71 ἀσέλγεια in Mark 7:22 deletes ἀσέλγεια from his material, or why Mark adds it. Assuming that Matthew deletes it, does he do so because it was superfluous, or because it had shock value which was unnecessary in his context? Neither does this theory require a belief in the authenticity of 2 Peter, although it would enhance the theory even more if Peter, the suggested voice behind Mark, were also the voice behind this letter that uses ἀσέλγεια more than any other NT text. What Aramaic word could Jesus have used, that Mark would have translated into Greek as ἀσέλγεια? Our best guess could be made by con- sulting the Syriac version. The Syriac version of Mark 7,22 uses the noun tzachnutah, meaning “harlotry, licentiousness, immodesty, or lewdness” (also translated by the Latin impudicitia, a word with strong homosexual overtones)14. Tzachnutah is used in the Syriac NT only here, and in Gal 5,19 and 1 Pet 4,3 (in all three cases, it translates ἀσέλγεια). Aramaic has , meaning “stinking fluid” (used in the Tar- a rare cognate noun even occurs as a hapax legomenon in gum to Ezek 23,20). The root the Hebrew Bible in Joel 2,20, where the noun form refers to the “stench” of rotting locusts. It is possible that the precise word Jesus used is no longer extant or was never used in print, and that the Syriac term (which closely resembles the meaning of ἀσέλγεια), if it is not the precise term that Jesus used, comes the closest to capturing what he said. Both the Old Latin (a aur b c d f ff2 i n q r) and the Vulgate translate ἀσέλγεια in Mark 7,22 with the term impudicitia, which they also use for ἀσέλγεια in 2 Cor 12,21, Gal 5,19, and Eph 4,19. The Oxford Latin Dictionary says that impudicitia is “often used of homosexual vice”, and that the related adjective impudicus also refers to “flouting the accepted social code…of men, often as sub., w. spec. ref. to homosexuality”15. Williams claims that, unless one wished to bluntly call a man a cinae- dus, the best way to euphemistically indicate that a man had been pene- trated, or desired to be, was by the term impudicus16. Williams writes that while impudicitia “…can insinuate a general lewdness or indecency with no spe- cific reference to the receptive role…most often an accusation of impudicitia leveled against a man has an even nastier thrust and a more precise effect, namely to signify that he has been penetrated. R. Smith, A Compendious Syriac-English Dictionary (Oxford 1910) 477. In C. 14 Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum (Halle 1928) 626, tzachnutah is translated by the Latin word impudicitia. The writer of this article would like to thank Dr. Timothy Saleska of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis for his help on the Syriac term used here. P. G. W. Glare, ed., The Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford 1968-82) 853. 15 C. A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiq- 16 uity (New York - Oxford 1999) 172-3.