Friday, January 29, 2010

I Finally Got Permission to Name the Mystery Professor Who Gave His Opinion on the Ambiguous Line From Secret Mark and His Name is ...

Professor Charles Hedrick, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Missouri State University. He does want me to correct his email to read:

The text seems ambiguous to me. The question is: does Clement only have in mind the falsifications (2:11) which the Carpocratians interpolate into the mystic/secret Gospel (2.10-13) or does he also have in mind the text (SGM/MGM) into which they have interpolated them, which is the mystic/secret gospel?

Note what Clement said in 1.8-11 (where it sounds like he is telling all lovers of truth to lie—when he says that they should not acknowledge what the Carpocratians say is true—even if it actually is true).


I think that the most logical solution is that Clement was DELIBERATELY ambiguous here. Why send a letter which was supposed to instruct Theodore about the Carpocratian claims about Secret/Mystic Mark this way? God knows what Theodore must have thought - unless of course, as I have noted he was initiated into Clement's 'gnostic manner' of speech and could 'read between the lines' in the manner of a World War II spy ...

Otherwise the text is nonsensical. Imagine the Pope writing a position on something that could be taken two ways by two different groups of people. How could that be accidental?


Email stephan.h.huller@gmail.com with comments or questions.


 
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