Was Clement Being DELIBERATELY Ambiguous When He Wrote That Line in To Theodore That Can Be Interpreted In Two Different Ways?

Morton Smith translates the line:

To them, therefore, as I said above, one must never give way; nor, when they put forward their falsifications, should one concede that the secret Gospel is by Mark, but should even deny it on oath. For, "Not all true things are to be said to all men"

Scott Brown translates the same words:

To them, therefore, as I said above, one must never give way; nor, when they put forward their falsifications, should one concede that it is Mark's mystic gospel, but should even deny it on oath. For, "Not all true things are to be said to all men"

The two different translations inevitably lead to two different interpretations. That is - were the Alexandrians denying that they had a 'secret' version of Mark or was Clement denying that the 'heretical' Carpocratian gospel was by Mark?

A distinguished professor explained to be that there is no clear cut answer for as he notes:

The text seems ambiguous to me.

The question is: is the mystic/secret Gospel in 2.10-11 the text of the Secret Gospel or is it the secret Gospel edited by the Carpocratians?

But if you note what Clement said in 1.8-9 (where it sounds like he is telling all lovers of truth to lie—that they should not to acknowledge what the Carpocratians say is true even if it actually is true).

This question has been around ever since Scott Brown wrote his Mark's Other Gospel five years ago. Because we now stand almost two thousand years from the time Clement wrote these words another difficult now creeps into the discussion.

Even the most authoritative expert may know all the rules of Greek but he is certain not a 'native' speaker. So the question that arose in my mind was whether this ambiguity was deliberate on Clement's part. In other words, was one of the two meanings an 'exterior' meaning and the 'other' the real 'interior' meaning?

For Pagel correctly notes that Irenaeus identifies the gnostics of speaking this way among themselves saying that:

they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but viva voce: wherefore also Paul declared, "But we speak wisdom among those that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world." [Irenaeus AH iii.2.1]

Yet notice of course that the Letter to Theodore similarly appeals to this 'wisdom' concept when at the end of what remains Clement notes, after rejecting the Carpocratian claims that:

Now the true explanation, and that which accords with the true philosophia (love of wisdom) ...

It is at this point that the original text would have explained what the love of Wisdom (i.e. Jesus) teaches (as oppose to the Carpocratian claims about a homosexual encounter between Jesus and his beloved neaniskos. What those instructions would have been is anyone's guess but it would certainly have been built around the concept of viva voce (i.e. kabbala) that Irenaeus attributes to 'the gnostics' (a term Clement proudly applied to himself and his Alexandrian tradition).

The reader can see the manner in which philosophia is employed in Clement's other writings especially Book Six Chapter Seven. The idea is exactly what I am describing here. Clement must have initially only CAUTIOUSLY referenced what it was the Alexandrian Church was to deny even on oath. It must have been referenced again after the discussion of the true love of Wisdom.

The reader should note Irenaeus' report of the gnostic distinction of two wisdoms - one of God and one of men. Clement similarly speaks of the Carpocratians as ' true according to human opinions' against the backdrop of 'the true love of Wisdom.'

In any event, Clement repeatedly acknowledges that he believes that the apostles hid a 'secret wisdom' from the world and he apparently perpetuated this 'gnostic manner' of speech in his writings:

And the gnosis itself is that which has descended by transmission to a few, having been imparted unwritten by the apostles. Hence, then, knowledge or wisdom ought to be exercised up to the eternal and unchangeable habit of contemplation. [Stromata vi.7,8]

Notice a similar idea emerges in his discussion in the later portion of the same Stomateis where he says that the only way to avoid ambiguity in speaking of spiritual matters is by ensuring that those who receive hidden truths are prepared with 'pre-existent knowledge' of how to interpret what they are hearing:

For every question is solved from pre-existing knowledge. And the knowledge pre-existing of each object of investigation is sometimes merely of the essence, while its functions are unknown (as of stones, and plants, and animals, of whose operations we are ignorant), or of the properties, or powers, or (so to speak) of the qualities inherent in the objects. And sometimes we may know some one or more of those powers or properties, -- as, for example, the desires and affections of the soul, -- and be ignorant of the essence, and make it the object of investigation. But in many instances, our understanding having assumed all these, the question is, in which of the essences do they thus inhere; for it is after forming conceptions of both -- that is, both of essence and operation -- in our mind, that we proceed to the question. And there are also some objects, whose operations, along with their essences, we know, but are ignorant of their modifications.

Such, then, is the method of the discovery [of truth]. For we must begin with the knowledge of the questions to be discussed. For often the form of the expression deceives and confuses and disturbs the mind, so that it is not easy to discover to what class the thing is to be referred [Stromata viii. 4]

In short, ladies and gentleman I can see a scenario where indeed Clement DELIBERATELY wrote a sentence in To Theodore which only referenced the question of multiple copies of the Gospel of Mark in an ambiguous manner in order to avoid to hide the implications of one of the two meanings of that sentence OR BOTH.

The question now for is whether the Alexandrians were denying that they had a 'secret' version of Mark was the real 'interior' meaning or alternatively that Clement was really denying that a copy of the gospel circulating among 'the Carpocratians' was really by Mark.

Perhaps it was a little of both. Perhaps Clement had mastered the art of speaking like a politician - i.e. being so ambiguous that it was difficult to pin down exactly what he was saying. Who knows. I for one certainly don't possess the skill to pull back the layers of a Greek text.