the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel. But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me, for I would rather die than allow anyone to deprive me of this boast. For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make full use of my rights as a preacher of the gospel. Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:14 - 21)
Now compare our reconstructed context in Clement's Apostolikon:
According to revelation the mystery was made known to me, as I wrote before in brief, in accordance with which, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets. For there is an instruction of the perfect for which we cease not to pray for you, and beseech that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing; being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might according to the glory of His power and according to the disposition of the grace of God which is given me, that you may fulfil the word of God; the mystery which has been hid from ages and generations, which now is manifested to His saints: to whom God wished to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations. For not only for the Hebrews and those that are under the law, is it right to become a Jew, but also a Greek for the sake of the Greeks, that we may gain all. Advising every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ, being knit together in love, and unto all the riches of the full assurance of knowledge, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God in Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge.
Continue in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving, praying at the same time for you, that God would open to us a door to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am bound; that I may make it known as I ought to speak. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, who by reason of use have their senses exercised so as to distinguish between good and evil. Wherefore, leaving the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection. For when ye ought to be teachers for the time, ye have again need that one teach you which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food. For solid food belongs to those who are of full age, who by reason of use have their senses exercised so as to distinguish between good and evil. For every one that partaketh of milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness; for he is a babe, being instructed with the first lessons. Wherefore, leaving the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection.
Of course the way existing scholarship looks at the Stromata, Clement just happens to cite Pauline texts in a strange manner. He 'strings together' several letters in a sort of improvised cento. Yet this seeing things only from our inherited point of view. We see these allusions to Pauline scripture as centonized because we are used to our New Testament.
Yet we have to acknowledge that it is at least possible that instead of understanding these passages being established by breaking passages and sentences apart in Clement's Alexandrian canon and putting them back together - along with additional material - so as to reinforce our anti-gnostic agenda. Irenaeus makes reference to this situation - seen from our point of view, our inherited perspective - as the 'heretics' corrupting our canon. Of course if this is true why is that all the attacks against the heretical use of 1 Corinthians 9:20 all assume the 'secret gospel' context of our reconstruction from Clement's canon:
Accordingly, the false brethren who were the spies of their Christian liberty must be thwarted in their efforts to bring it under the yoke of their own Judaism before that Paul discovered whether his labour had been in vain, before that those who preceded him in the apostolate gave him their right hands of fellowship, before that he entered on the office of preaching to the Gentiles, according to their arrangement with him. He therefore made some concession, as was necessary, for a time; and this was the reason why he had Timothy circumcised, and the Nazarites introduced into the temple, which incidents are described in the Acts. Their truth may be inferred from their agreement with the apostle's own profession, how "to the Jews he became as a Jew, that he might gain the Jews, and to them that were under the law, as under the law,"----and so here with respect to those who come in secretly,----"and lastly, how he became all things to all men, that he might gain all." Now, inasmuch as the circumstances require such an interpretation as this, no one will refuse to admit that Paul preached that God and that Christ whose law he was excluding all the while, however much he allowed it, owing to the times, but which he would have had summarily to abolish if he had published a new god. Rightly, then, did Peter and James and John give their right hand of fellowship to Paul, and agree on such a division of their work, as that Paul should go to the heathen, and themselves to the circumcision. Their agreement, also, "to remember the poor" was in complete conformity with the law of the Creator, which cherished the poor and needy, as has been shown in our observations on your Gospel.[Against Marcion 5.3.5]
I have not the good fortune, or, as I must rather say, I have not the unenviable task, of setting apostles by the ears. But, inasmuch as our very perverse cavillers obtrude the rebuke in question for the set purpose of bringing the earlier doctrine into suspicion, I will put in a defence, as it were, for Peter, to the effect that even Paul said that he was made all things to all men— to the Jews a Jew, to those who were not Jews as one who was not a Jew— that he might gain all. Therefore it was according to times and persons and causes that they used to censure certain practices, which they would not hesitate themselves to pursue, in like conformity to times and persons and causes. Just (e.g.) as if Peter too had censured Paul, because, while forbidding circumcision, he actually circumcised Timothy himself. Never mind those who pass sentence on apostles! It is a happy fact that Peter is on the same level with Paul in the very glory of martyrdom. Now, although Paul was carried away even to the third heaven, and was caught up to paradise, and heard certain revelations there, yet these cannot possibly seem to have qualified him for (teaching) another doctrine, seeing that their very nature was such as to render them communicable to no human being. If, however, that unspeakable mystery did leak out, and become known to any man, and if any heresy affirms that it does itself follow the same, (then) either Paul must be charged with having betrayed the secret, or some other man must actually be shown to have been afterwards caught up into paradise, who had permission to speak out plainly what Paul was not allowed (even) to mutter. But here is, as we have said, the same madness, in their allowing indeed that the apostles were ignorant of nothing, and preached not any (doctrines) which contradicted one another, but at the same time insisting that they did not reveal all to all men, for that they proclaimed some openly and to all the world, while they disclosed others (only) in secret and to a few, [Prescription 24, 25]
In the scheme of Marcion, on the contrary, the mystery of the Christian religion begins from the discipleship of Luke. Since, however, it was on its course previous to that point, it must have had its own authentic materials, by means of which it found its own way down to St. Luke; and by the assistance of the testimony which it bore, Luke himself becomes admissible. Well, but Marcion, finding the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians (wherein he rebukes even apostles) for “not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel,” as well as accuses certain false apostles of perverting the gospel of Christ), labours very hard to destroy the character of those Gospels which are published as genuine and under the name of apostles, in order, forsooth, to secure for his own Gospel the credit which he takes away from them. But then, even if he censures Peter and John and James, who were thought to be pillars, it is for a manifest reason. They seemed to be changing their company from respect of persons. And yet as Paul himself “became all things to all men,” that he might gain all, it was possible that Peter also might have betaken himself to the same plan of practising somewhat different from what he taught. And, in like manner, if false apostles also crept in, their character too showed itself in their insisting upon circumcision and the Jewish ceremonies. So that it was not on account of their preaching, but of their conversation, that they were marked by St. Paul, who would with equal impartiality have marked them with censure, if they had erred at all with respect to God the Creator or His Christ. Each several case will therefore have to be distinguished. When Marcion complains that apostles are suspected (for their prevarication and dissimulation) of having even depraved the gospel, he thereby accuses Christ, by accusing those whom Christ chose. If, then, the apostles, who are censured simply for inconsistency of walk, composed the Gospel in a pure form, but false apostles interpolated their true record; and if our own copies have been made from these, where will that genuine text of the apostle’s writings be found which has not suffered adulteration? Which was it that enlightened Paul, and through him Luke? It is either completely blotted out, as if by some deluge—being obliterated by the inundation of falsifiers—in which case even Marcion does not possess the true Gospel; or else, is that very edition which Marcion alone possesses the true one, that is, of the apostles? How, then, does that agree with ours, which is said not to be (the work) of apostles, but of Luke? Or else, again, if that which Marcion uses is not to be attributed to Luke simply because it does agree with ours (which, of course, is, also adulterated in its title), then it is the work of apostles. Our Gospel, therefore, which is in agreement with it, is equally the work of apostles, but also adulterated in its title. [Against Marcion 4.3] Ther
efore because, in the eagerness of his zeal against Judaism as a neophyte, he thought that there was something to be blamed in their conduct--even the promiscuousness of their conversation --but afterwards was himself to become in his practice all things to all men, that he might gain all,--to the Jews, as a Jew, and to them that were under the law, as under the law,--you would have his censure, which was merely directed against conduct destined to become acceptable even to their accuser, suspected of prevarication against God on a point of public doctrine. Touching their public doctrine, however, they had, as we have already said, joined hands in perfect concord, and had agreed also in the division of their labour in their fellowship of the gospel, as they had indeed in all other respects: "Whether it were I or they, so we preach." When, again, he mentioned "certain false brethren as having crept in unawares," who wished to remove the Galatians into another gospel, he himself shows that that adulteration of the gospel was not meant to transfer them to the faith of another god and christ, but rather to perpetuate the teaching of the law; because he blames them for maintaining circumcision, and observing times, and days, and months, and years, according to those Jewish ceremonies which they ought to have known were now abrogated, according to the new dispensation purposed by the Creator Himself, who of old foretold this very thing by His prophets. [Against Marcion 1.20.7]
The point is here that that we do not find ourselves in a deadlock with respect to whether ours or his is the original canon. For why on earth would Irenaeus - and then Tertullian - make arguments developed around 1 Corinthians 9:20 which assume the context we have constructed rather than that of the way 1 Corinthians chapter 9 now looks for us.
