Life is full of strange twists and turns. Contrary to popular opinion, I do believe in a God and I believe he has a sense of humor. As such, I don't take myself too seriously, nor should anyone else out there. I just happen to like to 'play around' with the paradigm of earliest Christianity. I think that detachment gives me an advantage over 'professional scholars.' A professional isn't always preferable to amateur. A prostitute, for instance might be more skilled at the technical aspects of love-making but - by analogy - it is difficult to find love 'professionally.' Indeed some would say it is impossible.
While there are undoubtedly a number of readers of this blog asking themselves how can one connect prostitution to academic research, I think they have failed to understand Clement of Alexandria's reference to 'the true philosophy' at the end of To Theodore. The Alexandrian tradition treated sophia and philosophia as Platonic concepts. Clement notes in Chapter Seven of Book Six of the Stromata many of his opponents (the Carpocratians of Rome?) were saying that wisdom was a firmly established principles. Against this dogmatic approach, Clement set forth the 'philosophia' of the Alexandrian tradition, i.e. that truth could only be established by 'loving' the wisdom of God - i.e. the gospel - through inquiries into its mysteries.
Interestingly there is a long history of this kind of 'philosophia' in Alexandria. The Pistis Sophia is one such tradition where Mary was originally portrayed as asking Jesus (i.e. the Wisdom of God) to solve the riddles of the many cryptic sayings in the gospel.
Again, the point is that we have lived under the domination of one approach - what I would call 'the Carpocratian approach' to Christian wisdom - which basically says 'here is the truth, now just accept it as true.' The Alexandrians didn't see things that way. The gospel was set up as a mystery hidden behind a veil. It was necessary to acquire the secret oral tradition to make sense of what the 'truth' of the tradition was.
I have already explained that because of my research I believe that 'the truth hidden by seven veils' was a reference to the Episcopal chair of Alexandria - i.e. the throne of St. Mark - which literally was hidden in the inner sanctum of the church of St. Mark in the Boucalia behind seven curtains.
You have to understand what the physical layout was of ancient churches to understand this concept. There were two churches in antiquity. The baptized had one ritual going on hidden behind the veil standing before the Patriarch - called Papa - sitting in this representation of the divine throne. The unbaptized could only see shadows flickering on the back of the curtain - a representation of the highest heaven - which enticed them to become baptized and join the elect.
In any event, Stephen Carlson - and Scott Brown - for that matter have unwittingly accepted a late tradition developed in the name of Clement of Alexandria, that seems to indicate that he accepted that Jesus only baptized Peter. This tradition comes from a text called the Hypotyposeis and it is clearly a fraud. I think it was developed to counter the original tradition of the Alexandrian Church that Jesus only baptized John Mark, but that is another story for another time.
At the present moment let me demonstrate that the Hypotyposeis is a document forged in Clement's name. Now remember, Stephen Carlson was unable to prove that any internal contradictions exist between the beliefs and opinions associated with Clement's 'accepted' writings and that which appears in the recently discovered Letter to Theodore.
As such what I am about to show you CLEARLY makes the case against the authenticity of the Hypotyposeis STRONGER than Stephen Carlson's case against the authenticity of To Theodore.
The Hypotyposeis claim that Clement of Alexandria believed that “Cephas” was different from “Peter”. This information comes to us from Eusebius (Eccles Hist, 1.12.2).Here is the text:
They say that Sosthenes also, who wrote to the Corinthians with Paul, was one of them. This is the account of Clement in the fifth book of his Hypotyposes, in which he also says that Cephas was one of the seventy disciples, a man who bore the same name as the apostle Peter, and the one concerning whom Paul says, “When Cephas came to Antioch I withstood him to his face.”
Does anyone REALLY believe that Clement thought that Cephas and Peter were two different people? How then do we accept ANYTHING from this text given that Photius - a man who actually SAW the text in its entirety - thought it was NOT by Clement of Alexandria?
I have written about this before. I also had a long running dispute with Andrew Criddle on this very subject. I just never noticed the reference cited above by Roger. This only confirms my suspicions about this text. Indeed if we look carefully at Clement's AUTHENTIC writings we see that REAL Clement of Alexandria clearly accepted that Peter WAS Cephas.
In Book Four of the Stromata he writes "It is a different matter, then, which is expressed by the apostle: "Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as the rest of the apostles, as the brethren of the Lord and Cephas? But we have not used this power." [Strom. iv.15]
Then in Book Three he makes explicit that he thought that Peter and Philip were the only married disciples of Jesus - "or do they also scorn the apostles? Peter and Philip had children, and Philip gave his daughters in marriage. Even Paul did not hesitate in one letter to address his consort. The only reason why he did not take her about with him was that it would have been an inconvenience for his ministry. Accordingly he says in a letter: "Have we not a right to take about with us a wife that is a sister like the other apostles?" But the latter, in accordance with their particular ministry, devoted themselves to preaching without any distraction, and took their wives with them not as women with whom they had marriage relations, but as sisters, that they might be their fellow-ministers in dealing with housewives."[Stromata iii.52,53]
My friends, Photius was clearly right when he says that Clement did not write the Hypotyposeis. Photius actually says in his summary of the Stromata that it "is in some parts unsound, but not like the Outlines, some of whose statements it refutes." In my mind I have just found one of those contradictions to which Photius' alludes. Photius' language suggests there must have been many more. We just don't have access to the original text of this disputed text.
Clement believed that when Paul pointed to Cephas as a married apostle he meant Peter. And this is exactly the way any sane person would read the reference. As I have shown elsewhere, the Hypotyposeis is likely a Clementine forgery.
I can't believe that Carlson will doubt the authenticity of To Theodore when what I have just cited demonstrates - coupled with Photius' testimony - that the Hypotyposeis was a fraud.
I guess the 'deciding issue' was for Carlson that the Hypotyposeis weren't discovered by some 'crazy fag' ...
Perhaps I am being too harsh. Yet isn't it strange that any doubts about To Theodore never rise to this level of proof I just cited against the Hypotyposeis. Of course Carlson might be partial to the text because that Hypotyposeis is the name of his blog ...
I've said it time and again - the whole case against To Theodore is ridiculous. The authenticity of the text should stand until someone can provide a piece of evidence which rises to what I just cited against the Hypotyposeis.
Of course I can tell my readership that they should have serious doubts about the INSTINCTS of Carlson and Jeffrey for this reason alone. If they don't suspect that the Hypotyposeis is ALSO an ancient forgery, why should any of us take their word about To Theodore? As Frank Sinatra once noted about similar geniuses in his day - "these guys couldn't hit a bull's fanny with a bag of rice."
Yet Carlson and Jeffrey will develop a whole case against an ancient text owing to its discoverer's alleged ability to do just that with something more than a bag of rice ...
It's all been a witch hunt from the start. Someone should write a book using the Morton Smith 'controversy' as proof that we should take a wrecking ball to the whole study of early Christianity.
I implore each one of you read EVERYTHING Photius says about Clement of Alexandria. Photius explicitly says that the Hypotyposeis was not by Clement of Alexandria. This, coupled with the statement just cited - that Peter and Cephas were two different people - effectively torpedoes the 'contradiction' cited by Carlson and Brown against those who suggest the neaniskos in Secret Mark might have been Mark himself.
Any chance I have to get people to read Roger's site is worth it. His is really the best site on the net. I've said it time and again.
