The Mar Saba letter is a Greek document that an expert named Morton Smith said he found in 1958 in the library of the Mar Saba monastery. He wrote about this discovery in 1960. The original document is no longer available, but it exists today only as two sets of photographs. The text claims to be a letter from Clement of Alexandria and includes the only known mentions of a "Secret Gospel of Mark."

Discovery and disappearance

In 1960, Morton Smith announced the discovery of a letter that was previously unknown and credited to Clement of Alexandria. Smith explained that while organizing papers at the ancient monastery of Mar Saba in the summer of 1958, he found the letter written by hand on the inside pages of Isaac Vossius’s 1646 printed edition of the works of Ignatius of Antioch. This letter is now called the Mar Saba letter of Clement of Alexandria. In 1973, Smith published a book about the letter, and in 1974, he released another book for a general audience.

Smith’s books included black-and-white photographs he claimed to have taken when he first found the letter. In 1976, four scholars visited Mar Saba and examined the manuscript. This visit was not widely known until 2003, when one of the scholars, Guy Stroumsa, wrote about it. In 1977, the book containing the manuscript was moved to the library of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem. That same year, the librarian Kallistos Dourvas removed the manuscript pages from the book to take photographs and store them separately. These photographs were published in 2000. Later attempts by scholars to see the original manuscript were not successful. Experts in ancient handwriting, called paleographers, studied Smith’s photographs and estimated the letter was written between the late 1600s and early 1800s.

Text

The letter, sent to one named Theodore, talks about a "Secret Gospel of Mark" and includes two parts from this gospel. One part mentions "the mystery of the kingdom of God." Clement starts by praising Theodore's efforts against the Carpocratians. He then answers Theodore's questions about the Gospel of Mark, which the Carpocratians claim to have a secret version of. Clement says he knows of another secret or mystical version of the gospel, written by Mark for "those being perfected." However, he says the version the Carpocratians promote is not correct; they have changed the original by adding their own false ideas. To show this, two parts that seem to be real from the gospel are included. The letter ends suddenly as Clement begins explaining the passages.

Controversy over authenticity

Scholars Philip Jenkins and Robert M. Price found similarities between The Secret Gospel of Mark and a book written by James Hunter in 1940 called The Mystery of Mar Saba. In 1980, the Mar Saba letter was added to a new version of the works of Clement of Alexandria, published by Otto Stählin and Ursula Treu in Berlin: Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 4.1: Register, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1980), XVII–XVIII.

Some people question whether the document is genuine. In a 1975 review of a book by Morton Smith, Quentin Quesnell suggested the original manuscript might be a fake created between 1936 and 1958. Although Quesnell did not directly accuse Smith, Charles W. Hedrick believed he implied Smith was responsible. At that time, no other scholar besides Smith had claimed to have seen the manuscript.

In 2005, Stephen Carlson wrote a book called Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark, which argued the manuscript was a fake. By then, other scholars, including Hedrick, had provided evidence that the manuscript existed and looked real. Carlson claimed Smith had written the text himself.

Earlier that same year, Scott G. Brown published Mark's Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith's Controversial Discovery. In this book, he stated that The Secret Gospel of Mark was a real writing by the evangelist.

Some scholars who believe the letter is a copy of an ancient manuscript think it was not written by the historical Clement of Alexandria. Instead, they suggest there was another person, called "the other Clement of Alexandria," mentioned in the Decretum Gelasianum. A key idea about entering a sacred place where a hidden truth is protected by seven layers is found in both Gnostic writings and mystery religions of that time.

Whether the document is a fake and who created it, if any, remains unclear.