Tinker Tailor Soldier Forger

[Ken Olson]

It's worth noting that the specific phrase "naked with naked" appears in the writings of the Platonist Maximus of Tyre.

It might be worth noting, but are you claiming it should play a significant role in our interpretation of Clement's Letter to Theodore? if so, how?

It would seem there are two significant contexts for understanding "naked with naked" within the Letter itself.

First, there is the prior use of "naked" within the quoted text of Secret Mark:

in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a cloth over his naked body (Smith translation).

Clement had earlier commented that Carpocrates had got:

a copy of the secret Gospel, which he interpreted according to his blasphemous and carnal doctrine.

Clement appears to be suggesting that the Carpocratians would have interpreted this statement about the youth who came to Jesus in a blasphemous and carnal way.

Second, when Clement assures Theodore that:

'"naked man with naked man" and the other things about which you wrote are not found

this should be seen in light of Clement's earlier claim that:

I shall not hesitate to answer the questions you have asked, refuting the falsifications by the very words of the Gospel.

It seems to imply that "naked man with naked man" and the other things about which Theodore asked/wrote are falsifications put forward by the Carpocratians, which are "utterly shameless lies."

We have a pretty clear way to understand "naked man with naked man" within the context of the Letter.

Best,

Ken

[Secret Alias]

Nakedness in antiquity wasn't the same as it is today. A gymnasium was quite literally a naked place. There were a lot of naked with nakeds. In Maximus naked with naked means naked (dead) bodies. In that way there is a parallel.
The youth is naked because in part he was dead. There are many Pauline references to death, baptism and unclothed. I find these conversations often take on a Tarantino on (gay) Top Gun dimension. If you want to see a cigar as a penis you most certainly can. But it can also just be a cigar. It's the reference to the agape between youth and Jesus that contextualizes the nakedness too. And agape was taken to mean an orgiastic love feast outside of to Theodore. And Clement himself defends the Agape from these charges elsewhere in his writings.

[Secret Alias]

In Plato the dead are judged in a naked state. From the Gorgias:

Then naked stripped of all must they be judged; for they must be judged dead . The Judge also must be naked , dead , with very Soul beholding the very Soul of each , as soon as he is dead , bereft of all his kindred , having left upon the earth all the adornment he had there . So shall the judgment be just.

THAT'S why I brought up Maximus. The youth is dead and Jesus is the Christian God. In fact when you think about it all the dead in Christianity must have risen naked too. Clement also learned from Philo that the high priest disrobes before entering the holy of holies. Nakedness is in the Gospel of Thomas. All written of course by modern homosexual forgers.

[Secret Alias]

The full quote in the Gorgias:

Then spake Zeus: “Nay,” said he, “I will put a stop to these proceedings. The cases are now indeed judged ill and it is because they who are on trial are tried in their clothing, for they are tried alive. Now many,” said he, “who have wicked souls are clad in fair bodies and ancestry and wealth, and at their judgement appear many witnesses to testify that their lives have been just. Now, the judges are confounded not only by their evidence but at the same time by being clothed themselves while they sit in judgement, having their own soul muffled in the veil of eyes and ears and the whole body. Thus all these are a hindrance to them, their own habiliments no less than those of the judged. Well, first of all,” he said, “we must put a stop to their foreknowledge of their death; for this they at present foreknow. However, Prometheus has already been given the word to stop this in them. Next they must be stripped bare of all those things before they are tried; for they must stand their trial dead. Their judge also must be naked, dead, beholding with very soul the very soul of each immediately upon his death, bereft of all his kin and having left behind on earth all that fine array, to the end that the judgement may be just.

εἶπεν οὖν ὁ Ζεύς: ‘ἀλλ᾽ ἐγώ,’ ἔφη, ‘παύσω τοῦτο γιγνόμενον. νῦν μὲν γὰρ κακῶς αἱ δίκαι δικάζονται. ἀμπεχόμενοι γάρ,’ ἔφη, ‘οἱ κρινόμενοι κρίνονται: ζῶντες γὰρ κρίνονται. πολλοὶ οὖν,’ ἦ δ᾽ ὅς, ‘ψυχὰς πονηρὰς ἔχοντες ἠμφιεσμένοι εἰσὶ σώματά τε καλὰ καὶ γένη καὶ πλούτους, καί, ἐπειδὰν ἡ κρίσις ᾖ, ἔρχονται αὐτοῖς πολλοὶ μάρτυρες, μαρτυρήσοντες ὡς δικαίως βεβιώκασιν: οἱ οὖν δικασταὶ ὑπό τε τούτων ἐκπλήττονται, καὶ ἅμα καὶ αὐτοὶ ἀμπεχόμενοι δικάζουσι, πρὸ τῆς ψυχῆς τῆς αὑτῶν ὀφθαλμοὺς καὶ ὦτα καὶ ὅλον τὸ σῶμα προκεκαλυμμένοι. ταῦτα δὴ αὐτοῖς πάντα ἐπίπροσθεν γίγνεται, καὶ τὰ αὑτῶν ἀμφιέσματα καὶ τὰ τῶν κρινομένων. πρῶτον μὲν οὖν,’ ἔφη, ‘παυστέον ἐστὶν προειδότας αὐτοὺς τὸν θάνατον: νῦν γὰρ προΐσασι. τοῦτο μὲν οὖν καὶ δὴ εἴρηται τῷ Προμηθεῖ ὅπως ἂν παύσῃ αὐτῶν. ἔπειτα γυμνοὺς κριτέον ἁπάντων τούτων: τεθνεῶτας γὰρ δεῖ κρίνεσθαι. καὶ τὸν κριτὴν δεῖ γυμνὸν εἶναι, τεθνεῶτα, αὐτῇ τῇ ψυχῇ αὐτὴν τὴν ψυχὴν θεωροῦντα ἐξαίφνης ἀποθανόντος ἑκάστου, ἔρημον πάντων τῶν συγγενῶν καὶ καταλιπόντα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς πάντα ἐκεῖνον τὸν κόσμον, ἵνα δικαία ἡ κρίσις ᾖ.

Are you trying to tell me that this HAS NOTHING TO DO with the why the youth appeared 'naked with naked' with Jesus in Secret Mark? THAT'S why I brought up Maximus of Tyre.

[Ken Olson]

Secret alias wrote:

Nakedness in antiquity wasn't the same as it is today.

Tell it to Ham.

A gymnasium was quite literally a naked place. There were a lot of naked with nakeds. In Maximus naked with naked means naked (dead) bodies. In that way there is a parallel. The youth is naked because in part he was dead. There are many Pauline references to death, baptism and unclothed.

Did the ancients have a different understanding of what a blasphemous carnal interpretation of the youth's naked body would be?

I find these conversations often take on a Tarantino on (gay) Top Gun dimension. If you want to see a cigar as a penis you most certainly can. But it can also just be a cigar.

I find that when you don't want to deal with the argument someone else is putting forward, you dodge it with inappropriate analogies and suggest the person reached their conclusion out of personal desires rather than dealing with the reasons they gave.

Let me run through this again.

When Clement writes:

But “naked man with naked man” and the other things about which you wrote are not found.

The things about which Theodore wrote are the same things referred to earlier in the Letter when Clement says:

I shall not hesitate to answer the questions you have asked, refuting the falsifications by the very words of the Gospel

So 'naked man with naked man' and the other things about which Theodore wrote, which are not found in the gospel, are the things Theodore asked about, the falsifications that Clement is refuting.

In the logic of the Letter, “naked man with naked man,” then, is one of the falsifications the Carpocratians added to the Letter. Clement has earlier told us that these added falsifications are shameless lies, and we might presume that the nature of these shameless lies is in keeping with the blasphemous and carnal interpretations of the Carpocratians which Clement referred to earlier.

Therefore: “Naked man with naked man” is one of the Carpocratian falsifications added to the secret Gospel. These falsifications are shameful lies. The shameless lies should be understood in a manner in keeping with the blasphemous and carnal interpretations the Carpocratians make of the secret Gospel (i.e., they are themselves also blasphemous and carnal). I seriously doubt the blasphemous and carnal shameless lies of the Carpocratians should be understood on the basis of the way words are used in Maximus of Tyre.

The reading I've proposed may not be an incontestable one, but it is a strong one, much stronger than what you've come up with so far. So far, you've preferred to ignore the context that “naked with naked” actually has in the Letter and just pulled a linguistic parallel out of some other text.

Secret Alias again:

It's the reference to the agape between youth and Jesus that contextualizes the nakedness too. And agape was taken to mean an orgiastic love feast outside of to Theodore. And Clement himself defends the Agape from these charges elsewhere in his writings.

Could you cite some examples of Clement defending against “these charges” elsewhere? I'd be interested to compare them to what we see in the Letter to Theodore. Maybe start with the closest parallels you can find.

Are you trying to tell me that this HAS NOTHING TO DO with the why the youth appeared 'naked with naked' with Jesus in Secret Mark? THAT'S why I brought up Maximus of Tyre.

I'm trying to tell you Clement says that the words “naked with naked” are not found in Secret Mark, but are falsifications of the Carpocratians and should be interpreted as such.

Best,

Ken

[Secret Alias]

Of course they are not there. But you can't have it both ways. I am dealing with why "naked with naked" might have come up. You have to choose. Either we strictly deal with what is in Secret Mark and there is no homosexuality. Or we expand our discussion to speculative interpretations of why "naked with naked" might have been mentioned. But you can't have it both ways. You can't "fix" what naked and naked might have meant and then say "let's stick to what is in Secret Mark." I am happy to have a limited discussion as to what the gospel says or on the other hand what is said about the gospel second hand.

[Ken Olson]

You are making assumptions I am not. We have one document, which purports to be a Letter to Theodore from Clement of Alexandria. In that document, “naked man with naked man,” has a clear context – Clement is claiming it is a Carpocratian addition to Secret Mark, which is a shameless lie, and by implication carnal and sinful. Clement is in effect, denying that anything carnal and sinful happened between the young man and Jesus. Do you read this differently?

[Secret Alias]

But there clearly is no homosexuality in the gospel cited. How we interpret the circumstances whereby "naked and naked" arose is open to interpretation and might involve Platonic conceptions of death and the dying.

[Ken Olson]

But there clearly is no homosexuality in the gospel cited. How we interpret the circumstances whereby "naked and naked" arose is open to interpretation and might involve Platonic conceptions of death and the dying.

There is *clearly no* homosexuality in the gospel cited?

Secret Mark: in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night

Clement: but nothing carnal and sinful happened, no matter what the Carpocratians say.

[Secret Alias]

And where's the homosexuality?