Robert Morton Smith (May 28, 1915 – July 11, 1991) was an American professor of ancient history at Columbia University. He is best known for his reported discovery of the Mar Saba letter, a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria containing excerpts from a Secret Gospel of Mark, during a visit to the monastery at Mar Saba in 1958. This letter fragment has had many names, from The Secret Gospel through The Mar Saba Fragment and the Theodoros.
Contents
Biography
Smith was born in Philadelphia on May 28, 1915. He attended the Academy of the New Church. He received his A.B. (English major, magna cum laude) from Harvard College in 1936 and Bachelor of Sacred Theology (S.T.B.) from Harvard Divinity School in 1940. Smith received a Ph.D. in classical philology from Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1948 and a Th.D. from Harvard Divinity School in 1957. He was ordained deacon (1945) and priest (1946) of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland and worked in parishes until 1950.
He taught at Brown University (1950–55), Drew University (1955–56) and Columbia University from 1957. He became professor emeritus in 1985 and continued as a lecturer in religion until 1990.