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Loading...What does our earliest Christian sermon outside the New Testament look like? It is found in one of the apostolic fathers, in a book called 2 Clement, allegedly (but not really) written by the early bishop of Rome, Clement, and historically associated with another book of the Apostolic Fathers, 1 Clement.
The following is an edited version of the Introduction to my translation of the text in The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1 (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003)
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Second Clement is probably the most overlooked and least appreciated of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. This is somewhat to be regretted, as it is in some ways a historically significant work.
As with 1 Clement, the book is misnamed – even more so, as in addition to being written by a different author, who cannot be identified as Clement of Rome, it is not even a letter. Readers have long recognized that the book appears in fact to be an early Christian homily, a written exposition of Scripture with an accompanying set of exhortations, delivered to a congregation gathered for worship.
The service of worship — whether a weekly meeting or a special baptismal service– evidently
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Which if any of Jesus’s miracles have multiple, independent attestation in the NT Gospels?
Realistically, given the synoptic Gospels having material that is either only shared among themselves or unique to one or the other, it would need to be miracles recorded in John as well. Taht would be Feeding the 5000, walking on the water, and the resurrectoin itself I suppose.
I have noticed in the blog and your published works (as well as other publications) that “theological outlook” can sometimes be used to date certain writings from Christian antiquity and from that I assume that the evolution of Chrisitan theology can be charted on a timeline. Is there a published source that documents this evolution and equates specific theological views to specific (or even general) dates?
It’s actually a very tricky business, in part because theological developments are rarely linear: first peole thought this, then that, then this other thing, and finally that thing. Different believers thought different things at the same time and the same thing at different times. So I timeline is practicalyly speaking impossible. The arguments for dating based on theological perspectibe have to be relatively convincing instead of definitive. (E.g., the fact that John’s high Christology is not found in the other three Gospels suggests it’s probably based on later traditoins than theirs, since christology TENDS to get higher as the years go by…)
You wrote, “On stylistic grounds, though, it is quite clear that the same person did not pen both 1 and 2 Clement.”
I understand the general point, but I would like to know more concretely what scholars mean by “stylistic grounds.” Are they referring mainly to vocabulary, sentence structure, rhetorical style, theological terminology, use of Scripture, or some combination of these?
Do such differences become clear only when one reads the texts in Greek? In Japanese translation, at least to me, these stylistic distinctions are often almost impossible to detect.
I feel the same difficulty with discussions about the endings of Mark and John. Scholars often say that certain sections differ stylistically from the rest of the work, but in translation that is not very visible.
Could you give some concrete examples of what kinds of stylistic differences scholars look for in such cases?
Yes, they are referring to all these things. But just the Greek style itself is convincing. 2 Clement is very simple Greek, about as easy as it gets. 1 Clement is written by someone with some level of sophisticatoin. It’s a bit like reading an article published in a national magazine vs. one written by an average junior in college.
Loving this blog Dr. Ehrman but I can’t help but notice that most of the commenters seem to be men. Not to be too nosy but would be super interested in knowing a general gender breakdown of the subscribers, especially given the shift of modern day christian converts from women to men.
Yes it would be! We hope to get better analytics soon.