This post has been heavily edited; much of it was simply irrelevant to the Secret Mark debate. I am greatly relieved by this. Of the rest, I have tightened the focus on the fact that the letter's author did not need a modern source for its account of the Carpocratians. I will leave it at that for now.]
In Peter Jeffery's response to Scott Brown (the "official" version, rejected by RBL but self-published on Jeffery's website), Jeffery protests that Clement's known writings show no awareness of homosexuality among the Carpocratians:
[T]he vice Clement ascribed to the Carpocratians was heterosexual wife-swapping, the sharing of wives like common property as in Plato's Republic (Strom. 3.5-10, 3.25.5, 3.54.1). Whoever was trying to set up a confrontation between Clement and homosexuality, in other words, picked the wrong heretical group. Where did the Mar Saba "Clement" get the idea that the Carpocratians were particularly interested in naked men?
Jeffery suggests that Smith got the idea from Gershom Scholem's studies of the Sabbateans:
The answer: from Smith's teacher Gershom Scholem, who compared the Carpocratians to certain antinomian sects descended from the seventeenth century Jewish heresy of Sabbatai Zevi. Scholem's opinion that these sects believed in "Redemption through Sin" appears to explain Smith's statement that "Carpocrates was said to have taught that sin was a means of salvation."
But, first of all, we have evidence from Irenaeus, closely pre-dating Clement, that Carpocratians did have a "redemption through sin" theology (Against Heresies, 1.25.4: "They deem it necessary, therefore, that by means of transmigration from body to body, souls should have experience of every kind of life as well as every kind of action"). Furthermore, we have evidence in Stromata that the Carpocratians and the group Clement calls “the Opponents” held a similar theology (Strom. 3.34.3-4: "Since it is the [demiurge] who said 'You shall not commit adultery,' we should, they say, commit adultery so as to annul his order). All this is similar to Irenaeus’ description of the Carpocratian teachings concering the “adversary”:
They also declare the "adversary" is one of those angels who are in the world, whom they call the Devil, maintaining that he was formed for this purpose, that he might lead those souls which have perished from the world to the Supreme Ruler....Again, they interpret these expressions, "You shall not go out thence until you pay the very last farthing," as meaning that no one can escape from the power of those angels who made the world, but that he must pass from body to body, until he has experience of every kind of action which can be practised in this world, and when nothing is longer wanting to him, then his liberated soul should soar upwards to that God who is above the angels, the makers of the world. (Against Heresies, 1.25.4)
Notice also that in defining each group, both Clement’s Opponents and Irenaeus’ Carpocratians refer to Mt 5:25-26, quoted in Against Heresies, 1.25.4 above (and again later in the same passage), as well as in Strom. 3.36.1, in reference to the Opponents. Irenaeus also writes that the Carpocratians “declare they have in their power all things which are irreligious and impious, and are at liberty to practise them”, and if they also “lead a licentious life” (Against Heresies 1.25.3).
Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to think that To Theodore attributes homosexuality to the Carpocratians. True, the letter opens with a denunciation of the Carpocratians as those who wander “into a boundless abyss of the carnal and bodily sins” and goes on to describe a man who is said to love Jesus upon seeing him, and who begs to “be with” Jesus. But there is certainly nothing the text of Secret Mark that attributes homosexual behavior to either Jesus or the man.
We also know that the Carpocratian text went on to add something about “naked man with naked man”, but that's all. Nowhere in any of this do we have persuasive evidence of Carpocratian homosexuality. Indeed, the reference to male nudity might be entirely non-sexual, as we know that early Christian baptismal rituals, for example, involved nudity. The only thing the letter accuses the Carpocratians of is “carnal and bodily sins”--and in this it is quite consistent both with what Clement says of them in Stromata and with what Irenaeus says of them in Against Heresies. The letter's account of the Carpocratians provides no evidence for forgery.
Regarding your summary point #1: the accusations of licentious behaviour, etc. are standard fare in ancient literature - everyone accuses everyone else of moral laxity, Christians of pagans, pagans of Christians, different Christians throwing the accusations around to other Christians. It's quite funny, actually, but I wouldn't combine different groups together just because they are rumored to practice similar sins.
ReplyDeleteYour observation of the theological similarities between Clement’s Opponents and Irenaeus’ Carpocratians is a much stronger case, but even then I find it hard to tell when early Christian writers actually know what they are writing about, and when they are freely composing the "heretics" into a same mold. In any case, as you conclude, I agree that the existence of a homosexual (pederasty) dimension in Clement's letter to Theodore is hard to justify.
I agree that even if the Mar Saba letter is by Clement and accurately describes the content of "Carpocratian Mark", we could only derive limited information about the actual practices of the historical Carpocratians. One cannot simply derive a group's actual practices from the content of its sacred texts.
ReplyDeleteWhat seems clearer, however, is the image of the Carpocratians that the author, (accurately or inaccurately), is seeking to convey.
According to the letter, the Carpocratian heresy is about sexual license and is derived from their version of "Secret Mark". To reassure Theodore of the falseness of the Carpocratian doctrines, Clement provides an accurate text and true interpretation of a passage in "Secret Mark" in which a male teacher goes through a nocturnal ritual with a scantily clad male disciple.
This is clearly meant to imply that the Carpocratians based their licentious practices, at least partly, on their interpretation of this passage. But it is much easier to plausibly base philosophical pederasty on this passage than to justify wife-swapping from it.
I agree it is a plausible claim that the Carpocratians in To Theodore appear to have a gospel that refers somehow to homosexuality. I still don't think this is a necessary conclusion, but I agree it's plausible. I also agree that whatever it is the Carpocratians were talking about, it seems linked to the Markan passage that Clement quotes.
ReplyDeleteI would disagree, though, with any claim that Clement's knowledge of Carpocratian libertinism derives solely, or even primarily, from this particular passage in Secret Mark. Presumably Clement knows about Carpocratian promiscuity from Carpocratian behavior (as, indeed, he indicates in Stromata 3.)
If there was 1) a Secret Mark, 2) a Carpocration version of it, and 3) it contained a passage involving erotic homosexuality, this still doesn't tell us a lot about either Carpocratian practices or Clement's awareness of them. If we're to take Clement's other writings seriously, it seems he was either unaware of Carpocratian homosexuality, or else it just wasn't particularly important to them.
I might also add that Epiphanius claims that Carpocratianism included homosexuality. This is at least a century-and-a-half too late, but it's a relatively early witness.
ReplyDeleteThere is no way to reconcile (1) Clement's portrait of the Carpocratians as heterosexual wife-swappers (2) Irenaeus 'redemption through sin' community and (3) Hippolytus' preservation of an earlier version of Irenaeus' work which has no overt mention of this doctrine is ever made (see below). Instead the Carpocratians sound like Buddhists or Origenists (with the typical anti-heretical embellishments).
ReplyDelete(Now these heretics) have themselves been sent forth by Satan, for the purpose of slandering before the Gentiles the divine name of the Church. (And the devil's object is,) that men hearing, now after one fashion and now after another, the doctrines of those (heretics), and thinking that all of us are people of the same stamp, may turn away their ears from the preaching of the truth, or that they also, looking, (without abjuring,) upon all the tenets of those (heretics), may speak hurtfully of us. (The followers of Carpocrates) allege that the souls are transferred from body to body, so far as that they may fill up all their sins. When, however, not one (of these sins) is left, (the Carpocratians affirm that the soul) is then emancipated, and departs unto that God above of the world-making angels, and that in this way all souls will be saved. If, however, some (souls), during the presence of the soul in the body for one life, may by anticipation become involved in the full measure of transgressions, they, (according to these heretics,) no longer undergo metempsychosis. (Souls of this sort,) however, on paying off at once all trespasses, will, (the Carpocratians say,) be emancipated from dwelling any more in a body. Certain, likewise, of these (heretics) brand their own disciples in the back parts of the lobe of the right ear. And they make counterfeit images of Christ, alleging that these were in existence at the time (during which our Lord was on earth, and that they were fashioned) by Pilate. [Hippolytus Refut. Heresies vii.20]
IMO the discussion about who the Carpocratians were are rarely done with a critical eye. It was Irenaeus' addition of Marcellina of Rome to the account that prompted all the licentiousness associated with the sect. Marcellina does not appear in Hippolytus version of Irenaeus' text.
The key to understanding Irenaeus' Against the Heresies is to realize that it was a fluid text. Not only were individual books added to make a total of five but the individual books were reshaped (Book One for instance originally concluded with chapter 21; the stuff about Simon Magus through the Cainites was added later).
It is difficult to make sense of how the current five books of Against the Heresies developed but we can be certain that the crazy business about the licentious Carpocratians was added later. I believe the portrait was shaped by Marcellina the prominent Roman 'Carpocratian' (whatever that term that meant).
Beyond that we can only say that there was no consistency to the portrait of these alleged 'Christian sexual libertines.'
I am not at all sure that we can figure out what the Carpocrates thought or said about Secret Mark. I am not even sure that the people Theodore referenced were actually identified as 'Carpocratians' specifically before Clement's response. At best we can say that Theodore reported something about a claim about an 'hidden' or secret Alexandrian gospel of Mark attributed to Alexandrian Christians living abroad. We can't be sure if Theodore identified the individuals as 'Carpocratians' (again I suspect Clement made the link). We can't even be sure that Theodore's original report was firsthand or passed through a chain of witnesses. It could be that the people making the charges were hostile to the Alexandrian tradition and Clement just wrote them off as being 'Carpocratians' (again who knows what that term originally meant).
ReplyDeleteThe bottom line is that it is impossible to say anything definitive about the relationship between the Carpocratians and Secret Mark other than Clement dismisses those originally referenced as 'Carpocratians' and attributes their claims about buggery in the text as typical of their 'licentiousness.' In the end, Wittgenstein got it right:
what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.
There is no reason to believe there ever were Christian sexual libertines in antiquity. There were just sexually repressed Christians accusing their opponents of engaging in licentious acts in order to discredit them.
Sounds sort of like the way Morton Smith was treated in the debate about his discovery, don't you think?
Hi Stephan--thank you again for your always-interesting posts.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's too hard to reconcile these accounts. I've shown the relationship between Clement's account and Irenaeus' in Against Heresies. The Hippolytus passage accuses the Carpocratians of "slandering...the divine name of the Church." It agrees that the Carpocratians preach the transmigration of the soul--just as Clement and Irenaeus claim. These souls transmigrate in order to "fill up all their sins"--just as Irenaeus himself claims. (Buddhist souls transmigrate not in order to fill up their sins, but to empty them!)
The confusion may arise when Hippolytus says they are freed from their bodies when "not one [of these sins] is left"--but this does not refer to the purging of sins, but rather to the accumulation of sins. We know this because of the souls he then mentions: "If, however, some [souls], during the presence of the soul in the body for one life, may by anticipation become involved in the full measure of transgressions, they, [accirding to these heretics,] no longer undergo metempsychosis. [Souls of this sort,] however, on paying off at one all trespasses, will, [the Carpocratians say,] be emancipated from dwelling any more in a body."
The teaching here is that souls who "become involved in the full measure of transgressions" become freed from their bodies immediately. So it is the accumulation of sin which liberates them. That is precisely what Irenaeus himself says about the Carpocratians--and quite the opposite of Buddhist teaching.
Now, having said all that, I think you're right to say we should look at Christian portrayal of the Carpocratians with a skeptical eye. If
Christians could be slandered by their contemporaries, surely heretics in turn could be slandered by Christians. I'm guessing that the label "Carpocratian" might have been applied somewhat indiscriminately, sometimes meaning one thing, sometimes meaning another.
I'd also agree that Morton Smith's personality and his personal life have been used against him, as "evidence" that his intellectual work is somehow suspect.