In 1958, Dr. Morton Smith (1915-1991), a professor of ancient history at Columbia University, made a highly significant discovery in the library of Mar Saba, an isolated and closed community of the Eastern Orthodox Church about a dozen miles from Jerusalem. Dr. Smith was making a catalogue of the books and manuscripts in the old monastery, when he came across a letter of the second-century Church Father, Clement of Alexandria. In this letter, Clement in reply to someone called Theodore, admits that a “Secret Gospel” exists is authentic, and represents a Gospel written by Mark that contains the esoteric teachings of Jesus that were not intended to have been revealed within popular Christianity, and advises him to deny it to everyone else.

This discovery has shown that texts were being censored; even works recognized as being equal value to the canonical Gospels were being withheld from ordinary worshippers. It also confirms that there were at least two levels of teaching: One exoteric and the other esoteric for the true inner circle of initiates.

-- Picknett, Lynn and Clive Prince, The Templar Revelation, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1998. Pages 241-243.