Was he looking for an explicit confession that the Alexandrian community had a gospel which contradicted the rule established by Irenaeus in Rome? No, that is certainly not present in Clement's writings. But I certainly see intimations that the Alexandrians had a variant gospel which taught the community that Jesus baptized and moreover that his baptism established the Alexandrian priesthood.
It is very interesting to note that all the references I found to Jesus baptizing people or establishing the baptism that the community used to consecrate its priests deliberately avoided the word 'baptism.' Instead Clement obliquely speaks of the 'washing' of the 'Word' (rather than 'Jesus') in the 'water' or 'waters.'
I think the reader will see he is deliberately avoiding spelling out the great secret of his Alexandrian tradition.
In any event, here are some of the references I have found which testify to this 'other baptism' established by Jesus himself (rather than John the Baptist):
Receive, then, the water of the Word; wash, ye polluted ones; purify yourselves from custom, by sprinkling yourselves with the drops of truth [Exhortation 10]
These are our invulnerable weapons: armed with these, let us face the evil one; "the fiery darts of the evil one" let us quench with the sword-points dipped in water, that, have been baptized by the Word, returning grateful thanks for the benefits we have received, and honouring God through the Divine Word. [ibid 11]
But most of all is it necessary to wash the soul in the cleansing Word [Instructor III:9]
But the providence of God as revealed by the Lord does not order now, as it did in ancient times, that after sexual intercourse a man should wash. For there is no need for the Lord to make believers do this after intercourse since by one Baptism he has washed them clean for every such occasion, as also he has comprehended in one Baptism the many washings of Moses. [Stromata III.82]
And then there is the allegorical acknowledgement that the function the Alexandrian washing ritual served to establish the priests of the community. Clement mystically alludes to the function of the Jewish temple noting:
So the high priest, putting off his consecrated robe (the universe, and the creation in the universe, were consecrated by Him assenting that, what was made, was good), washes himself, and puts on the other tunic -- a holy-of holies one, so to speak -- which is to accompany him into the adytum; exhibiting, as seems to me, the Levite and Gnostic, as the chief of other priests (those bathed in water, and clothed in faith alone, and expecting their own individual abode), himself distinguishing the objects of the intellect from the things of sense, rising above other priests, hasting to the entrance to the world of ideas, to wash himself from the things here below, not in water, as formerly one was cleansed on being enrolled in the tribe of Levi. But purified already by the gnostic Word in his whole heart, and thoroughly regulated, and having improved that mode of life received from the priest to the highest pitch, being quite sanctified both in word and life, and having put on the bright array of glory, and received the ineffable inheritance of that spiritual and perfect man, "which eye hath not seen and ear hath not heard, and it hath not entered into the heart of man;" and having become son and friend, he is now replenished with insatiable contemplation face to face. For there is nothing like hearing the Word Himself, who by means of the Scripture inspires fuller intelligence. For so it is said, "And he shall put off the linen robe, which he had put on when he entered into the holy place; and shall lay it aside there, and wash his body in water in the holy place, and put on his robe." But in one way, as I think, the Lord puts off and puts on by descending into the region of sense; and in another, he who through Him has believed puts off and puts on, as the apostle intimated, the consecrated stole. Thence, after the image of the Lord. the worthiest were chosen from the sacred tribes to be high priests, and those elected to the kingly office and to prophecy were anointed. [Stromata V.6]
All of these concepts appear in the letter to Theodore in relation to ritual practice established out of Jesus's initiation of that neaniskos into the mysteries of the kingdom. This is not coincidental. Clement is telling us that a 'different kind of baptism' - i.e. NOT the one associated with John the Baptist (which as Clement notes was only for repentance) - was used to consecrate the priesthood.
You just have to know how to read between the lines, I guess ...
If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here
If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here
