This
LINK gives a fuller expression to what interests me.
A second text also presents a royal name for Moses; however, it is not his parents that gave him this name, but mystics. Clement of Alexandria {c.201 AD}, writing in the 2nd–3rd centuries CE states the following in Stromata I.23.153,I.96 "τῷ παιδίῳ οἱ γονεῖς ἔθεντο ὄνομά τι, ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ Ἰωακείμ, ἔσχεν δὲ καὶ τρίτον ὄνομα ἐν οὐρανῷ μετὰ τὴν ἀνάληψιν, ὥς φασιν οἱ μύσται, Μελχί. The parents gave a name to the child, and he was called Joachim. And he had a third name in heaven, after his ascension, and the mystics say — Melchi."
From this quote it is clear that a group known to Clement had a tradition of Moses’ name as Melchi. The next two texts, which also claim that Moses was given a royal name by his parents, are George Syncellus and George Cedrenus, both Byzantine historians. They are from the 9th and 11th-12th centuries respectively. The remoteness of these historians from the text under consideration is not a problem since Byzantine historians had access to very early material.97 Syncellus is known to have used Josephus and an anonymous second source, which predates Josephus. If this is true, Syncellus (followed by Cedrenus) preserved an ancient name for Moses, similar to that found in VA.98 ...
Was "Melchi" some derivative of Melchizedek (a known ancient Canaanite god, archaeological evidence from the 10th C BC, etc.)? In some Jewish myth, Moses replaces Melchizedek at the right hand of God: these are contesting myths/cults c.300 BC. The Melchizedek tradition was never fully eradicated - it was older, folk, and extensive - so it periodically re-emerged in Antiquity.
Imagine that Moses/Hermes became a 'Little Melchi' c.400-300 BC, as Egyptian Melchizedekians fell and Mosaicists eventually gained power over the disparate, fractured Semitic communities of the Diaspora. From context, Clement is referring to information which is Jewish and at least several generations older (pre-100 AD). Logically, the tradition that Moses received an ascended name would date before the 1st C. AD. If Philo's Therapeutae were a Mosaic cult (as indicated) practicing/teaching some form of
anagogy -- highly likely --, we can see why established Temple institutions and reactionary Pharisaic elements did not approve (1st C AD).
Scholars assume that "Assumption of Moses" is Clement's source here, but that book does not cite "Melchi" in Greek or Latin. There is no reason why Clement's "mystics" (descendants of the Therapeutae?) held very different beliefs on Mosaic anagogy from whatever Assumption implies. If we accept the lost
Assumption of Moses dates (after Wiki) as "a 1st century Jewish apocryphal pseudepigraphical work"), that work may have come from a separate even contrary tradition/school. I have not researched these: R. Stokes, "Not over Moses’ Dead Body: Jude 9, 22-24 and the Assumption of Moses in their Early Jewish Context" in Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Vol. 40 No.2, pp. 192-213; A. Schalit, Untersuchungen zur Assumptio Mosis (Leiden: Brill, 1989); J. P. Schultz, “Angelic Opposition to the Ascension of Moses and the Revelation of the Law,” JQR 61 (1970–71) 282–307; J. Tromp, The Assumption of Moses: A Critical Edition with Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1993); R. Van De Water, “Moses’ Exaltation: Pre–Christian?” JSP 21 (2000) 59–69.
Perhaps it was 'lost' because it was heretical, controversial? The topical matter is anagogy: ascension. That the A. A. were ascended masters is definite from Philo Judaeus. Literature providing a 'roadmap' to Pardes (or propaganda against those who would try) is what's at stake. Wiki also says: "From references in ancient works, it is thought that the missing text depicted a dispute over the body of Moses,
between the archangel Michael and the devil." Why not Melchizedek and Melchiresha? ('Michael' and 'the Devil' sound 'late' to me: that combo would more likely appear in the Late 1st or 2nd C. AD and w/ Judeo-Christians.) As a refutation,
Assumption of Moses might be a late attack or revisionist answer, against the Alexandrian Mosaic cult and its (older) alternative traditions.
We cannot be certain, in any case. I'm not satisfied there's enough information; personally, I'm undecided now.
Artapanus of Alexandria (c.225 BC) preserved an older tradition of Moses as Psychopomp centuries before the "Assumption" text.
Artapanus, in his history of the Jews, went so far as to identify Moses with Thoth-Hermes (the Egyptian messenger and scribe of the gods, who invented the letters, the various arts of peace and of war, as well as philosophy)…
Enoch or Moses?