Clement's Alexandrian Paradosis and the Letter to Theodore

The problem with Biblical scholarship is that always seems to start in the middle. Most scholars haven't done enough work to question their presuppositions and as a result their conclusions only seem reasonable to those who similarly possess a lack of critical thinking ability.  In the case of those who study the New Testament, it is very rare for instance to find people who actually know very much beyond a thumbnail sketch of what is possible in Biblical exegesis. Even though they have learned to preface any statements about 'the Jews' with an acknowledgement that there were 'many Judaisms' in the Common Era, their lack of knowledge of how these other 'Judaisms' functioned inevitably leads to them defining Judaism (and the messianic paradigm of Israel) according to the rabbinic tradition.

While this situation is certainly an improvement over the state of scholarship a hundred years ago - where serious scholars actually performed backflips to present some formulation where Jesus might have claimed to be 'the messiah' of the Jews without actually being a king or of the line of David (come on people, let's face the facts on this one).  The problem is of course that the study of the New Testament can't move forward because there are too few knowledgeable people able to define what role in contemporary Jewish theology Jesus might have understood to have fulfilled.

Indeed the one thing that New Testament scholarship has to stop doing is treating its scriptures as a reality show accurately 'transmitting' the events of 33 CE. Those who study early Christianity have to learn to treat the gospel narrative as a literary text and focus instead on schools of exegesis (εξηγησις). Nothing is more surprising to a Jewish person, such as myself, when encountering supposely 'serious scholarship' related to the gospel, that things aren't divided into 'traditions' (paradoseis) like one finds in the rabbinic tradition.

For instance even though Clement of Alexandria always criticizes the heresies for not following the true ecclesiastic 'paradosis' (παράδοσις) of exegesis scholars paradoxically treat Clement's Alexandrian παράδοσις as an innovation on his part. It is utterly baffling and can only be explained by a selfish need of scholars to assert that there is nothing substantial beyond our existing living Christian tradition.

Indeed it is utterly frustrating to hear 'conservatives' argue that the ideas in the Letter to Theodore regarding an 'Alexandrian secret gospel' and the like are 'wholly out of step' with Clement's writings, when these same people willfully misrepresent Clement as someone who 'invented' a Platonic scriptural exgesis.

So what is the 'παράδοσις' that Clement is holding up against the 'false' exegesis of the various heretics throughout Stromata 7.16? There isn't a tradition of Alexandria? Oh, we don't know what it is, it no longer exist - so let's just ignore the whole question.  Indeed if things get rough we just have to make a 'mental note' to ourselves to insert the familiar Roman interpretation of the shared terminology .

My Lord, these people are being allowed to determine the shape of the history of the Church for the rest of us?  What utter fucking nonsense all of this really is!

Either these jackasses will have to acknowledge that Clement is lying through his teeth when he makes referemces his opponents:

• who have spurned the ecclesiastical tradition (τὴν ἐκκλησιαστικὴν παράδοσιν), and darted off to the opinions (δόξας) of heretical men (αἱρέσεων ἀνθρωπίνων)
• who are empty (κενοὺς) and are destitute of the counsels of God (τοῦ θεοῦ βουλημάτων) and the traditions of Christ (τοῦ Χριστοῦ παραδόσεων); bitter (πικριζόντων), in truth (ὡς ἀληθῶς), like the wild almond (τὴν ἀγρίαν ἀμυγδαλῆν), their dogmas originating with themselves (ἐξάρχοντας δογμάτων), with the exception of such truths as they could not, by reason of their evidence, discard and conceal (τῶν ἀληθῶν ἀποθέσθαι καὶ ἀποκρύψαι οὐκ ἴσχυσαν).
• who have a craving for glory who voluntarily evade, by arguments of a diverse sort, the things delivered by the blessed apostles and teachers, which are wedded to divinely-inspired words (τοῖς θεοπνεύστοις λόγοις); opposing the divine tradition (θείᾳ παραδόσει) by human teachings, in order to establish the heresy.
• the life of the Gnostic, in my view, is nothing but deeds and words corresponding to the tradition of the Lord (κυρίου ἀκόλουθοι παραδόσει). But "all have not knowledge. For I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren," says the apostle, "that all were under the cloud, and partook of spiritual meat and drink;" clearly affirming that all who heard the word did not take in the magnitude of knowledge in deed and word.
• [who] not having the key of entrance, but a false (and as the common phrase expresses it), a counterfeit key (ἀντικλεῖδα), by which they do not enter in as we enter in, through the tradition of the Lord (τοῦ κυρίου παραδόσεως), by drawing aside the curtain; but bursting through the side-door, and digging clandestinely through the wall of the Church, and stepping over the truth, they constitute themselves the Mystagogues of the soul of the impious.

In the last reference especially there is clearly - clearly - an echo of the physicality of the church of St. Mark in Alexandria, also referenced in the letter to Theodore.

So these 'scholars' who say that 'they know' that the Letter to Theodore is a fake inevitably follow the implied assertion that there is no Alexandrian tradition - or perhaps that such a tradition might have existed but we can no longer prove what it represented. Yet this is so fucking half-baked and utterly disengenuous. How do we know that such knowledge is unattainable? How do we know that we can't chart a course to some unknown place if it hasn't even been attempted? And worse yet, how do they such certainty that the Letter to Theodore is not a witness to that 'unattainable knowledge' which they seem so intent on denying at all costs?

God, it is so infuriating for those of us who aren't Christian, who have no covert agenda and who just want to get a glimpse of the historical truth of the tradition!  The whole situation resembles being in a bad relationship with someone who doesn't want to leave the relationship, doesn't want to move forward and just wants things to remain dysfunctional because they are happy with the inherited dysfunctionality.

Let's be completely frank about why the principles in the debate against the authenticity of the Letter to Theodore oppose its authenticity. They don't want to move forward. It's that simple. 'Conservatism' for these jackasses means 'the tradition of Mommy and Daddy.' It is not the tradition of Clement of Alexandria. There is no interest in asking questions which demonstrate why Clement was ultimately thrown out of the canon of saints. None whatsoever.

And who studies Clement of Alexandria really? People who generally want to distinguish themselves in the broad field of Patristic studies. So Clement is viewed as a 'contemporary' or a 'co-worker' of similar 'Church Fathers' in Rome and elsewhere.

Yet there is nothing in Clement's writings that suggest that he viewed his tradition as 'the same' as that of Irenaeus or any other Church Father living at the end of the second century. Indeed it would take a blind man not to see that the terminology and theological conceptions that Clement has inherited run completely against all that Irenaeus was promoting in the same historical epoch.

With that said, there is also an undeniable effort on Clement's part to 'sugar coat' the 'eccentricities' of his Alexandrian tradition with respect to the Roman Church. He for instance goes out of his way to use Roman texts (1 Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, the canonical gospels etc.) to help explain traditional Alexandrian theological concepts. Indeed if we are to be frank, the use of Roman material actually increases in frequency with Clement and Origen when explaining especially difficult and ultimately 'dangerous' theological concepts. One might suspect that the deliberate use of this 'Roman' material is a way of making heretical ideas seem more palatable and 'in keeping' with the orthodoxy of other churches.

This pattern doesn't limit itself to Christian books associated with the city of Rome but even contemporary books of revered Roman Emperors. A couple of days ago I brought forward the example of the deliberate citation of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations after bringing forward the idea of 'Christ the commander' giving charge to those to follow him as soldiers. The deliberate citation of Marcus Aurelius, the father of the most recent Emperor Commodus was clearly a way of subtly confirming that the Alexandrian tradition was wholly compatible with Roman authority.

But let's go back to our main point. Clement says that there was indeed such a thing as an Alexandrian παράδοσις, a tradition that was handed down from the apostolic age which distinguishes Clement's exegesis of the gospel from those of his heretical opponents. This understanding represents nothing short of the foundation of all Clement's writings. If Clement is viewed as someone who brought his so-called 'uniquely' Pythagorean interpretation of the New Testament 'out of his own imagination' then Clement can't be viewed as anything other than 'just another heretic.'

An honest person can't do what the bastards in Patristic scholarship engage in which is to hail Clement as a witness to Church dogma when it is convenient and then to turn around and dump him as soon as that 'tradition' clashes with our inherited assumptions about what the correct παράδοσις should be. And this pattern is so prevalent and so utterly abused by self-serving partisans that it makes it impossible to believe anything these people say about the 'signs of forgery' in the Mar Saba document.

All that they want is to preserve a straight line from themselves and their ancestors to 'Jesus Christ.' That's it, plain and simple. If Clement is useful because he attacks the same people that Irenaeus condemns as heretics, then Clement and his writings are 'co-opted' as representing a witness to 'the holy, Catholic Church tradition.' Yet it doesn't take much to see that Clement's παράδοσις is not the παράδοσις of Irenaeus and the Roman Church. I would argue that the discovery of the Mar Saba document only makes explicit what is implicit (and thus ignored) in the existing writings of Clement in this respect.

The Mar Saba document testifies to the perplexing Alexandrian παράδοσις of the Stromateis. It is rooted in a strange mingling of Pythagorean and Judaism conceptions which is isn't surprising given Clement's devotion to Philo of Alexandria. Yet it only stands to reason that since Irenaeus's Roman παράδοσις clearly did not include Philo as an important witness that the two would have very little commonality. Indeed if anything Clement's παράδοσις has more in common with the 'heretics' that Irenaeus condemns.

It might in fact be more correct to identify Clement's 'innovation' as merely an attempt to somehow reconcile that 'heretical' παράδοσις with the Roman Church by means of a number of subtle rhetorical tactics which ultimately led Clement to be included as a 'Father' within a foreign ecclesiastical παράδοσις where he ultimately did not belong.