Vorkosigan

Don't worry, Stephen, sot v makes us all laugh.

About C of A/1 C ... you should 1 Clem is based on C of A? or vice versa. Either way, why?

Vorkosigan

Sheshbazzar

Its not about differences in 1 Clement/Clement of Alexandria, but of -'Paul's'- rights to the 'copyright' on that material appearing in both.

I have noted in other threads on 1 Clement, how often 'Clement' does not appear to be actually quoting from 'Paul', but to be composing the original material which is latter 'cleaned up', editorially improved upon, and then employed within the 'Pauline epistles'.

Or to put it another way, many of the phrases and sayings in 1 Clement are so composed as to indicate being original thoughts and compositions of Clement himself,
and most often are presented without any credit to 'Paul', even when the context would establish the argument as having greater authority if accompanied and established by clearly crediting it to the great Apostle himself.
Secondly, the wording of many of these assumed 'Pauline quotations' -that are not quite actual 'quotations'-, is no where near as well polished and as integrated as they are within the 'Pauline' writings.

If Clement had any actual 'Pauline' writings to work from or to quote from, it is highly unlikely, if not inconceivable, that he would have taken such carefully and smoothly polished writing and composition, and deliberately revised it into the less well composed material of 1 Clement, as the easier, natural, and authoritative usage and flow would be to quote these sayings exactly as they appear within the writings of 'Paul'.

To my reading, and view of 1 Clement, this lack of giving credit to Paul -where it most certainly should appear-, along with what are clearly inferior paragraph compositions containing the same basic thoughts and tropes as appear within 'the 'Pauline epistles', indicates to me that the majority of 1 Clement was composed well before those NT church writings attributed to the Apostle 'Paul'.
By the internal evidences, I cannot help but conclude that 1 Clement was a principal source of the latter composed NT 'Pauline Epistles'.
With a few verses being latter blatantly interpolated into the original Clement text in order to foster a false impression that Clement had been familiar with the writings of 'Paul'.
But the internal evidence of this composition totally gives lie to the claim.

It is not 'Paul' who should be suing Clement, but Clement who should be suing 'Paul' for this plagiarism and copyright infringement.
The real history of 'Church's History' is not at all what it is presented to be.





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sotto voce

In a forum devoted to Bible criticism, that must be the funniest post ever.

But it's perhaps disappointing that no-one pointed out the egregious contradiction of Paul, hidden in the risibly plagiarist quote from 'Clement':

'we ought to do all things in order which the Sovereign Lord commanded us to perform at the appointed seasons'

Appointed seasons, eh, 'Clem'. Just what the emperor ordered, eh.

Sheshbazzar

Hmmm. Which and Who's 'Appointed Seasons' would that be?

_Do all things in order which the Sovereign Lord commanded us to perform at HIS 'Appointed Seasons'?

_Or, Do all things in the order which Constantine ordered us to perform at his 'appointed seasons'?

Ma'be'deal? (Lev 10:10, Eze 22:26, 44:23) What difference? would it make? what difference could it make?
Should men hear, and learn "to put a difference between..." What if they choose not to?

What difference could it ever possibly make?

Of course if 1 Clement is the older composition, he could not be expected to be aware of those latter Pauline church writings that would make observing the Sovereign LORD's 'Appointed Seasons' obsolete, and latter, even a banned by Imperial edict under penalty of execution, practice among the Believers.
Poor 'ol Clement, someone forgot to tell him that The Sovereign LORD's Appointed Seasons were now done away with. Zech 14:16-19 & Isa 66:21-24

Oh My, what a tangled web they weave.





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stephan huller

Just to make clear - I am only saying that Clement of A preserves a more original form of the letter. Remember we have 2 Clement and the Epistles of Clement on Virginity which are usually claimed to be 'pseudo-epistles' because of the presumption that 1 Clement is orthodox and they are somehow gnostic or radical expressions of asceticism. Now when we see - with absolutely no doubt - that Clement of A had an earlier form of the text, that assumption has to be questioned. Maybe 1 Clement IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM looked very similar to 2 Clement both in terms of style and content.

stephan huller

With respect to the point raised by sotto and Shesh, yes I have noticed that too. 1 Clement channels Paul rather than uses his writings. I remember when Danny Mahar sent me all this work he had done on trying to figure out the Marcionite recension of the epistles and was surprised to see a detailed examination of allusions in 1 Clement. At the time, I think I threw it away but now in hindsight I think there is something very strange about this.

Without people attacking me for some wild speculation. Look at 1 Peter for example. While there are certainly orthodox 'bits' there are also parts that same wholly Pauline in nature too.

If I get the time I really should complete this chart for the whole letter. What the reader will see is that the original letter known to Clement of A was smashed to bits and reorganized by the orthodox redactor. This might serve as something useful to help understand the gospel.

stephan huller

The only hope we have I think is to see whether Clement of A's citation of some of the bits of 1 Peter that are used by the author of 1 Clement go back to the same source. Let me explain what I mean. The letter is attributed to 'Clement' the companion of Peter. 1 Peter is allegedly written by Peter. Mark is the Alexandrian 'equivalent' of Clement (i.e. the companion of Peter). There seems to be some underlying similarities here.

Right off the bat I can see two citations of 1 Peter in that fragment used by Clement of A. There is that love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8) and an allusion to the 'taste and see' of Psalm 34 (1 Pet 2:3). I have had these sayings on my radar for some time.

The first because it uses chrestos (the Marcionite name for Christ). It would be unimaginable to think that the Marcionites didn't use this quote (a) because there are so few surviving chrestos references and (b) it is so fundamental to the experience of being a Christian (i.e. 'eating' the sweet Jesus).

The second quote has been on my radar because I remember that Clement cites it so often and (a) at least once implicitly attributing it to Paul and (b) mixing it in with 1 Corinthians 13 the way he does in his use of the material in the aforementioned quote in Stromata 4.

stephan huller

Here is Clement of A's reciting of 1 Clement's use of what is in our canon 1 Peter 4:8:

Now look at his citation in QDS:

This pattern repeats itself over and over again. Here is the list of references to 1 Peter 4:8 at biblindex (notice they don't mention QDS strangely):

Paedagogus (1) STAEHLIN O., 2e éd., GCS 12 (1936), 89-292. 3 91 § 3 (p.286, l.14) BP1

ῥύσασθε ἀδικουμένους. Ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς οἰκονομικοῖς· Κτῆσις ἐπισπουδαζομένη μετὰ ἀνομίας ἐλάσσων γίνεται. Ναὶ μὴν καὶ περὶ ἀγάπης· Ἀγάπη, φησί, καλύπτει πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν· καὶ περὶ πολιτείας· Ἀπόδοτε τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ τῷ θεῷ· ὅρκου δὲ πέρι καὶ μνησικακίας

Stromata (3) STAEHLIN O., FRUECHTEL L., 3e éd., GCS 52 (1960) pour les livres 1-6 ; STAEHLIN O., FRUECHTEL L., TREU U., 2e éd., GCS 17 (1970), 3-102 pour les livres 7-8. 1 173 § 6 (p.107, l.27) BP1, 2 65 § 3 (p.148, l.10) BP1, 4 111 § 3 (p.297, l.8 - *) BP1

Clement of A always introduces 1 Peter 4:8 into a jumbled version of 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Now when you really think about it Clement of A introduces 1 Clement as 'the Epistle to the Corinthians' by 'the apostle' (Clement). This is exactly how he introduces 1 Corinthians typically - i.e. 'the Epistle to the Corinthians' of 'the apostle.' If a later copyist added the reference to 'Clement' (Irenaeus for instance never names Clement at least according to my memory) we have the beginnings of an explanation of a lost version of the Pauline letter to the Corinthians that used 1 Peter 4:8.

If we look at the citation in Paed 3.12.91.3 what makes it strange is that Clement argues that it was Jesus who said 'love covers a multitude of sins':

In Strom 1.173 he seems to imply 1 Peter 4:8 had some ritual significance in the Agape:

I wonder what this prayer is which is chanted "γενέσθω μοι κύριος εἰς θεόν" in the Alexandrian community? Is it a version of Genesis 28:21 (μου καὶ ἔσται μοι κύριος εἰς θεόν)? Here is the KJV f the Hebrew text:

Would seem to imply that the saying was used in some sort of ritual heavenly ascent in Alexandria (because Genesis 28 is where Jacob sees the heavenly ladder and the glory standing on it).

The same sense appears in the citation of 1 Peter 4:8 in Book Two of the Stromata:

Again the thing that comes from these references is (a) that 'love covers a multitude of sins' was used in a ritual setting and (b) that Clement of A again seems to filter the saying through the material in 1 Clement.

Notice the consistent use of the 'mirror' imagery - "you have seen your brother, you have seen your God,' 'love your brother,' 'love the other,' 'love the near one.' 'love your god with all your heart' - all these sayings go back to the Agape ritual in the church of Alexandria. So too 1 Clement:

stephan huller

Indeed when I was typing out my table I could help notice how strange Clement's reintroduction of 'the Epistle to the Corinthians' was. You see he has been citing from 1 Clement the whole time in the chapter but then seems to 'reintroduce' Clement's epistle even though this is a continuing study of his text:

I don't think anyone before me has spent the time looking at Clement of A's use of 1 Clement but it is just as weird as his use of 1 Peter (even stranger). When Clement of A writes "he nobly says" he is talking about Clement presumably. He has been citing from this letter for many, many lines now. Why then does he suddenly announce that he is going to introduce the "Epistle to the Corinthians" as if it is something new in the line that follows?

tanya

Hi Roger!!

Thanks for that reply.

Yes, I do understand the language of the Romans. My question concerns the initial rendering, on papyrus, of ink from the quill of both Tacitus and Pliny the younger.

They communicated with each other, and with Roman government officials. I was under the impression, from where I no longer recall, that both men read, wrote, and thought, in Koine Greek, notwithstanding their initial, Latin, mother language....(tongue)

There would seem to me to be at least two possibilities:
a. they did both communicate with one another and with other officials, in Greek;
b. they did not both communicate using Greek, but rather, they employed Latin.

I do understand that the extant volumes are published in Latin, not Greek. I do not understand the EVIDENCE that underlies the hypothesis that their original communications, with one another and with other officials in the government, were also written in Latin, not Greek....

My prejudice, not based on any data, whatsoever, but simple raw gut level prejudice, is that they both felt more comfortable writing in Greek, both to one another, and also to other officials of the state, just as Napoleon wrote extensively in French, despite having Italian as his native language. Catherine the Great, another of my heroines, wrote extensively in Russian, ignoring her native language, German.

I don't know if she wrote to Voltaire in French, but I suppose that she did, however, she also wrote huge volumes, including plays, letters, and essays, in Russian.

So, we have historical precedent, or more accurately, succedent, for the idea that both Pliny (younger) and Tacitus would have written originally, in Greek, NOT LATIN. Thus, it seems reasonable, to me, if no one else on the forum, that both authors' currently available texts, in Latin, represent translations by someone other than the two authors.

What I seek, then, Roger, is this: Where is the evidence, that their original compositions, letters, texts, etc, were written, not in Greek, but in Latin?