Clement of Alexandria read 2 John

Looking around the Johannine corpus I found an exegesis of 2 John in Cassiodorus. This is claimed part of Clement of Alexandria's adumbrationes in epistolis canonicis. I'll attempt the Latin:

It begins the same in the second letter of John the Evangelist. The second letter of John, written to the virgins, is quite simple. This indeed was written to a certain Babylonia, under the name Electa which signifies the election of the holy Ecclesia. In this epistle he asserted that the perfection of faith is not outside Caritas, and that no one should divide Jesus Christ, but that one should believe that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh; for he who has the Son perceptibly in the intellect, and knows the Father also, and the greatness of His power; without holding works from the beginning of time consciously in mind. Si quis venit ad vos - he says [v. 10-11] - et hanc doctrinam non portat, non suscipiatis eum in domum et ave ne dixeritis ei; qui enim dixerit ave, communicat operibus eius malignis. He forbids such people to be greeted and received into hospitality; for this is not inhumane in such a way; but he admonishes them neither to inquire nor to dispute with such as cannot handle divine things intelligibly, and be seduced from the doctrine of truth, led by similar reasonings of the truth. But I think that it is necessary not to pray with such people, since in prayer, when one is at home, after he gets up from praying, is a greeting of joy as a sign of peace.

Zahn expended some ink on Babylonia. Zahn saw 1 Peter 5:13 intruding here and saw evidence that the author of this Adumbration - or at least Cassiodorus - thought that such letters were written, literally, to Parthian Babylon. So this just means "female Babylonian". I agree with that much. But.

It may otherwise be that the author is reading the Revelation=Apocalypse into this text, wherein "Babylon" is Rome. This would mean the author accepted that the Apocalypse was by John the Apostle. Not all Christians did!

This belief was however widely shared in the West, presumably including Cassiodorus. So: as I've been so bold, the quote from vv. 10-11 is not Vulgata Latin. I like to think that if Cassiodorus or any late-Latin had forged this Adumbration he'd just have used that. I am tempted to see a freeform translation of some Greek Vorlage. It turns out that Clement of Alexandria shared this Apostolic reading of the Johannines.

Although I've argued for early 2 John I wasn't aware that Clement knew it. This translation into Latin does point to that. Unless Morton Smith was at work back then too.