Bianca Giacobone and Guido G. Beduschi report on an intriguing acquisition:
In 2011, Earle Havens, Director of the Virginia Fox Stern Center for the History of the Book in the Renaissance at Johns Hopkins, had a mission: He needed to convince his university to buy “an enormous collection of fake stuff.” The collection, known as Bibliotheca Fictiva, comprised over 1,200 literary forgeries spanning centuries, languages, and countries — beautifully bound manuscripts carrying black ink annotations allegedly penned by Shakespeare; works written by Sicilian tyrants, Roman poets, and Etruscan prophets; poems by famous priests and theologians — all of them in part or entirely fabricated.
It was an unusual task for a scholar dedicated to studying the truth, but Havens was adamant. “We have never before needed a collection like this more than we need it right now,” he told the Dean of Libraries at the time. The internet and the increasing popularity of social media were changing how information was written, disseminated, and consumed, giving rise to the phenomenon of fake news as we now know it. In such a “crazy, rapid-fire information world,” the collection of ancient lies and misrepresentations of facts contained in the Bibliotheca Fictiva could offer guidance on how to navigate the moment, demonstrating that “what’s happening now has, in fact, been happening since the very invention of language and writing,” Havens said.
His pitch was successful. Johns Hopkins University acquired the collection for an undisclosed amount and housed it in the wainscoted library room of the Evergreen Museum and Library, a 19th-century mansion in Baltimore.
The sellers were Arthur and Janet Freeman, a couple of book merchants who made their name in the tight-knit world of antiquarian booksellers by collecting fascinating literary forgeries. Their venture started in 1961, when Arthur Freeman, then a graduate student of Elizabethan drama at Harvard University, began acquiring sources on John Payne Collier. Collier, a well-respected 19th-century scholar, had caused a ruckus among his contemporaries when he claimed to have found thousands of annotations to a copy of Shakespeare’s Second Folio, which he said had been penned by a contemporary of Shakespeare — but was in fact forged by Collier himself.
In the decades that followed, Freeman, who died in 2025, assembled a vast array of literary fakes, collecting books whose content is deceiving in nature. These included poetry purported to have been written by Martin Luther, who was not much of a poet, or reports of Pope Joan, a woman who, in the Middle Ages, disguised herself as a man and was elected Pope, only to be caught out when she suddenly gave birth in the middle of a procession in Rome. The latter myth was perpetuated for centuries and was not firmly debunked until the 17th century.
There’s more at the link; we’ve discussed imaginary books (not quite the same thing) in 2014 and 2024. Thanks, Nick!
If I may mention the fake I am interested in lately, a more skilled fake than the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” it is the still-debated “Letter to Theodore” including “Secret Mark,” a supposed text by Clement of Alexandria mentioning extra Gospel of Mark verses published by Morton Smith. Some say Smith, a Columbia Professor, would not mislead about such a thing. But, for instance, Christoph Matthäus Pfaff, of Tübingen University, published in 1715 a 647 page defense of his faked portions of Irenaeus of Lyons.
A tentative timeline:
1915, May, 28. Robert Morton Smith born. Died July 11, 1991. His father was Rupert Morton Smith.
1936 His Harvard senior honors paper, [John] Arbuthnot’s Influence upon [Jonathan] Swift, showcases his lifelong appreciation of mordant humor.
1941 Mar Saba monastery visit, including participation in the liturgy.
1944 A sketchbook depicting Mar Saba demonstrates his graphic artistic ability.
1945ff In letters to Gershom Scholem (edited by Guy G. Stroumsa, 2008) Smith makes clear that, before 1958, he intensely studied both Mark and Clement of Alexandria.
1949 In Journal of Pastoral Care 3, Psychiatric Practice and Christian Dogma, 12-20 here 16-17, Smith wrote, “He must be told that homosexuality is a sin far worse than fornication, and that unwillingness to repent of it automatically debars the sinner from the sacraments.” Though Smith nominally retained his Episcopal priest status, he had lost his faith, and mocked Christian faith, before and after 1958. Whether because of denial of tenure at Brown and denial of being hired at Harvard–despite having two PhDs!–is speculative.
1958 He said he found the text at Mar Saba–or he brought the 1646 Voss ed. Ignatius letters book with him, pre-inscribed. It was missing the front cover and spine and title page, where ownership marks usually appear. There is no record of that book being at Mar Saba before 1958.
1958 He showed Scholem the text and presented it as a parallel to Sabbatai Sevi’s antinomianism. Scholem was not persuaded.
1958 In neat handwriting, neater than his marginal notes, Smith copied it as Manuscript Material from the Monastery of Mar Saba, discovered, transcribed and translated by Morton Smith, copyright 1958, All rights Reserved, Manufactured in the United States. Made in clearer hand than his book annotations.
1958-1959? He showed Arthur Darby Nock the text, who, on sight reading, declared it not by Clement, but an imitation.
1960 Dec. SBL conference presentation. New York Times was invited, and reported, twice, Dec. 30 & 31, the second time with doubts by Pierson Parker.
1960 Nea Sion 52, 110-125, 245-256. Greek translation of St. Saba catalog. Not fully forthcoming about the text.
1973 Published The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark (Harper & Row). It is curious in tone, suggesting memory may be unreliable.
1973 Published Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Harvard UP). In Score, 1982, 456, he called it “a dreadfully complex book.” Dedicated to Arthur Darby Nock, perhaps the first person who told Smith the Letter was not by Clement!
1975 Quentin Quesnell, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 37, 48-67, “The Mar Saba Clementine: A Question of Evidence. raised doubts, and following exchange,1976.
1979 Published Jesus the Magician (Harper & Row), with scant mention of Secret Mark, so the book arguments could stand on its own without any link. A review and exchange with Frank Kermode in NYRB followed.
1982 Harvard Theological Review 75, 449-61, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark: The Score at the End of the First Decade. Score sounds like a sporting term. Contra Murgia, Musurillo, Munck and others.
c.1984f Jewish Theological Seminary archive has another defense of the Letter, typed, corrected and, marked up for publishing but unpublished. The Letter of Clement and Secret Mark: Evidence and Arguments.
1985 Eric Osborn, Clement of Alexandria: A Review of Research, 1958-1982, Second Century 3, 219-244. Argues that Clement would not have written the letter.
1985 Postscript to the British republication of the Harper 1973 ed. of Secret Mark, Wellingborough: Aquarius, pages 149-54. Mentions a favorable review by Hugh Trevor-Roper in the Sunday Times (London); Trevor-Roper was later fooled by the Hitler Diaries fraud.
1991, July 13. Obituary by Glenn Fowler, N Y Times. section 1, p. 9.
1991, Oct. Obituary by Levon Avdoyan pages 4-5 in
https://associationofancienthistorians.org/newsletters/1991_2Fall.pdf
1992 Obituary by William M. Calder III, Gnomon 64,383-384.
2005 Stephen C. Carlson makes a quite strong case for Smith having the motive, means, and opportunity. Before the Mar Saba sketchbook became available, underestimates the artistic copying ability of Smith. A self-identification as Madiotes is doubtful according to Allan Pantuck and Scott Brown.
2005 Scott G. Brown, Mark’s other Gospel (Wilfrid Laurier UP). A defense of ancientness.
2007 Peter Jeffery, The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery. Strong on matters of misleading humor and history of liturgy. Recommended by the editor of the Hermeneia Commentary on Mark, Adela Yarbro Collins: “Peter Jeffery’s book proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Morton Smith forged the discovered text.”
2009, Oct. Biblical Archaeology Review. Agamemnon Tselikas, expert historical paleographer, presents the handwriting as an attempt to copy 18th-century handwriting in the 20th century.
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-interpretation/agamemnon-tselikas-handwriting-analysis-report/
2010 Albert I. Baumgarten, Columbia PhD under Smith, 1972, in Elias Bickerman as a Historian of the Jews, has a section on Smith, 205-210. On 209 he quotes Columbia colleague, Theodor Gaster, “Morton Smith is like a little boy whose goal in life is to write curse words all over the altar in church, and then get caught.”
2022 Grant Adamson, What Are the Odds? Serapion, Eusebius and Secret Mark. Novem Testamentum 64.3, 364-384. Argues that the Letter to Theodore was not by Clement of Alexandria, but by someone later than Eusebius.
2022 Jonathan Klawans, Nastiness, Nonsense, Antinomianism, and Abuse: Morton Smith versus Morton Smith on Jesus, Secret Mark, and the Letter to Theodore, Journal of the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting 9 (2022): 43-71; http://www.jjmjs.org/issues.html
2023 Geoffrey S. Smith and Brent C. Landau, The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Controversial Scholar, a Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, and the Fierce Debate over its Authenticity (Yale UP). Makes a good case that the Letter to Theodore was not by Clement of Alexandria, but by someone later than Eusebius. But it dismisses with disdain the possibility of Morton Smith, rather than engaging the possibility, using the dismissive word “breadcrumbs” thirty times.
2024 April, The Atlantic, Ariel Sabar, The ‘Secret” Gospel and a Scandalous New Episode in the Life of Jesus. Well researched and well written.
Some say Smith misunderstood the text, so he could not have faked it. Or his attempt did not well fit history, so he had to adjust his commentary.
This is a selective, incomplete list. For additional bibliography, see, especially
Shaye J. D. Cohen ed., Writings of Morton Smith, including PhD dissertations as main advisor, and In Memoriam Morton Smith, pages 257-285 in vol. 2, 1996, of The Cult of Yahweh.
and
Michael J. Kok, Secret Gospel of Mark bibliography
https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/secret-gospel-of-mark/
I certainly do not think being hired or tenured by Columbia (or any other brand-name U.S. university) is proof of lack of a deceitful nature. But I am puzzled by “Whether because of denial of tenure at Brown and denial of being hired at Harvard–despite having two PhDs!–is speculative,” because it seems like maybe some words or context are missing. I can’t figure out what the speculative causal hypothesis relates to. Smith’s apparently strident views on homosexuality? His loss of the bare-minimum level of Christian belief required to be a functional Episcopal clergyman (in the relevant time period)? Other?
There are of course multiple texts now commonly attributed to “Pseudo-Clement.” I take it the interest of the one Stephen Goranson is interested in is the possibility that it was written significantly more recently than Pseudo-Clement’s other known works.
My previous thoughts are here.
Mentions a favorable review by Hugh Trevor-Roper in the Sunday Times — I suppose the review was in 1973 rather than 1985, given that the Hitler Diaries was 1983.
I am struck by one of the direct quotes in the linked piece that uses the phrase “cooking and pasting strings of citations,” where either “cutting and pasting” or “copying and pasting” would have been idiomatic and unremarkable. Mistranscription, typo, snowclone, other? Google’s “AI Overview” informs me (if “informs” is the right verb …) that the phrase “cooking and pasting” does have an actual referent, viz “a process used in the food and paper industries to heat and hydrate starches to break them down and create a paste-like or gelatinized liquid,” but that doesn’t at first glance make sense in this context.
So it appears that a few years ago Johns Hopkins got some grant money to scan the contents of this collection so that the rarer spurious texts could be posted in scanned form on the WWW for the benefit of all who might be interested. https://archive.org/details/bibliotheca_fictiva Perhaps somewhere else there’s an online index/bibliography so you can focus on searching for a particular text of interest rather than randomly browsing.
@JWB you can sort by title or creator
I think “cooking and pasting” is most likely a malapropism for “copying and pasting”; he was probably anticipating something about LLMs “cooking up” fake citations, and it came out too early, while he was still talking about pre-LLM fakery.
That sounds right to me. (N.b.: This is why copyeditors are needed.)
Thank you, mollymooly; I was unclear about Hugh Trevor-Roper. I think the following is accurate.
1973 Morton Smith published two books on a “Secret Mark” supposedly mentioned by (pseudo-)Clement of Alexandria
1974, June 30 Trevor-Roper reviewed them in The Sunday Times. From his Oxford bibliography: “74.5.14 Review of Morton Smith, «The Secret Gospel», 30 June 1974.” history.ox.ac.uk
1983, April 23. Trevor-Roper, in The Times, declared the “Hitler Diaries” genuine
1983, April 24, The Sunday Times, given the “genuine” declaration, started printing excerpts of the Diary
1985 Morton Smith in a Postscript to the British reprint of his 1973 Harper & Row book, The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark, on page 150, mentioned the “favorable” review (of 1974) by Trevor-Roper.
I should note by the way that the problem with “cutting and pasting strings of citations” in legal documents is not so much, in a pre-AI world, that the authorities cited are likely to be non-existent hallucinations, but that you may have cut and pasted from a context in which the cited authorities were relevant to a different one in which they are not (whether because the facts are different or because time has passed and the underlying law has since been amended and of course sometimes some mistake was missed in the original document before it got finalized and filed etc etc.). Which is why ideally you will double-check them to make sure they still make sense in the new context you are cutting-and-pasting into. Which in practice doesn’t always get done.
@languagehat: You missed the chance to make a joke about “cookeditors.” (So I’m doing it for you.)
(Thanks!)
Allow me to add:
Secret Mark in the Circle of Dutch Humanists.
Clare K. Rothschild
J. of Religion [Chicago] 105/2 (2025) 176-201.
and
Roy D. Kotansky. Back to the Garden (of Gethsemane). Restoring the Text and Meaning of Secret Mark. Early Christianity 15.4 (2024) 478-513.
[Btw, sight reading magical papyri–Kotansky claimed to be better at that than Smith–is harder than slowly composing pseudo-Clement.]
These two are examples of the Smith misunderstanding dodge–Smith supposedly did not fake it because he didn’t understand it, and I (Rothschild or Kotansky) am here to explain the real interpretation. Which they do, with different “real” results.
Or, or, Smith’s attempt to fit history failed and he had some ‘splaing to do.
“cooking and pasting” sounds to my ear very much like an LLM-produced phrase.
unless, of course, it’s trying (badly) to play on “copypasta”, which does need to be cooked in order not to poke you in the gums when you chew it.
Museums have displayed fakes, intentionally and non-intentionally. (E.g., Shapira “Moabite” fakes in the Israel Museum.
(cf. Oscar Muscarella, et al.)
As to texts, e.g.,
Splendide Mendax: Rethinking Fakes and Forgeries in Classical, Late Antique, and Early Christian Literature
(2016) views these a creative acts.
(and my review at amazon)
.