical index	—	Ziphaei quinam et quos mystice denotent.	“who the Ziphites are and whom they denote mystically.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX.

The strongest results are not the numerous index summaries but a remarkably coherent series in Gregory’s own works: the mystical Passion includes the Lord’s body, sindōn and tomb; the catechumen is summoned to the mystical people to learn secret words; baptism is a mystical action; the Last Supper is a mystical supper; the Eucharistic table is a mystical table; and Christian regeneration is described as a mystical birth.

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The γυμν-/nud-/denud-/exu- audit produced 66 genuine printed occurrences after exercise-family vocabulary and OCR noise were removed. By presentation section: Part 1 = 13; Part 2 = 36; Part 3 = 17.

Table 2A. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 46 — Part 1, pp. 1–218

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 34 — Gregory, De anima et resurrectione	τὴν ἀκατάσκευόν τε καὶ γυμνὴν πάσης περιβολῆς ... λόγον	ab omni velamine et amictu nudam ... orationem.	“the discourse bare of every covering and unadorned.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — RHETORICAL. Nakedness describes an argument without rhetorical covering.
PDF p. 40 — Gregory, De anima et resurrectione	ψιλῶς ... καὶ ἀκατασκευάστως ...	ita nude atque simpliciter, nulla adhibita probatione ...	“so barely and simply, without supplying a demonstration.”	LATIN NUD- CONTROL. The Greek uses psilōs, not γυμν-.
PDF p. 41 — Gregory, De anima et resurrectione	μὴ γυμνωθῆναι τῶν κρειττόνων ἡμᾶς ...	ne melioribus nudentur.	“lest we be stripped of the better things.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — METAPHORICAL DEPRIVATION.
PDF p. 44 — Gregory, De anima et resurrectione	μηδὲν αὐτῆς μέρος γυμνὴν τῆς περιβολῆς τοῦ ἀέρος ...	ut nulla ejus pars ab aeris amplexu ... nuda deprehendatur.	“so that no part of it is found bare of the surrounding air.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — NON-BODILY. The earth is nowhere “naked” of surrounding air.
PDF p. 50 — Gregory, De anima et resurrectione	ὃς γε ἑαυτὸν γυμνωθείς ...	qui quidem omnibus nudatus ...	“having been stripped of all those things ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ABRAHAMIC/ASCETIC. Abraham is stripped of former securities and supports.
PDF p. 51 — Gregory, De anima et resurrectione	οὐδὲ ... παυσαμένου τοῦ ζῆν ... ἀπέδυσατο ...	nec cum vivere desisset penitus exuerat ...	“even when life had ceased, he had not entirely put it off.”	PRIMARY TEXT / CLOTHING METAPHOR.
PDF p. 77 — Gregory, De anima et resurrectione	τῶν γυμνωθέντων ὀστέων ...	ab ossibus nudatis ...	“from bare bones ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DEATH/BODILY.
PDF p. 82 — Gregory, De anima et resurrectione	γυμνωθείη τοῦ περιβλήματος ...	eo amictu nudatus sit ...	“should be stripped of that covering.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — GARMENT ANALOGY.
PDF p. 87 — Gregory, De anima et resurrectione	οἱ καθ’ ἕκαστον γυμνωθέντες τοῦ κατὰ ... εἴδους ...	qui ... illa specie forma nudati ...	“those who individually have been stripped of that form ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — RESURRECTION/IDENTITY.
PDF p. 101 — Gregory, De infantibus qui praemature abripiuntur	γυμνὸν τῶν εὐπρεπιστῶν προκαλυμμάτων ...	nudum ... ornamentorum velamen ...	“bare of the decorative coverings ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — METAPHORICAL. A condition is exposed after ornamental appearances are removed.
PDF p. 153 — Gregory, De instituto Christiano	ἀποθέσθαι κελεύει ταύτην, ὡς ἐσθῆτα ῥυπῶσαν.	hoc exuere praecipit, tanquam vestem sordidam.	“he commands that this be put off like a filthy garment.”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN EXU-. Moral vice is clothing to be discarded.
PDF p. 195 — Gregory, De virginitate	Τί οὖν ἐκεῖνος ἦν; γυμνὸς μὲν τῆς τῶν νεκρῶν δερμάτων ἐπιβολῆς, ἐν παρρησίᾳ δὲ τὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ πρόσωπον βλέπων ...	Quid igitur illud erat? Nudus quidem is, necdum mortuis pellibus amictus ...	“What then was he? Naked, not yet clothed in the dead skins, and freely beholding the face of God ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MAJOR ADAMIC CONTROL. Adamic nakedness is associated with Paradise and freedom before the garments of mortality, not with sexual activity.
PDF p. 196 — Gregory, De virginitate	τὸ φρόνημα τῆς σαρκὸς ἀπεκδυσάμενοι ...	carnis prudentiam exuamus.	“having put off the mind of the flesh.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ASCETIC/METAPHORICAL.

Table 2B. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 46 — Part 2, pp. 219–436

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 226 — Gregory, Contra usurarios	τὸν γυμνὸν ...	nudum ...	“the naked/stripped man ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ECONOMIC HUMILIATION. The usurer preys upon someone already destitute.
PDF p. 226 — Gregory, Contra usurarios	... ἀπεκδύων ...	exuens, vulneratumque denuo vulnerans ...	“stripping him, and wounding the already wounded again.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ECONOMIC VIOLENCE.
PDF p. 233 — Gregory, Contra usurarios	ταῦτα οὐ ῥήματα φοβοῦντα ...	Haec non sunt nuda verborum terriculamenta ...	“These are not bare verbal threats ...”	PRIMARY TEXT / LATIN NUD- — RHETORICAL.
PDF p. 237 — Gregory, De pauperibus amandis	ἐὰν ἴδῃς γυμνόν, περίβαλε ...	Cum videris nudum, operi eum ...	“When you see the naked, clothe him.”	SCRIPTURAL QUOTATION / POVERTY.
PDF p. 237 — Gregory, De pauperibus amandis	τῶν γυμνῶν καὶ τῶν ἀστέγων ...	nudorum ... et sine tecto ...	“the naked and homeless ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — LITERAL POVERTY.
PDF p. 239 — Gregory, De pauperibus amandis	ἀμφιέννυσι τὴν γυμνήν ...	vestit nudam ...	“he clothes the naked woman ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — CHARITY.
PDF p. 245 — Gregory, De pauperibus amandis	ἐπείνασα ... ἐδίψησα ... ξένος ... γυμνός ...	esurivi ... sitivi ... hospes eram, et nudus ...	“I was hungry ... thirsty ... a stranger ... and naked ...”	GOSPEL QUOTATION / WORKS OF MERCY.
PDF p. 246 — Gregory, De pauperibus amandis	ἐν γυμνῷ τῷ σώματι ...	in nudo corpore ...	“upon the naked body ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — PUNISHMENT/BODILY EXPOSURE.
PDF p. 246 — Gregory, De pauperibus amandis	—	istas abjectasque carnis exuviolas ...	“these cast-off coverings of the flesh ...”	LATIN EXU- FAMILY. The Latin describes the body as a discarded covering; the facing Greek uses different wording.
PDF p. 248 — Gregory, De pauperibus amandis	ὃ δὲ ... τοῦ σώματος ἀπογυμνώσας ...	corporis parte ... eam denudat ...	“he uncovers the diseased part of his body ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MEDICAL/POVERTY. Bodily exposure is used to display disease and arouse pity; it is not erotic.
PDF p. 250 — Gregory, De pauperibus amandis	ξένος, καὶ γυμνός ...	hospes, nudus ...	“a stranger and naked ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — POVERTY.
PDF p. 250 — Gregory, De pauperibus amandis	ἀλήτης καὶ γυμνὸς περιέρχεται ...	vagus oberrat et nudus ...	“he wanders as a vagrant and naked ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — POVERTY.
PDF p. 256 — Gregory, Contra fornicarios	ἐκείνης ὑπεκδυόμενος ...	qui ab illius ausis se facile exuebat.	“slipping away from her attempt ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — SEXUAL CONTEXT, BUT NOT SEXUAL NAKEDNESS. The surrounding subject is resistance to sexual temptation; the stripping vocabulary describes escape/divestment rather than intercourse.
PDF p. 261 — Gregory, De mortuis	τὴν ἡδονὴν τε καὶ τὴν λύπην μετὰ τοῦ σώματος ...	corpore voluptatem et dolorem exuerunt.	“with the body they have put off pleasure and pain.”	PRIMARY TEXT / LATIN EXU- — DEATH.
PDF p. 262 — Gregory, De mortuis	—	exuentes nos ea affectione, qua carnem complectimur ...	“putting off the attachment by which we cling to the flesh.”	PRIMARY TEXT / LATIN EXU- — ASCETIC.
PDF p. 266 — Gregory, De mortuis	—	cum infantiam exuerint ...	“when they have put off infancy ...”	PRIMARY TEXT / LATIN EXU- — AGE METAPHOR.
PDF p. 272 — Gregory, De mortuis	γυμνὸν τοῦ ἐκ τῶν τριχῶν σκεπάσματος τὸ σῶμα ...	corpus ... nudum pilorum tegumento ...	“the body bare of a natural covering of hair ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — LITERAL HUMAN NAKEDNESS. Gregory uses natural human nakedness to explain the necessity of manufactured clothing.
PDF p. 273 — Gregory, De mortuis	—	exuta vacuaque appellatio ...	“a stripped and empty appellation ...”	PRIMARY TEXT / LATIN EXU- — ABSTRACT.
PDF p. 290 — Gregory, De deitate Filii et Spiritus Sancti	οὐ ψιλὸν Λόγον, ἀλλὰ σάρκα γενόμενον ...	non nudum Verbum, sed caro factum ...	“not the bare Word, but the Word made flesh ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY / LATIN NUD- — CHRISTOLOGICAL. Nudus translates Greek psilos, not physical nakedness.
PDF p. 303 — Gregory, In Baptismum Christi	οὐ γυμνός, ἀλλ’ ἐμβληθεὶς λάρνακι ...	non nudus ...	“not naked, but placed in an ark ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MOSES/BAPTISMAL TYPOLOGY. The word retains its ordinary physical meaning inside a baptismal typology.
PDF p. 305 — Gregory, In Baptismum Christi	ἐκδύων αὐτὸν τὴν ῥυπαρὰν ἐσθῆτα ...	exuens eum tristi veste ...	“stripping off his filthy garment ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — RITUAL/TYPOLOGICAL CLOTHING.
PDF p. 305 — Gregory, In Baptismum Christi	ἐν τῷ βαπτίσματι τοῦ Ἰησοῦ πάντες ἡμεῖς ἐκδυόμενοι τὰς ἁμαρτίας ὡς χιτῶνα πτωχικόν ...	in baptismate Jesu, omnes nos exuentes peccata, tanquam tunicam mendici ...	“in Jesus’ baptism, all of us putting off our sins like a beggar’s tunic ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT BAPTISMAL CONTROL. Stripping belongs explicitly to baptism, but Gregory himself tells us what is removed: sins, figured as an old garment.
PDF p. 308 — Gregory, In Baptismum Christi	—	exuisti nos foliis ficulneis ...	“you have stripped us of the fig leaves ...”	PRIMARY TEXT / LATIN EXU- — ADAMIC/BAPTISMAL.
PDF p. 313 — Gregory, In Christi resurrectionem, Oratio I	γυμναῖς καὶ ἀόπλοις χερσί ...	nudis et inermibus manibus ...	“with bare and unarmed hands ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — BODY PART.
PDF p. 323 — Gregory, In Christi resurrectionem, Oratio II	γυμνὴν ...	nudam ...	“bare/plain ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXPLICIT DISCLOSURE. The context concerns the open proclamation of the Resurrection rather than bodily exposure.
PDF p. 326 — Gregory, In Christi resurrectionem, Oratio II	σῶμα τῶν ὀθονίων ἀπογυμνοῦν, προσκεκολλημένων ...	corpus linteis ... denudare ...	“to strip the body of the linens that were adhering to it ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT TOMB/LINEN PARALLEL. In a Resurrection discussion, γυμν- vocabulary refers specifically to stripping a body of its burial linens.
PDF p. 327 — Gregory, In Christi resurrectionem, Oratio II	ὅτε γυμνὸς ἦν ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ καὶ οὐκ ᾐσχύνετο ...	cum nudus esset in paradiso neque erubesceret ...	“when he was naked in Paradise and was not ashamed.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ADAMIC. Literal prelapsarian nakedness.
PDF p. 360 — Gregory, homily on Stephen	ἐκεῖνος τὸν ἄνθρωπον ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἐνδυόμενος ...	ille pro nobis induens, hic pro illo hominem exuens.	“he put on humanity for us; this one puts off the man for him.”	PRIMARY TEXT / LATIN EXU- — CHRISTOLOGICAL CLOTHING.
PDF p. 371 — Gregory, In laudem S. Stephani altera	ἄνθρωπος μὲν φύσιν ἐνδεδυμένος ...	non exuta hominis natura ...	“without having put off human nature ...”	PRIMARY TEXT / LATIN EXU-.
PDF p. 392 — Gregory, In quadraginta martyres	γυμνοὶ εἰσήλθομεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον ...	Nudi introivimus in mundum ...	“Naked we entered the world ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MARTYRDOM/POVERTY.
PDF p. 392 — Gregory, In quadraginta martyres	γυμνοὶ πρὸς τὸν εἰσαγαγόντα ἀπελευσόμεθα.	nudi ad eum qui nos introduxit abibimus.	“naked we shall return to the one who brought us in.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MARTYRDOM.
PDF p. 392 — Gregory, In quadraginta martyres	μᾶλλον δὲ γυμνοὶ ἐπελθόντες, πλήρεις θησαυρῶν τῶν ἐκ τῆς ἀγαθῆς ὁμολογίας ἀπελευσόμεθα.	immo vero nudi ingressi, thesauris ... pleni abibimus.	“Rather, having entered naked, we shall depart full of the treasures produced by our good confession.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — MARTYRDOM/ASCETIC REVERSAL. Material nakedness is contrasted with spiritual wealth.
PDF p. 397 — Gregory, In quadraginta martyres	ἀποδύσας τοὺς ἁγίους, ὑπαιθρίους ἔστησεν ...	omnibus indumentis spolians, sub dio nudos toto corpore constituit.	“stripping the saints of all their clothes, he placed them outdoors naked over the whole body.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — FORCED NAKEDNESS/PUNISHMENT. The nakedness is explicitly created by stripping the martyrs and exposing them to deadly cold; nothing in the scene is erotic.
PDF p. 409 — Gregory, In laudem fratris Basilii	γυμνωθῆναι τῶν ἐπ’ ὠφελείᾳ συνόντων ...	nudari ac deseri ...	“to be stripped/deprived of those companions who were beneficial.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — DEPRIVATION.
PDF p. 435 — Gregory, De Meletio	γυμνοὶ καὶ πένητες ...	nudi et pauperes ...	“naked and poor ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — BEREAVEMENT. The congregation describes itself as impoverished by the loss of its bishop.
PDF p. 435 — Gregory, De Meletio	γυμνούς ἡμᾶς τοὺς ποτὲ πλουτοῦντας κατέλιπεν.	nos olim divites nudos destituit.	“he has left us naked, who were once rich.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — METAPHORICAL LOSS.

Table 2C. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 46 — Part 3, pp. 437–654

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 443 — Gregory, In funere Pulcheriae	τῆς πορφύρας ... ἀπεδύσατο ...	purpurae florem exuit, at superi ... amictum induit.	“she put off the purple garment and put on the heavenly covering.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — FUNERAL/CLOTHING METAPHOR.
PDF p. 453 — Gregory, funeral oration for Placilla	τὴν πορφύραν ἀπεδύσατο, Χριστὸν δὲ ἐνεδύσατο.	exuit vestem purpuream, at Christum induit.	“she put off the purple garment and put on Christ.”	PRIMARY GREGORY — CHRISTIAN CLOTHING METAPHOR.
PDF p. 453 — Gregory, funeral oration for Placilla	γυμνός, ἀσθενής, ἐν φυλακῇ ...	nudus, infirmus, in carcere.	“naked, sick, in prison.”	GOSPEL/WORKS OF MERCY.
PDF p. 478 — Gregory, Vita Gregorii Thaumaturgi	ἀνασχεθέντα θανάτῳ τὸν δείλαιον τοῦτον, γυμνὸν κεῖ ...	mortuum ... nudum jacere ...	“this unfortunate man lies dead and naked ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — CORPSE/CHARITY. Literal nakedness of an unburied or destitute dead man.
PDF p. 484 — Gregory, Vita Gregorii Thaumaturgi	—	flammam ... nudam conspiciendam praebere.	“to display the flame bare/exposed.”	PRIMARY TEXT / LATIN NUD- — NON-BODILY.
PDF p. 503 — Gregory, Vita Macrinae	Ἡ δὲ μέρος τι τοῦ στήθους παραγυμνώσασα ...	At illa partem pectoris denudans ...	“She, baring part of her breast ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — IMPORTANT BODILY CONTROL. Macrina uncovers part of her breast to display a bodily mark associated with her healing. The context is medical/personal and carefully controlled, not erotic.
PDF p. 512 — Gregory, epistolary material	τινὲς ἡμᾶς γυμνοὺς τοῦ κατὰ τὴν ἱερωσύνην ἀξιώματος ...	nos ... sacerdotii dignitate nudos ...	“some regard us as stripped of the dignity of the priesthood ...”	PRIMARY GREGORY — ECCLESIASTICAL DEPRIVATION.
PDF p. 528 — epistolary material	ἐρῆμον χωρίον ...	nudum illum locum ...	“that bare place ...”	LATIN NUD- — NON-BODILY. An unadorned space or stage.
PDF p. 567 — fragment	οὐ ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον ...	hunc non esse hominem nudum et solum.	“that he is not a mere/bare man.”	FRAGMENT / CHRISTOLOGICAL. Latin nakedness vocabulary renders Greek psilos, “mere.”
PDF p. 569 — fragment	—	nulla contectas umbra, sed apertas ac nudas accepissent.	“if they had received them not covered by any shadow but open and bare.”	FRAGMENT / HERMENEUTICAL. Prophetic sayings become “bare” when no figurative shadow covers them.
PDF p. 570 — fragment quoting Genesis	Τίς ἀνήγγειλέ σοι ὅτι γυμνὸς εἶ ...;	Ecquis indicavit tibi te nudum esse ...?	“Who told you that you were naked?”	SCRIPTURAL QUOTATION — ADAMIC.
PDF p. 604 — Variorum notae, quotation of Tertullian	—	Exinde homo in scorteis vestibus, sed ante sine scrupulo nudus.	“Thereafter man was in garments of skins, but before that was untroubledly naked.”	EDITORIAL QUOTATION — ADAMIC.
PDF p. 605 — Variorum notae	—	si a partibus nudis occasionem adversario ostendet?	“if through uncovered parts he should give the adversary an opportunity?”	EDITORIAL — BODILY/MODESTY CONTEXT.
PDF p. 609 — Variorum notae	—	Nuda sermonis.	“the bare wording of the discourse.”	EDITORIAL — TEXTUAL/HERMENEUTICAL.
PDF p. 631 — Variorum notae	—	auditio nuda hic opponitur ...	“bare hearing is opposed here to ...”	EDITORIAL — HERMENEUTICAL.
PDF p. 640 — analytical index	—	Pedes sacerdotis nudi, et quare.	“the priest’s bare feet, and why.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX — RITUAL.
PDF p. 642 — analytical index	—	Tunicam exuere quid significet.	“what putting off the tunic signifies.”	LATIN ANALYTICAL INDEX — CLOTHING/INTERPRETATION.

What actually matters for our research

The phrase “mystical Passion” is the outstanding PG 46 result

The most important passage in the volume occurs on PDF p. 142. Gregory does not merely call some interpretation of the Passion mystical. He speaks directly of ὁ καιρὸς τοῦ μυστικοῦ πάθους, “the time of the mystical Passion.” In the same sentence Joseph of Arimathea wraps the Lord’s body in a spotless and clean sindōn and deposits it in a new and clean tomb.

The surrounding argument makes the conjunction still more important. Gregory has just identified Christ’s flesh as true food and his blood as true drink and cited Paul’s command concerning eating the bread and drinking the cup. He then turns to the Evangelist’s account of Joseph at the “time of the mystical Passion” and concludes that Christians should receive the Lord’s sacred body with a clean conscience just as Joseph received the corpse in clean linen and a clean tomb. Thus Eucharistic reception, Passion, body, sindōn and tomb are brought into one mystical complex.

The catechumen is told to enter the mystical people and learn secret words

PDF p. 219 is equally significant for the initiatory side of the investigation. Gregory rebukes the person who remains among the catechumens when the mystery is about to be spoken and says: Ἔλθοις τῷ μυστικῷ λαῷ καὶ μάθε λόγους ἀπορρήτους — “Come to the mystical people and learn secret words.” He immediately invokes the Ethiopian eunuch as the model of someone who seeks understanding and baptism without delay.

This is unusually close to the social setting implied by a restricted Christian text. “Mystical” identifies a people who have crossed a boundary not yet crossed by the catechumen; what they learn is explicitly aporrētos, restricted or secret. The passage does not establish the existence of a special Gospel, but it establishes an unmistakably initiatory use of mystikos combined with restricted teaching.

The same baptismal system is called a mystical action

In the baptismal homily Gregory says that ordinary water does not itself produce the new birth; divine command and the visitation of the Spirit do so. The Spirit comes μυστικῶς, and water is employed ἐπὶ τῆς μυστικῆς πράξεως, “in the mystical action,” because a sensible reality signifies an incorporeal brightness.

The same page proceeds from water to the consecrated altar, bread, oil and wine: ordinary material things are transformed in function through consecration and sanctification. The bread, Gregory says, becomes and is called Christ’s body when the mystery is sacramentally performed. This is substantial evidence that “mystical” for Gregory belongs to the Christian sacramental mechanism by which visible material things bear realities not exhausted by their ordinary appearance.

The Last Supper is itself a mystical supper

PG 46 also gives the straightforward expression τὸ δεῖπνον τὸ μυστικόν, “the mystical supper,” in Gregory’s Resurrection material. The disciples leave that supper, sing the hymn and proceed to the Mount of Olives. Here mystikos is attached directly to an episode of the Gospel Passion sequence rather than merely to an allegorical interpretation of an Old Testament text.

Together with the “mystical Passion” passage, this is important for the developing hypothesis. Gregory’s usage demonstrates that a Christian writer could naturally call successive elements of the Passion complex “mystical”: the supper is mystical; the Passion is mystical; the Eucharistic table is mystical; and burial in the clean sindōn and tomb becomes the model for receiving Christ’s body.

Gospel, mystical birth and restricted instruction converge

The Vita Gregorii Thaumaturgi supplies another useful conjunction. Gregory becomes a “disciple of the Gospel” and is then described in relation to the μυστικὴ καὶ ἀσώματος γέννησις, the “mystical and incorporeal birth.” Elsewhere in the same volume the unbaptized person is summoned from the catechumens into the mystical people to learn secret teachings.

The semantic architecture is therefore becoming unusually consistent. Gospel discipleship, restricted teaching, mystical people, baptismal transformation, mystical supper, mystical Eucharistic table and mystical Passion are not isolated dictionary meanings; they belong to overlapping Christian complexes.

PG 46 also gives a direct ritual-stripping control

The strongest γυμν-/stripping passage for ritual interpretation occurs in In Baptismum Christi. Gregory says that in Jesus’ baptism Christians are ἐκδυόμενοι τὰς ἁμαρτίας ὡς χιτῶνα πτωχικόν, “putting off sins like a beggar’s tunic.” The passage is genuinely baptismal and genuinely uses stripping imagery. But precisely because Gregory tells us what is being stripped away, it is a useful methodological control: the ritual context does not make the stripping sexual, and the stripping vocabulary by itself does not tell us that a naked body is involved.

The Resurrection material joins stripping directly to burial linen

PDF p. 326 is particularly relevant to Alexandrian Mark control. In discussing the Resurrection and the condition of Jesus’ grave clothing, Gregory speaks of σῶμα τῶν ὀθονίων ἀπογυμνοῦν, “stripping the body of the linens.” Nakedness vocabulary therefore occurs naturally inside a tomb-and-linen problem. This is canonically explicable and should not be exaggerated into evidence for Clement’s Gospel, but it shows directly that γυμν- language could become part of Christian reflection on a body, burial coverings and an empty tomb.

Actual bodily nakedness remains semantically independent of sexuality

PG 46 contains numerous literal bodily examples that have nothing to do with sex. The poor are naked and homeless; a diseased person uncovers part of the body to display an illness; the Forty Martyrs are stripped completely naked as a form of torture; Macrina uncovers part of her breast to show the physical sign connected with her healing; Adam is naked in Paradise; and Gregory explains the natural nakedness of the human body by observing that humans lack the covering of hair supplied to other animals.

The volume therefore makes the same semantic point already emerging elsewhere in the survey. When nakedness is connected with poverty, medicine, punishment, martyrdom or Paradise, those meanings are established by the surrounding narrative. When the stripping vocabulary occurs in an explicitly sexual discourse, as in Contra fornicarios, it is the attempted seduction and the surrounding subject matter that make the context sexual; the lexical family itself does not carry that meaning.

“Naked” can also mean disclosure

Even in this volume, γυμν-/nud-/exu- repeatedly moves away from the body altogether. An argument can be naked of rhetorical covering; the earth can be naked of surrounding air; a person can be stripped of spiritual goods; an appellation can be bare; the Word can be called “bare” in the sense of merely nominal; and prophetic speech can be received “open and naked,” without the covering of a shadow.

That range is important when approaching γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ. The grammatical fact of nakedness cannot decide whether the intended scene is sexual, ascetic, ritual, baptismal, humiliating, metaphorical or simply literal. The surrounding action must do that work.

PG 46 — Result

PG 46 makes one of the strongest contributions yet to the Mystic Gospel/Mystic Pascha investigation. Gregory explicitly speaks of the “mystical Passion” in a passage joining Eucharistic reception, Christ’s body, Joseph of Arimathea, the sindōn and the tomb. Elsewhere the Last Supper itself is the “mystical supper”; the Eucharistic table is mystical; baptism is a mystical action; Christian regeneration is a mystical birth; and the catechumen is told to enter the “mystical people” and learn secret words. None of this proves that Clement’s μυστικὸν εὐαγγέλιον meant a Passion-week Gospel used in the mysteries, but PG 46 substantially strengthens the historical-semantic plausibility of precisely that conceptual combination.

For γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ, the volume again works strongly against lexical sexualization. Gregory uses nakedness and stripping for poverty, Adamic innocence, martyrdom, bodily punishment, medical examination, burial linen, baptismal divestment of sins, spiritual deprivation and the removal of conceptual or rhetorical coverings. Where stripping occurs in a sexual polemic, the sexual setting is supplied independently by the narrative. PG 46 therefore reinforces the conclusion that γυμνός itself does not authorize a sexual reading; context must establish it.

PG 47 — μυστικ-/mystic- and γυμν-/nud-

PG 47 is the forty-seventh volume in the survey and begins the PG sequence devoted to John Chrysostom. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0} The procedure is simple: first establish the concordance, then ask which passages actually matter for the two problems under investigation—the possible meaning of Clement’s “Mystic Gospel” and the meaning of γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ in the Letter to Theodore.

For exhaustive control the 500-page PDF was searched in 10 closed audit batches of no more than 50 pages each: pp. 1–50, 51–100, 101–150, 151–200, 201–250, 251–300, 301–350, 351–400, 401–450 and 451–500. Only after those batch audits were completed were the results assembled into three presentation sections: Part 1 = pp. 1–167; Part 2 = pp. 168–334; Part 3 = pp. 335–500.

The μυστικ-/mystic- audit produced 0 printed occurrences. Of these, 0 belong to Chrysostom’s primary text. By presentation section: Part 1 = 0; Part 2 = 0; Part 3 = 0. Related vocabulary such as μυστήριον, μυσταγωγία and ἀπόρρητος occurs and proves important below, but none of it has been allowed to inflate the μυστικ- count.

Table 1A. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 47 — Part 1, pp. 1–167

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance

Table 1B. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 47 — Part 2, pp. 168–334

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance

Table 1C. μυστικ-/mystic- in PG 47 — Part 3, pp. 335–500

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance

The lexical concordance is empty, but PG 47 is not irrelevant to the larger investigation. The positive evidence comes instead from the separately controlled μυστήριον/μυσταγωγ-/ἀπόρρητος material: most notably Palladius’s Paschal baptismal narrative and Chrysostom’s own language about access to the mysteries and disclosure of doctrine. These remain interpretive controls and are not μυστικ- occurrences.

---

The γυμν-/nud-/denud- audit, including the protocol’s exu- stripping control, produced 31 genuine printed occurrences after exercise-family vocabulary, judicial uses of γυμνάζω, and OCR noise were removed. Of these, 22 occur in Chrysostom’s primary text; the others belong to Palladius, quoted material or editorial matter. By presentation section: Part 1 = 9; Part 2 = 8; Part 3 = 14.

Table 2A. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 47 — Part 1, pp. 1–167

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 28 — editorial De scriptoribus rerum Chrysostomi	—	qui cum nudam et solitariam veritatem non putarent satis esse magnificam ...	“those who did not think bare and unadorned truth sufficiently magnificent ...”	EDITORIAL — RHETORICAL. Latin nuda denotes truth without embellishment, not bodily nakedness.
PDF p. 64 — Palladius, Dialogus de vita S. Joannis Chrysostomi	πάλιν ἐγύμνου τὸ χρυσίον τοῦ βαλαντίου	rursum e sacculo aurum protulit	“again he exposed the gold in the purse.”	PALLADIUS — NON-BODILY. The verb means exposing or displaying what had been concealed.
PDF p. 65 — Palladius, Dialogus de vita S. Joannis Chrysostomi	αὐτῶν ἐκείνων οὐδέπω τὰ ἐγκλήματα ἀποδυσαμένων	crimina sua nondum exuissent	“before those men had yet stripped themselves of their charges.”	PALLADIUS / EXU- CONTROL — METAPHORICAL. The language of undressing expresses clearing oneself of accusations.
PDF p. 68 — Palladius, Dialogus de vita S. Joannis Chrysostomi	γυναῖκες τῶν εὐκτηρίων πρὸς τὸ βάπτισμα ἀποδυσάμεναι ... γυμναὶ ἐφυγαδεύοντο ὑπὸ τοῦ φόβου τῆς χαλεπῆς ταύτης ἐφόδου	mulieres ... ad baptismum se exuerant ... nudae aufugerunt	“women who had undressed for baptism ... were driven away naked through fear of the violent assault.”	PALLADIUS — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT BAPTISMAL EVIDENCE. The context itself establishes why the women are naked: they had taken off their clothes for baptism when the church was violently invaded. The narrative adds that they were not even allowed time to recover the modest covering appropriate to women. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
PDF p. 89 — Palladius, Dialogus de vita S. Joannis Chrysostomi	Γυμναὶ γὰρ γυναῖκες σὺν τοῖς ἀνδράσι δρασμῷ ἐχρῶντο, φόβῳ τοῦ σφαγῆναι ἢ ἀσχημονῆσαι ...	Nudae enim mulieres cum viris ... turpi fuga se dabant.	“For naked women fled together with the men, fearing that they might be slaughtered or indecently treated ...”	PALLADIUS — MAJOR PASCHAL/BAPTISMAL CONTROL. This is a separately printed retelling of the violent Paschal episode. The nakedness is literal and the threat of sexual indignity is supplied separately by ἀσχημονῆσαι; nakedness itself is not the sexual act.
PDF p. 93 — Palladius, Dialogus de vita S. Joannis Chrysostomi	ἀποδυσάμενος τὰ πρότερα, ἐνεδύσατο ...	exutusque prioribus ... induit.	“having taken off his former garments, he put on [the others].”	PALLADIUS / EXU- CONTROL — LITERAL CLOTHING. Chrysostom changes his clothing shortly before his death.
PDF p. 113 — Palladius, Dialogus de vita S. Joannis Chrysostomi	εἰ μὴ σὺ ἐγύμνωσάς μοι τὸν λόγον, συλλογιστικῶς σαφηνίσας ...	nisi sermonem tuum ... aperuisses aut explicuisses ...	“unless you had laid the argument bare for me, clarifying it syllogistically ...”	PALLADIUS — IMPORTANT SEMANTIC CONTROL. Gymnoō means to expose or clarify the meaning of an argument.
PDF p. 128 — Palladius, Dialogus de vita S. Joannis Chrysostomi	ταῖς πλευραῖς ἀμφοτέρωθεν γυμνοῖς ὀστέοις ...	—	“with the bones laid bare on both sides at the ribs ...”	PALLADIUS — TORTURE/MARTYRDOM. Literal physical exposure caused by extreme violence. The surrounding narrative compares the suffering with the saving Passion. :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}
PDF p. 132 — Palladius, citing Paul	καὶ πεινῶμεν καὶ διψῶμεν καὶ γυμνητεύομεν καὶ κολαφιζόμεθα καὶ ἀστατοῦμεν ...	et esurimus et sitimus et nudi sumus et colaphis caedimur et instabiles sumus ...	“we hunger and thirst and are naked/destitute and are buffeted and wander ...”	QUOTATION — APOSTOLIC HARDSHIP. Nakedness belongs to a list of bodily privations and persecutions. :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}

Table 2B. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 47 — Part 2, pp. 168–334

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 237 — Chrysostom, Ad Theodorum lapsum I	ἔρημος μὲν καὶ γυμνὸς τοῦ κάλλους ἐκείνου καὶ τῆς εὐπρεπείας ἐστίν	—	“it is deserted and stripped of that beauty and comeliness.”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — SPIRITUAL DEPRIVATION. The soul, figured as a formerly adorned sanctuary, has been stripped of divine beauty. Sexual temptations appear afterward among the vices that can enter the now-unprotected soul; gymnos itself denotes deprivation. :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}
PDF p. 257 — Chrysostom, Ad Theodorum lapsum I	Ψυχὴν γὰρ καθ’ ἑαυτὴν σώματος μὲν γεγυμνωμένην οὐδεὶς εἶδεν οὐδαμοῦ.	—	“No one anywhere has seen a soul in itself stripped of the body.”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — BODY/SOUL DISTINCTION. Nakedness vocabulary means separation from the body. :contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5}
PDF p. 257 — Chrysostom, Ad Theodorum lapsum I	βουλόμενος μηδὲ γυμνὰς φῆναι τὰς ἑαυτῶν οὐσίας ἐκεῖναι, ἀλλ’ ἀμυδρῶς σφόδρα καὶ συνεσκιασμένως ...	—	“those powers, not wishing to reveal their own essences bare, but only very dimly and under shadow ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — DISCLOSURE. “Bare” is explicitly opposed to manifestation under shadow and veil. :contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6}
PDF p. 257 — Chrysostom, Ad Theodorum lapsum I	τὸν λιμόν, τὸν κρυμόν, τὴν γυμνότητα, τὴν πύρωσιν, τὴν ἀθυμίαν ...	—	“hunger, cold, nakedness, burning, despondency ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — HARDSHIP. Nakedness is listed with ordinary forms of suffering. :contentReference[oaicite:7]{index=7}
PDF p. 289 — Chrysostom, Adversus oppugnatores vitae monasticae I	τὰ ῥυπῶντα καὶ μεμιασμένα καὶ δυσώδη, καὶ τῆς γυμνότητος αἰσχροτέραν αὐτὴν ἀποφαίνοντα ...	—	“the filthy, defiled and foul-smelling things, making her more shameful than nakedness ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — IMPORTANT SEXUAL-CONTEXT CONTROL. The surrounding metaphor describes the soul stripped of the garments of virtue and clothed with corrupt passions; an explicitly “filthy and unlawful union” appears in the continuation. The sexual coloring therefore comes from the surrounding imagery, while gymnotēs itself remains the comparison “nakedness.” :contentReference[oaicite:8]{index=8}
PDF p. 297 — Chrysostom, Adversus oppugnatores vitae monasticae II	οὔτε γυμνὸν δεῖξαι δυνήσῃ, ἕως ἂν τὰ τῆς ἀρετῆς ἱμάτια περικείμενος ᾖ ...	—	“you will not be able to make him naked so long as he is clothed in the garments of virtue.”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — ASCETIC/METAPHORICAL. Virtue is protective clothing; nakedness is the loss of that protection. :contentReference[oaicite:9]{index=9}
PDF p. 309 — Chrysostom, Adversus oppugnatores vitae monasticae III	καθ’ ἣν γυμνὰ καὶ τετραχηλισμένα πάντα, οὐ τὰ πράγματα λέγω, οὐδὲ τὰ ῥήματα μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὰ τὰ νοήματα.	—	“on that day everything will be naked and laid open—not deeds and words only, but the thoughts themselves.”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE USAGE. Nakedness means complete exposure to judgment, extending even to invisible thoughts. :contentReference[oaicite:10]{index=10}
PDF p. 320 — Chrysostom, Adversus oppugnatores vitae monasticae III	τὸ γυμνὰς αὐτὰς καὶ κυρίας τῶν κακῶν προφέρεσθαι τὰς ὀνομασίας	—	“to pronounce the vices by their bare and proper names.”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — LINGUISTIC DISCLOSURE. Gymnos means explicit, undisguised naming. :contentReference[oaicite:11]{index=11}

Table 2C. γυμν-/nud-/denud- in PG 47 — Part 3, pp. 335–500

Reference / source	Greek	Latin	English	Significance
PDF p. 366 — Chrysostom, De compunctione ad Demetrium I	λιμὸν καὶ δίψαν καὶ γυμνότητα καὶ δεσμὰ καὶ θεάτρους καὶ διαποντίους ἀποδημίας καὶ ναυάγια ...	—	“hunger and thirst and nakedness and bonds and spectacles and journeys across the sea and shipwrecks ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — APOSTOLIC HARDSHIP. Nakedness again belongs to a catalogue of suffering endured for Christ. :contentReference[oaicite:12]{index=12}
PDF p. 370 — Chrysostom, De compunctione ad Demetrium I	ξένος ἤμην, καὶ συνηγάγετέ με· γυμνός, καὶ περιεβάλετέ με ...	—	“I was a stranger and you welcomed me; naked, and you clothed me ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM / GOSPEL QUOTATION — POVERTY. The Matthean works-of-mercy context fixes the meaning. :contentReference[oaicite:13]{index=13}
PDF p. 407 — Chrysostom, Ad Stagirium a daemonio vexatum I	οὐκ ἔστι γὰρ κτίσις ἀφανὴς ἐνώπιον τοῦ τότε κρίνοντος, ἀλλὰ πάντα γυμνὰ καὶ τετραχηλισμένα τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ.	—	“no creature is hidden before the one who judges, but all things are naked and laid open before his eyes.”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — DISCLOSURE/JUDGMENT. The contrast is explicitly between what is hidden and what is naked. :contentReference[oaicite:14]{index=14}
PDF p. 430 — Chrysostom, Ad Stagirium a daemonio vexatum II	πολιὰν αἰσχυνομένην κόνει, καὶ στήθους γηραλέου διαῤῥηγνυμένου τοῦ χιτῶνος γυμνούμενον ...	—	“grey hair dishonored with dust and an aged breast being exposed as the tunic was torn ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — LITERAL BODILY EXPOSURE IN GRIEF. The chest is uncovered because the garment is torn in mourning; the scene is not erotic. :contentReference[oaicite:15]{index=15}
PDF p. 442 — Chrysostom, Ad Stagirium a daemonio vexatum III	ὅτε γυμνὸν αὐτὸν εἶδε προφητεύοντα καὶ καταπίπτοντα ...	—	“when he saw him naked, prophesying and falling down ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — BIBLICAL/PROPHETIC NAKEDNESS. The reference is to Saul’s prophetic episode. :contentReference[oaicite:16]{index=16}
PDF p. 450 — Chrysostom, Ad Stagirium a daemonio vexatum III	τὸν μὲν οὖν λιμὸν, καὶ τὸ δίψος, καὶ τὴν γύμνωσιν, καὶ τὰ ναυάγια ...	—	“hunger, thirst, nakedness/stripping, shipwrecks ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — APOSTOLIC HARDSHIP. Once again the lexical family belongs to a list of Paul’s physical sufferings.
PDF p. 451 — Chrysostom, Ad Stagirium a daemonio vexatum III	κατάκεινται γυμνοί, κρυμῷ καὶ νόσῳ καὶ λιμῷ πολιορκούμενοι διηνεκεῖ ...	—	“they lie there naked, continually besieged by cold, disease and hunger ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — LITERAL POVERTY. Destitute people are lying near the entrances of the baths, using refuse and straw in place of clothing and shelter. :contentReference[oaicite:17]{index=17}
PDF p. 466 — Chrysostom, Contra eos qui subintroductas habent virgines	ἱμάτιον δώς, τὴν δὲ ὑπόληψιν τῶν γυμνῶν αἰσχροτέραν καταστήσῃς ...	—	“though giving clothing, you make the reputation of the naked more shameful ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — CHARITY/POVERTY. Chrysostom attacks almsgiving that relieves bodily need while humiliating the recipient. :contentReference[oaicite:18]{index=18}
PDF p. 479 — Chrysostom, Contra eos qui subintroductas habent virgines	ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγος, τὰ κρυπτὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων εἰς μέσον ἄγων ... πάντα γυμνὰ καὶ τετραχηλισμένα πρὸ τῶν ἁπάντων ὀφθαλμῶν θῇ.	—	“the Word of God, bringing the hidden things of human beings into the open ... will set everything naked and laid open before the eyes of all.”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT SEXUAL-CONTEXT CONTROL. The surrounding argument is explicitly concerned with bodily chastity, intercourse, touching, kisses and embraces. Yet gymna itself means that hidden actions will be revealed at judgment. The sexual context does not convert the adjective into a sexual term. :contentReference[oaicite:19]{index=19}
PDF p. 487 — Chrysostom, Contra eos qui subintroductas habent virgines	ὅταν οὖν πάντα ἁπλῶς ἐπὶ τῆς οἰκουμένης ἁπάσης γυμνὰ φαίνηται καὶ τετραχηλισμένα ...	—	“when absolutely everything throughout the whole inhabited world is shown naked and laid open ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — DISCLOSURE IN A CHASTITY POLEMIC. Once again the meaning is public revelation at judgment. :contentReference[oaicite:20]{index=20}
PDF p. 490 — Chrysostom, Quod regulares feminae viris cohabitare non debeant	ἵνα τὴν ἀπὸ τῆς γυμνότητος αἰσχύνην κρύπτωμεν ...	—	“in order that we may conceal the shame arising from nakedness ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — LITERAL NAKEDNESS/MODESTY. Clothing exists to cover nakedness after the Fall; Adam’s garments of skins immediately enter the argument. :contentReference[oaicite:21]{index=21}
PDF p. 490 — Chrysostom, Quod regulares feminae viris cohabitare non debeant	τῶν γυμνῶν μᾶλλον ἡμᾶς καταισχῦναι δυνήσεται.	—	“[such clothing] can make us more ashamed than the naked.”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — CLOTHING/MODESTY. The contrast remains between bodily nakedness and ostentatious dress. :contentReference[oaicite:22]{index=22}
PDF p. 491 — Chrysostom, Quod regulares feminae viris cohabitare non debeant	ἀκατακαλύπτῳ τῇ κεφαλῇ, καὶ μονοχιτώνει, καὶ γυμναῖς ταῖς χερσίν ...	—	“with the head uncovered, wearing a single tunic, and with bare arms/hands ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — DOMESTIC MODESTY. Maidservants awakened at night run about incompletely dressed. The context specifies exactly what is uncovered. :contentReference[oaicite:23]{index=23}
PDF p. 491 — Chrysostom, Quod regulares feminae viris cohabitare non debeant	πολλάκις δὲ προελθοῦσα, ἴσως καὶ γυμνῷ τῷ σώματι προσπεσοῦσα τοῦ ἀνδρός ...	—	“often when she comes out she may unexpectedly encounter the man with his body naked ...”	PRIMARY CHRYSOSTOM — EXCEPTIONALLY USEFUL LITERAL CONTROL. This is an overtly sensitive male-female cohabitation context, yet γυμνῷ τῷ σώματι simply identifies an unclothed body encountered accidentally. The impropriety comes from the surrounding domestic situation, not from a sexual meaning inherent in gymnos. :contentReference[oaicite:24]{index=24}

What actually matters for our research

PG 47 contains no μυστικ- vocabulary, but it contains an unusually important Paschal-initiation complex

The absence of μυστικ- must be kept distinct from the conceptual evidence. Palladius’s narrative on PDF p. 89 begins with Πάσχα and people “about to be regenerated” who have already been μυσταγωγηθέντας. The surrounding narrative concerns the baptism of catechumens during Pascha. In the same episode the church is violently invaded and γυμναὶ ... γυναῖκες σὺν τοῖς ἀνδράσι, naked women together with the men, flee in terror.

This is unusually valuable for the present investigation because Pascha, regeneration, mystagogy, baptism and actual Christian nakedness belong to the same historical-liturgical complex. But the lexical distinction must remain absolute: Palladius says μυσταγωγηθέντας, not μυστικούς. The passage therefore strengthens the conceptual architecture of Paschal initiation without supplying an occurrence for the Mystic Gospel concordance.

The earlier version makes the baptismal nakedness completely explicit

PDF p. 68 explains the physical situation even more precisely: γυναῖκες τῶν εὐκτηρίων πρὸς τὸ βάπτισμα ἀποδυσάμεναι ... γυμναὶ ἐφυγαδεύοντο. The women are naked because they had undressed for baptism. The violent intrusion catches them in that state, and they are forced to flee before they can restore the covering demanded by modesty. :contentReference[oaicite:25]{index=25}

This is one of the clearest controls yet encountered in the PG survey for the proposition that Christian baptismal practice could place actual bodily nakedness inside an initiatory setting. At the same time, it shows why context is indispensable. Nothing about gymnos by itself tells us “baptism”: the preceding clause, πρὸς τὸ βάπτισμα ἀποδυσάμεναι, tells us why they are naked.

Chrysostom himself preserves a strong system of restricted disclosure

Although he does not use mystikos in this volume, Chrysostom does use the vocabulary of mystēria in precisely the sort of graded ecclesiastical setting relevant to the larger problem. On PDF p. 363 he attacks the indiscriminate admission of untested people εἰς τὴν τῶν μυστηρίων ... κοινωνίαν, into participation in the mysteries. He complains that Christians reveal πάντα τὸν περὶ τῶν δογμάτων ... λόγον, the whole discourse concerning the doctrines, to people who have not yet even reached the forecourt, and then bring them suddenly into the ἄδυτα, the innermost or inaccessible places.

The conceptual structure is unmistakable: there is an exterior and an interior; there is teaching that should not be disclosed indiscriminately; participation in the mysteries presupposes preparation. Again, this is evidence from mystērion and restricted-disclosure vocabulary, not evidence for the lexical family mystikos.

The strongest γυμνός evidence is disclosure, deprivation and ordinary bodily exposure

Chrysostom’s own usages make it impossible to assign an intrinsically sexual force to gymnos. The soul may be “stripped” of divine beauty; incorporeal essences are not shown “bare”; thoughts become “naked and laid open” at judgment; sins should be called by their “bare and proper names”; poverty and apostolic suffering include nakedness; a torn tunic exposes an old man’s chest; and the poor lie naked from lack of clothing.

The repeated formula γυμνὰ καὶ τετραχηλισμένα is especially revealing. On PDF pp. 309, 407, 479 and 487, nakedness means that something hidden has become completely exposed to judgment. On p. 479 this occurs inside an overt discussion of sexual purity, touching, kisses, embraces and the virgin body, yet πάντα γυμνὰ καὶ τετραχηλισμένα still means “everything exposed and laid open.” :contentReference[oaicite:26]{index=26} The sexual subject matter surrounding a use of gymnos therefore does not make gymnos itself a sexual term.

PG 47 supplies unusually good sexual-context controls

The passage on PDF p. 289 is useful precisely because it is sexually colored. Chrysostom speaks of corrupt passions and a “filthy and unlawful union,” while the defiled soul is made τῆς γυμνότητος αἰσχροτέραν, “more shameful than nakedness.” :contentReference[oaicite:27]{index=27} Here sexuality is indeed present, but it is established by the surrounding language of illicit union and corrupt passion. Gymnotēs supplies a comparison involving exposure and shame.

The very late passages on PDF pp. 490–491 are even more useful. Chrysostom explicitly discusses the shame of bodily nakedness, bare arms, and the possibility that a woman unexpectedly encounters a man γυμνῷ τῷ σώματι, “with his body naked.” :contentReference[oaicite:28]{index=28} This is a male-female cohabitation polemic in which sexual temptation is an obvious concern, but the naked-body expression itself simply denotes a body without clothing. The moral and sexual danger derives from who encounters whom, under what circumstances.

The baptismal passages are closer to the Letter to Theodore problem than the sexual passages are

For the specific semantic problem posed by γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ, Palladius’s baptismal narrative is more instructive than merely observing that Chrysostom sometimes discusses sex. Naked bodies occur directly inside a Christian initiatory setting: candidates have removed their clothes for baptism, and the Paschal context includes regeneration and mystagogy. Yet even here the meaning is established by explicit narrative information rather than by the word gymnos alone.

This does not make Palladius’s riot scene an exact parallel to the Letter to Theodore. There is no youth with Jesus, no linen-on-the-naked-body construction, and the nakedness results from candidates having undressed for baptism before a violent interruption. It is nevertheless a strong semantic control against the assumption that Christian nakedness in an initiatory context must be erotic.

PG 47 — Result

PG 47 contributes nothing to the lexical history of μυστικός: the exhaustive concordance contains zero μυστικ-/mystic- occurrences. It nevertheless contributes substantially to the larger conceptual investigation. Palladius places Pascha, regeneration, mystagogy, baptism and literal nakedness in one ecclesiastical complex, while Chrysostom describes participation in the mysteries as something requiring preparation and restricted disclosure. These passages help explain the Christian institutional world in which “mystical” language could operate, but they must not be misreported as occurrences of mystikos.

For nakedness the volume is much stronger. Its 31 controlled occurrences range across baptism, poverty, martyr-like suffering, prophetic nakedness, spiritual deprivation, disclosure, bodily modesty and sexually sensitive male-female settings. Most importantly, the explicitly sexual passages demonstrate rather than undermine the semantic control: sexual meaning is supplied by context, while gymnos continues to mean naked, bare, uncovered or exposed. The Paschal baptismal episode supplies the strongest positive result for the present project: actual Christian nakedness can occur naturally within an initiatory and mystagogical setting without the nakedness itself being sexual.

PG 41–47 — What the survey adds

PG 41–47 is one of the most important sections of the survey so far. The earlier volumes had already established that μυστικός belongs naturally to Christian language about Scripture, interpretation, doctrine, worship, baptism, Eucharist, Pascha and restricted teaching. What changes in PG 41–47 is the degree to which these categories begin to converge in the same passages. At the same time, the investigation of γυμνός produces unusually strong controls against the assumption that Christian nakedness is intrinsically sexual.

The seven volumes fall naturally into three blocks: Epiphanius and Epiphanian material in PG 41–43; Gregory of Nyssa in PG 44–46; and the beginning of Chrysostom, together with Palladius, in PG 47. The Gregory block is especially important for the “Mystic Gospel” problem, while the Epiphanian and Palladian evidence is especially important for γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ.

PG 41–43 — Epiphanius and the heresiological control

The Epiphanian block changes the nakedness problem substantially. We are no longer dealing merely with scattered examples of γυμνός meaning poor, exposed, stripped or bare. Christian heresiology now preserves descriptions of religious communities in which actual bodily nakedness occurs inside communal religious practice.

The most striking case is the Adamiani:

Γυμνοὶ γὰρ ὡς ἐκ μητρὸς ἄνδρες τε καὶ γυναῖκες ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ συνάγονται, καὶ οὕτως τὰς ἀναγνώσεις καὶ τὰς εὐχὰς καὶ πᾶν ὁτιοῦν ἐπιτελοῦσι ... τὴν αὐτῶν Ἐκκλησίαν παράδεισον ἡγούμενοι.

“For naked, as from the mother, men and women gather together, and in this way perform the readings and prayers and everything else ... considering their church Paradise.” :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}

This is a major semantic control. Men and women are γυμνοί together, but Epiphanius explains the nakedness through Adam, Paradise, asceticism, rejection of marriage, readings and prayers. The mere fact that men and women are naked together does not make the scene sexual.

The same point becomes even sharper in Epiphanius’ discussion of Adam and Eve: their original nakedness allows them to see one another, but sexual “action” is treated as a separate matter. The text thus distinguishes naked visibility from sexual intercourse rather than making one imply the other.

The later material transmitted under Epiphanius adds another important line of evidence. In the Palm Sunday discourse the visible events of the feast lead into μυστικώτερα, “more mystical things,” while the Holy Saturday material develops Christ’s Passion, death and descent in explicitly mystical and hidden terms. Later liturgical material in the same textual complex can use μυστικῶς in the sense of something performed secretly and can speak of the Eucharistic table as mystical. The attributional distinctions matter, but semantically the material shows how easily Holy Week, Gospel narrative, liturgical enactment and mystical interpretation could belong to one Christian conceptual complex. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}

The Epiphanian block therefore contributes less by supplying a formula resembling “Mystic Gospel” than by clarifying the cultural setting in which both halves of the Letter to Theodore can be read. Mystikos belongs to sacred interpretation and ritual; gymnos can belong to religious practice without being sexual.

PG 44–46 — Gregory of Nyssa and the convergence of Gospel, initiation and Pascha

With Gregory of Nyssa the evidence becomes much more concentrated. PG 44 begins by making the relation between written text and mystical meaning explicit. Gregory describes Psalm headings as ἐκκλησιαστικαί τε καὶ μυστικαί, “ecclesiastical and mystical,” and says that they signify the Christian mystery. Even more important is his contrast between the bare letter and the μυστικὸς λόγος:

Εἰ δὲ ψιλότητι παραμένῃ τῷ γράμματι ... ταῦτα τῷ καὶ ὁπωσοῦν μυστικὸν ἐπαγαγόντι λόγον.

If one remains with the bare letter, the problem remains unintelligible; it becomes intelligible when a mystikos logos is brought to it. Gregory consequently supplies a clear Christian model in which a biblical text possesses an exterior wording and a deeper level properly called mystikos. :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}

The Song of Songs develops the same conception spatially. Gregory announces its μυστικὴ θεωρία, “mystical contemplation,” and says that through the Song the mind is introduced μυστικῶς into the θεῖα ἄδυτα, the divine inner sanctuaries. The language is important because the “mystical” does not simply mean an allegorical interpretation invented by an exegete. It marks movement from an exterior level of the biblical text into an interior sacred space. :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}

PG 44 then joins this textual pattern to initiation. Gregory’s μυστικὸν ὕδωρ, “mystical water,” frees the person from slavery; sins are left in the water and the person emerges purified. :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4} Thus mystical Scripture, inner interpretation and ritual purification are already overlapping.

PG 45 brings the Gospel itself into the equation

PG 45 is a major advance because Gregory can put μυστικός and Εὐαγγέλιον into the same sentence:

ὁ μυστικὸς λόγος τὸ Εὐαγγέλιον ὀνομάζει

— “the mystical discourse calls [it] the Gospel.” The precise exegetical context must control what Gregory means, but the importance for the present investigation is obvious: “mystical discourse” and “Gospel” are no longer merely parallel categories reconstructed from different authors; Gregory himself juxtaposes them. :contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5}

The rest of PG 45 makes that convergence much harder to dismiss as accidental. Gregory speaks of mystical teaching in baptismal contexts, mystical regeneration, mystical rites and symbols, initiation and sanctification. He can describe something as said μυστικῶς according to the εὐαγγελικὴ παράδοσις, “evangelical tradition.” The same cluster eventually includes baptism, Eucharistic flesh and blood, burial into Christ’s death and imitation of the Resurrection. :contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6} :contentReference[oaicite:7]{index=7}

PG 45 therefore considerably narrows the conceptual distance between Clement’s μυστικὸν εὐαγγέλιον and ordinary later Christian Greek. Gospel, evangelical tradition, mystical teaching, initiation, baptism and sacramental participation demonstrably occupy the same vocabulary system.

PG 46 supplies the “mystical Passion” in precisely the context we have been looking for

PG 46 is probably the strongest single volume in this section. Gregory speaks of ὁ καιρὸς τοῦ μυστικοῦ πάθους, “the time of the mystical Passion.” What follows is not an abstract discussion of suffering: Joseph of Arimathea takes the body of the Lord, wraps it in a clean σινδών, and places it in a new and clean tomb. The entire image is then applied to worthy reception of Christ’s body.

The significance is the conjunction. Mystical Passion, Christ’s body, linen, burial, tomb and Eucharistic reception occur as one complex. It is exceptionally close to the particular semantic territory that has emerged from the Letter to Theodore investigation.

Elsewhere in PG 46 the Last Supper is τὸ δεῖπνον τὸ μυστικόν, the “mystical supper”; the Eucharistic table is a μυστικὴ τράπεζα; baptism is a μυστικὴ πρᾶξις; the baptismal bath is mystical; and regeneration can be a μυστικὴ καὶ ἀσώματος γέννησις, a “mystical and incorporeal birth.”

Most strikingly for restricted initiation, Gregory tells the person still among the catechumens:

Ἔλθοις τῷ μυστικῷ λαῷ καὶ μάθε λόγους ἀπορρήτους.

“Come to the mystical people and learn secret words.”

That sentence is important for another reason. It proves that μυστικός and ἀπόρρητος are related but not synonyms. The people are mystikoi; the teachings they receive are additionally specified as aporrētoi. “Mystical” therefore need not itself mean simply “secret.”

The γυμν- material in these same Gregory volumes reinforces the point. Gregory repeatedly uses “stripping” for making a hidden meaning explicit: Paul can παραγυμνοῦν a mystery, and what has been said in riddles can be ἀπογυμνοῦν, stripped into manifest meaning. :contentReference[oaicite:8]{index=8} He can also combine stripping with purification and washing while explicitly telling us that what is stripped away is a material burden. :contentReference[oaicite:9]{index=9}

PG 46 adds an even closer burial control: in discussing the Resurrection Gregory speaks of τὸ σῶμα τῶν ὀθονίων ἀπογυμνοῦν, “stripping the body of the linens.” :contentReference[oaicite:10]{index=10} This is canonically explicable and should not be turned into evidence for Alexandrian Mark. But it does establish that the γυμν- family could naturally enter Christian reflection on a body, burial coverings and a tomb.

PG 47 — Pascha, mystagogy, baptism and actual naked bodies

PG 47 is unusual because the lexical μυστικ- concordance itself is empty, yet the volume is extremely important conceptually. Palladius preserves a Paschal baptismal episode in which candidates have undergone mystagogical preparation and women have literally undressed for baptism. A violent invasion of the church catches them in that condition:

γυναῖκες ... πρὸς τὸ βάπτισμα ἀποδυσάμεναι ... γυμναὶ ἐφυγαδεύοντο

— women who had “undressed for baptism” fled “naked.”

The later retelling again describes γυμναὶ γυναῖκες σὺν τοῖς ἀνδράσι, “naked women together with the men.” This belongs to a narrative of Pascha, regeneration, mystagogy and baptism. The nakedness is therefore unquestionably Christian and initiatory, but its meaning is established by the explicit statement that they had removed their clothes for baptism. It is not inferred from gymnos. This is perhaps the clearest external control yet found for the possibility of nonsexual nakedness in Christian initiation.

Chrysostom supplies the complementary institutional evidence. Participation in the μυστήρια is not to be granted indiscriminately; people require preparation before being taken from the exterior into the ἄδυτα, the inner sacred places. Thus PG 47 has no lexical mystikos result, but it confirms the same social structure visible elsewhere: catechumenate, preparation, restricted teaching, entrance into mysteries and initiation.

Its nakedness evidence is equally useful. Chrysostom repeatedly uses γυμνὰ καὶ τετραχηλισμένα, “naked and laid open,” for the disclosure of hidden things at judgment. Even in discourses explicitly concerned with sexual behavior, touching, kisses, embraces and male-female cohabitation, gymnos continues to mean naked, uncovered or exposed. The sexual significance comes from the surrounding actions, not from the adjective itself.

What PG 41–47 changes

The most important development is that the “Mystic Gospel” problem no longer depends mainly upon asking whether another Christian writer happens to use the exact phrase μυστικὸν εὐαγγέλιον. PG 41–47 gives us something more useful: the conceptual components surrounding that expression begin repeatedly to occur together.

Gregory can distinguish a bare biblical letter from its μυστικὸς λόγος; mystical reading leads into the sacred interior; mystical water purifies; mystical teaching belongs to initiation; Gospel and mystical discourse can be placed together; evangelical tradition can be treated mystically; catechumens cross into a mystical people and receive λόγοι ἀπόρρητοι; the supper is mystical; the Passion is mystical; and the mystical Passion itself is immediately associated with Christ’s body, σινδών and tomb.

This makes a specifically Paschal interpretation of “Mystic Gospel” much more plausible than it looked at the beginning of the survey. The evidence does not establish that Clement’s phrase necessarily meant “the Gospel used in the Paschal mysteries.” It does show that Gospel text, interior interpretation, initiation, restricted teaching, baptism, supper, Eucharist, Passion, burial and Resurrection could form a single Christian mystical complex. PG 45–46 are the point at which those previously separate strands become especially difficult to treat as accidental associations.

What PG 41–47 does to γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ

The result for nakedness is even clearer. The range now includes Adamic nakedness, men and women naked together at religious readings and prayers, bodily nakedness connected with Paradise, baptismal candidates who have actually removed their clothing, ritual bare feet, ascetic deprivation, poverty, punishment, martyrdom, medical exposure, burial and bare bones, as well as the enormous metaphorical field of stripping away coverings so that something hidden becomes visible.

The Adamiani and the Palladian baptismal scene are especially important because both involve men and women together. Yet neither permits us to infer sex merely from their nakedness. The Adamiani understand themselves through Adam and Paradise and perform readings and prayers while naked; Palladius explicitly tells us that the women are naked because they have undressed for baptism. In Epiphanius’ treatment of primordial nakedness, moreover, seeing naked bodies and sexual “action” can be distinguished from one another.

Consequently the PG evidence through 47 now supports a fairly firm methodological conclusion: γυμνός means naked, bare, uncovered, exposed or stripped; it does not itself mean sexual. A sexual interpretation requires independent contextual evidence of sexual action. An initiatory interpretation likewise requires contextual evidence of initiation. The Letter to Theodore gives us γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ; the historical question must therefore be decided by the surrounding narrative and ritual setting, not by importing sexuality into the adjective itself.

PG 41–47 — Result

PG 41–47 is the section in which the two investigations begin to reinforce one another. The mystikos evidence increasingly locates Gospel, sacred interpretation, restricted teaching, baptism, Eucharist and the Passion inside the same Christian semantic world. Gregory of Nyssa supplies the strongest concentration: mystical Gospel discourse, mystical initiation, mystical supper and mystical Passion, with the latter extending directly into body, linen and tomb.

At the same time, Epiphanius, Gregory and Palladius make an automatic erotic interpretation of γυμνοὶ γυμνῷ increasingly difficult to sustain. Christian texts can place naked bodies inside Paradise symbolism, ascetic religion and baptismal initiation; they can also use the same lexical family for the stripping away of veils, riddles, clothing, possessions, sins and burial coverings. PG 41–47 therefore strengthens both sides of the developing reading of the Letter to Theodore: “mystical” belongs naturally to the Christian Paschal-initiatory complex, while “naked” requires context before it can be sexualized.