First Epistle of Clement
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The First Epistle of Clement (
The letter is a response to events in Corinth, where the congregation had deposed certain elders. The author called on the congregation to repent, to restore the elders to their position, and to obey their superiors. He said that the Apostles had appointed the church leadership and directed them on how to perpetuate the ministry.
In Corinth, the letter was read aloud from time to time. This practice spread to other churches, and Christians translated it from the original Greek into Latin, Syriac, and other languages. Some early Christians even treated the work as a sacred text. The work was lost for centuries, but since the 1600s various copies or fragments have been found and studied. It has provided valuable evidence about the structure of the early church.
Authorship and date
Although traditionally attributed to
Scholars have proposed a range of dates, but most limit the possibilities to the last three decades of the 1st century,[11][12] and no later than AD 140.[13] The common time given for the epistle's composition is at the end of the reign of Domitian (c. AD 96).[7][8] The phrase "sudden and repeated misfortunes and hindrances which have befallen us" (1:1) is taken as a reference to persecutions under Domitian. Some scholars believe that 1 Clement was written around the same time as the Book of Revelation (c. AD 95–97).[14]
Content
The letter was occasioned by a dispute in Corinth, which had led to the removal from office of several presbyters. Since none of the presbyters were charged with moral offences, 1 Clement charges that their removal was high-handed and unjustifiable. The letter is extremely lengthy—twice as long as the Epistle to the Hebrews—and includes many references to the Old Testament.[15]
1 Clement offers valuable evidence about the state of the ministry in the early church. He calls on the Corinthians to repent and to reinstate the leaders that they had deposed. He explains that the Apostles had appointed "bishops and deacons", that they had given instructions on how to perpetuate the ministry, and that Christians were to obey their superiors. The author uses the terms bishops (overseers, episkopos) and elders (presbyters) interchangeably.[7]
New Testament references include admonition to "Take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle" (xlvii. 1) which was written to this Corinthian audience; a reference which seems to imply written documents available at both Rome and Corinth. 1 Clement also alludes to the first epistle of
Additionally, 1 Clement possibly references the martyrdom of
1 Clement was written at a time when some Christians were keenly aware that Jesus had not returned as they had expected. Like the Second Epistle of Peter, this epistle criticizes those who had doubts about the faith because the Second Coming had not yet occurred.[18]
Canonical rank
The epistle was publicly read from time to time in Corinth, and by the 4th century this usage had spread to other churches. It was included in the 5th century
Sources
Though known from antiquity, the first document to contain the Epistle of Clement and to be studied by Western scholars was found in 1628, having been included with an ancient Greek Bible given by the Patriarch of Constantinople Cyril I to King Charles I of England.[21] The first complete copy of 1 Clement was rediscovered in 1873, some four hundred years after the Fall of Constantinople, when Philotheos Bryennios found it in the Greek Codex Hierosolymitanus, written in 1056. This work, written in Greek, was translated into at least three languages in ancient times: a Latin translation from the 2nd or 3rd century was found in an 11th-century manuscript in the seminary library of Namur, Belgium, and published by Germain Morin in 1894; a Syriac manuscript, now at Cambridge University, was found by Robert Lubbock Bensly in 1876, and translated by him into English in 1899; and a Coptic translation has survived in two papyrus copies, one published by C. Schmidt in 1908 and the other by F. Rösch in 1910.[22][23]
The Namur Latin translation reveals its early date in several ways. Its early date is attested to by not being combined with the pseudepigraphic later Second Epistle of Clement, as all the other translations are found, and by showing no knowledge of the church terminology that became current later—for example, translating Greek presbyteroi as seniores rather than transliterating to presbyteri.
See also
Notes
- ^ This may be, however, due to the brevity of 1 and 2 Thessalonians and the epistle of Philemon, as well as their particular purpose of writing or their content.
References
- Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2024-03-24.
- ^ Herron, Thomas J. (2008). Clement and the Early Church of Rome: On the Dating of Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians. Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road.
- ISBN 1-56338-136-2.
- ISBN 978-1-909697-49-2.
- ISBN 978-1844744855.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ "First Letter of Clement | Description, History, Summary, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2023-08-21.
- ^ a b c d "Clement of Rome, St." Cross, F. L. (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
- ^ a b Harris p. 363
- ISBN 978-0-8146-0432-8, retrieved 18 April 2013
- ISBN 978-0-8010-3468-8, retrieved 18 April 2013
- ISBN 978-0-8010-3468-8, retrieved 18 April 2013
- ^ Herron, Thomas (2008). Clement and the Early Church of Rome: On the Dating of Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians. Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road. p. 47.
In the context of 1 Clement's strategy to win over the Corinthians to a renewed sense of order in their community, any reference to a Temple which stood in ruins would simply make no sense . . . It is easier to believe that 1 Clement wrote while the Temple still stood, i.e. in circa A.D. 70.
- ^ L.L. Welborn, "The preface to 1 Clement: the rhetorical situation and the traditional date", in Breytenbach and Welborn, p. 201
- ISBN 9004125264.
- ^ a b Bruce M. Metzger, Canon of the New Testament (Oxford University Press) 1987:42–43.
- ^ Donald Hagner. (1973). The Use of the Old and New Testaments in Clement of Rome. pp 237.
- ^ McDowell, Sean (2015). The Fate of the Apostles. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 55–114.
- Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. p. 363
- ISBN 978-0-8028-4098-1.
- ^ Ibn Khaldun (1958) [1377], "Chapter 3.31. Remarks on the words "Pope" and "Patriarch" in the Christian religion and on the word "Kohen" used by the Jews", Muqaddimah, translated by Rosenthal, Franz.
- ISBN 0-14-044197-2.
- ^ A second manuscript containing a Syriac version of 1 Clement is mentioned in Timothy B. Sailors, "Bryn Mawr Classical Review: Review of The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations". Retrieved 21 May 2023.
- ^ JB Lightfoot and JR Harmer, ed. (1891), The Apostolic Fathers: Revised Greek Texts with Introductions and English Translations, Baker Books, 1988 reprint, p. 4, retrieved 21 April 2016
Further reading
- Balch, David L. (2023). Jesus, Paul, Luke-Acts, and 1 Clement: studies in class, ethnicity, gender, and orientation. Eugene: Cascade Books. ISBN 9781532659577.
External links
- An extensive list of English translations of 1 Clement
- Catholic Encyclopedia article on Clement of Rome
- Early Christian writings: The First Epistle of Clement – Useful links
- Lexundria: 1 Clement: Epistle of the Romans to the Corinthians – English translation by Kirsopp Lake
- The Use of Material Deriving from the Synoptic Gospels in the Letter of Clement to the Corinthians Archived 2010-09-29 at the Wayback Machine
- 2012 Translation & Audio Version
- The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians public domain audiobook at LibriVox