Controversy

• We do not have the letter. All we have is a letter claiming to be from Clement of Alexandria (d. c. 215) describing the gospel.
• While we have letters and books authentically from Clement, this letter was supposedly discovered in 1958 in a monastery library in Israel. It disappeared around 1990 without academic and scientific scrutiny.
• This raises concerns about its authenticity, with some scholars suggesting the letter is a late forgery and not from the early church or even the medieval period.
• But other scholars accept the letter as genuinely from Clement, and, therefore, the Secret Gospel of Mark is included.

Date of composition

• If authentic: Early to late 100s.
• If false: Mid-1950s

Biography of Jesus?

• Yes. The author created this work by adding sections to the Gospel of Mark.

Type of Apocrypha (heretical or in error (made up))

• Heretical and error, but we are unsure how much of each since we do not have the book. Clement wrote the letter in response to Theodore, who wondered about the truthfulness of the Secret Gospel of Mark. Clement explained to Theodore that the Secret Gospel of Mark was a forgery (meaning the sections that were added to the Gospel of Mark).
• Clement shares one story from the book not found in the Four Gospels, where Jesus raised a young man from the dead; it is similar to other accounts of Jesus raising people from the dead. Yet, after Jesus raised the young man, Jesus taught him a secret knowledge, which is a Gnostic idea.

Length

• Unknown, but longer than the Gospel of Mark since the Secret Gospel of Mark is based on that true Gospel with additional sections added.

Summary

• The additional section focused on other spiritual teachings that are inappropriate for the average reader of that time (see "Noteworthy" below). Clement's letter states this section was inserted between Mark 10:34 and 10:35 [See the note at the end of "Noteworthy"]:
• A young man died, and his sister went to Jesus and asked him to have mercy on her (meaning to raise her brother). Jesus went and raised the young man to life. After raising him, Jesus then spent time with him and taught him the secret knowledge.

Noteworthy from Clement's letter

1. Mark wrote the first copy of the Gospel of Mark when he and Peter lived in Rome. In that first copy, Mark did not include secret teachings but only teachings for the average reader.
2. After Peter's death, Mark moved to Alexandria with his first copy and Peter's notes. (This would have been in the mid- to late 60s.)
3. Mark then composed a more spiritual Gospel based on his first copy that was intended for readers who were being perfected.
4. After he died, he left the more spiritual Gospel to the church in Alexandria. They guarded it and only allowed it to be read by those who wanted to learn the great mysteries of the faith.
5. My note: This means we have the copy of the Gospel of Mark intended for average readers, not the updated Secret Gospel of Mark intended for more spiritual readers. This shows that it is Gnostic: that a secret knowledge exists, and only a few are worthy of obtaining it.
6. This story of a young man being raised also contains a possible suggestion that Jesus was homosexual. After the young man was raised, Jesus stayed with him for six days. Then the young man came to Jesus with only a linen cloth over his body, and Jesus remained with him alone that night, which is when Jesus taught him the spiritual mysteries. Clement specifically pointed out that the suggestion that Jesus lay with the young man is false.
7. In the last part of his letter, Clement repeated that the many additions to the Secret Gospel Mark are false.

**Note: Clement did not have use of the chapters and verses of the New Testament since they were not added until the 1200s and 1500s (respectively). Therefore, Clement did not state that the story came between Mark 10:34 and 10:35 but that the additional story was added after the phrase, "Three days later he will rise," found in Mark 10:34.