Clement Confirms the Letter to Theodore's Identification of the Canonical Gospels as Divinely-Inspired Scriptures (θεοπνεύστους γραφάς) and Hypomnemata (τῶν ὑπομνημάτων)

These posts are necessarily getting shorter as I find it more difficult to resist my mental exhaustion. Nevertheless I want to refocus our attention on a few things which are important for understanding the context of the Letter to Theodore:

1. there is an unmistakable pattern of identifying the canonical gospels as 'hypomnemata' in the earliest writers, even the earliest Catholic writers
2. something identified as a hypomnema cannot be the 'perfect gospel'
3. there must have been some other text existing in antiquity which equalled the grandeur of the Torah

The canonical gospels are not this text.  My readers shouldn't take my words as representing a Jew heaping insult on Christianity.  Rather, they should be seen as the conclusions of someone who completely understands the ground out of which early Christianity necessarily developed. 

Christians are virtually baptized into a faith in the New Testament canon.  Yet we know that other 'canons' of early Christian literature were already established at the time Irenaeus was promoting something like our present canon.  The language of the Marcionites, for instance, closely approximates what a gospel should represent - i.e. something heavenly, something grand - a heavenly proclamation absolutely conscious of the revelation made to Moses and very intent on manifesting its superiority. 

It's not that I want the gospel to be better than the Torah.  The Aramaic basis to the very term 'gospel' demands it.  And then when we stumble across Clement of Alexandria's letter to Theodore, these most perplexing difficulties take centerstage. 

Clement says that there was the perfect gospel (or perhaps better - the gospel for those being perfected) was only established after the hypomnemata of the disciples were already established.  As I have noted many times here, this only sounds strange to us now because we have been so firmly indoctrinated in the idea that the hypomnemata are 'good enough' for our faith - or worse yet - together represent the 'perfect gospel.'   Yet the example of the gospel of Justin and Tatian, likened to the harmony of the diatessaron some how, demonstrates that there was a contemporary impetus to assemble these primitive hypomnemata into something better and more perfect, something more fitting for a religion trying to distinguish itself from Judaism.

Everywhere we look in Clement we see the idea of this need for 'harmony' or 'accord' between what was before 'the gospel' and the perfection of the gospel revelation.  It is amazing to see how many translators try to force Clement's words into a familiar dichotomy of a heretical rejection of the Jewish scriptures.  What Clement actually says throughout Strom 7.16 is that they will not admit the 'prophetic' (προφητικός) and the context of these statements simply doesn't allow for the inherited understanding of the terminology.

Clement seems very aware that προφήτης means 'a man who speaks for a god and interprets his will.' It is for this reason that Clement lumps both the hypomnemata of the disciples and the Jewish scriptures together as 'the prophetic' on the one hand and 'the gospel' on the other. The idea is already witnessed as being promoted by the heresies in Irenaeus (AH 3.2.1).  What we need to reinforce is that Clement never condemns the heretical interest in other gospels outside the canonical four.  Instead he takes them to task for false exegesis of the gospel, not emphasizing its 'harmony' or 'accord' with the 'prophetic.' 

Here is only the most recent example, one which I came upon while going through what remains of my line by line comparison of Strom 7.16 and the letter to Theodore (I apologize for the literal translation in parts):

And if it is that he has become "vulgar," (χυδαῖος) as the [apocryphal] Scripture says, in consequence of being overcome, the habits (τῷ ἔθει) which formerly had sway by over him, the habits (τὸ ἔθος) must be entirely (παντελὲς) put a stop to, and the soul trained to oppose them (τὸ ἀντιλέγειν αὐτῷ τὴν ψυχὴν γυμναστέον). And if it appears (δοκεῖ), that conflicting dogmas (καὶ μαχόμενα δόγματα) draw some away, these must be taken out of the way, and recourse is to be had to those who pacfify dogmas (τοὺς εἰρηνοποιοὺς τῶν [τῶν] δογμάτων πορευτέον), and subdue by the song (κατεπᾴδουσ) of the divine Scriptures the fear at every noise (ψοφοδεεῖς) of the ignorant (τῶν ἀπείρων); the truth (τὴν ἀλήθειαν) being made clear by following (διὰ τῆς ἀκολουθίας) of the testaments (τῶν διαθηκῶν).

I believe this really is the point of the criticism of the Carpocratians in the letter to Theodore too.  They have strayed from the narrow road of the commandments to found their own interpretation of the gospel based on human opinions rather than divinely inspired scriptures (i.e. the canonical gospel of Mark).

We should notice indeed that this exact terminology used to describe the familiar canonical gospel of Mark appears in Strom 7.16 too:

[God] leads us in the divinely-inspired Scriptures (θεοπνεύστους γραφάς). Though men's actions are ten thousand in number, the sources of all sin are but two, ignorance and inability ... Following (Ἀκολούθως) this, then, there are assigned two kinds of correction (παιδεῖαι) applicable to both kinds of sin: for the one, knowledge (γνῶσίς) and clear demonstration from the testimony of the Scriptures (τῶν γραφῶν μαρτυρίας ἐναργὴς ἀπόδειξις); and for the other, the training according to the Word (κατὰ λόγον ἄσκησις), which is regulated by the discipline of faith (κατὰ λόγον ἄσκησις ἐκ πίστεώς) and fear (καὶ φόβου παιδαγωγουμένη). And both develop into perfect love (εἰς τὴν τελείαν ἀγάπην συναύξουσιν). For the end (τέλος) of the Gnostic (τοῦ γνωστικοῦ) here is, in my judgment, two-fold, -- partly scientific contemplation (μὲν ἡ θεωρία ἡ ἐπιστημονική), partly action (πρᾶξις).

Would, then, that these heretics would learn and be set right by these hypomnemata (τῶν ὑπομνημάτων), and turn to the sovereign God (τὸν παντοκράτορα θεόν)! But if, like the deaf serpents, they listen not to the song called new, though very old, may they be chastised by God

Most scholars of course think that Clement is referencing his Stromateis by the reference to the hypomnemata at the end here.  Yet the Letter to Theodore offers us another intriguing possibility - the right answer according to my understanding - viz. the divinely-inspired Scriptures (θεοπνεύστους γραφάς) are the canonical gospels which are the hypomnemata (τῶν ὑπομνημάτων) rejected by the heretics.  Indeed the 'new song' referenced here is not the arguments of Clement's Stromateis but in fact the 'harmony' created from the diatessaron separating 'the prophetic' and 'the gospel' on the lyre which is the Alexandrian 'canon' of scripture.