Is this a thing? Does Clement elsewhere, or any other church father explicitly tell a disciple to never agree with their opponents, even if they were telling the truth?TheodoresPenPai wrote:For, even if they should say something true, one who loves the truth should not, even so, agree with them.
one must never give way . . . but should even deny it on oath.
cf. with what Pliny wrote about the christians, that they met on a certain day, and swore to never break an oath.
*Even if* by some miracle of sleuthing, this were proven to be genuine correspondence between Clement and Theodore, how could we trust anything he said? "Oh yeah, Theodore, don't worry, I'm telling *you* the truth....Mark was a disciple of Peter, he really wrote that gospel...those are the true truths."