Julio

In line with his instruction to the church in Corinth [circa 90CE], can he be named as the first pope [bishop of Rome] to have called for violent punishment for dissidents?

In chapter 41:3, while still lecturing along with his terribly fastidious and monotonous ad hoc [non-theological] citation of OT verses, Clement writes the words that would later represent the first dramatic change in the simplicity of the oral gospel of Jesus, whereby DEATH to troublemakers would be imposed. [My own text]

“They therefore who do any thing contrary to the seemly ordinance of His [Jehovah/Moses] will receive death as the penalty.”

Julio

I'm going to lament for a long time that nobody is interested in this topic.
[Is it in the wrong section, I wonder?]

Imnotspecial

Well, does he mean spiritual death? Is there a record of executions?

Toto

It's a BCH topic.

Link to 1 Clement

That is a very puzzling sentence. It appears to refer to sacrifices at the Temple.

MrFrosty

Moved to BCH.

stephan huller

My guess is that 41:2 is a later addition and breaks up the original connection of the 'death penalty' with the preceding line:

For unto the high priest his proper services have been assigned, and to the priests their proper office is appointed, and upon the levites their proper ministrations are laid. The layman is bound by the layman's ordinances.

Let each of you, brethren, in his own order give thanks unto God, maintaining a good conscience and not transgressing the appointed rule of his service, but acting with all seemliness ... they therefore who do any thing contrary to the seemly ordinance of His will receive death as the penalty.

The section placed in between:

Not in every place, brethren, are the continual daily sacrifices offered, or the freewill offerings, or the sin offerings and the trespass offerings, but in Jerusalem alone. And even there the offering is not made in every place, but before the sanctuary in the court of the altar; and this too through the high priest and the aforesaid ministers, after that the victim to be offered hath been inspected for blemishes.

could be argued to be a later addition subtly arguing that just as formerly Jerusalem was the center of the world/proper altar now Rome is the center of the world. Clement is a faux apostolic witness. The added claim pretends that the sacrifices were still going on when he was writing but its purpose is to say 'now Rome is the new Jerusalem.'

If I am right the addition was made by Irenaeus.

There are important parallels between 1 Clement and the Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians. I wouldn't be surprised is the core of 1 Clement was originally written by Polycarp but that is just wild speculation.

Anyway that's my stab at it.

andrewcriddle

I think it is speaking of liability to divine judgment not human punishment. Hebrews 10 may be a relevant parallel. Andrew Criddle

Julio

It worried me the tense of the verb:
"...will receive death as the penalty."
Was this instruction relevant, in the context of the minor authority problem at that church?
Resorting to such a type of illustration - using death as a point - was Clement not provoking a faster split of the parties involved?
What happened to that church after this letter?

Toto

Clement doesn't seem to have been in any position to order the death penalty for anyone, and we don't have any record of the early Christian church imposing a death penalty for violations of Jewish law. (We don't have much of a record of early Christianity, but this sort of conduct doesn't fit with what we do know.)

stephan huller

Hi everyone,

As fate would have it I stumbled onto a parallel to the section in Clement of Rome (or whoever this person's real name was - he WAS NOT 'REALLY' Flavius Clemens). Irenaeus certainly seems to 'know' what Clement really meant by that curious package. I am certain Irenaeus had a hand in reshaping the material. Irenaeus is the first person to mention this mythical figure of 'Clement of Rome.'

In any event the passage in question is found in Chapter Eight of Book For of Against All Heresies. Irenaeus is in the process of 'correcting' the view of the Marcionites regarding whether or not Abraham knew the God which would eventually be revealed through Jesus at the 'end of the age.'

In the previous chapter Irenaeus says yes, Abraham already knew the Father through the Word (the angel that came to visit him and the Patriarchs on more than one occasion. Irenaeus distinguishes between the Jews of the contemporary age who have "departed from God, in not receiving His Word, but imagining that they could know the Father [apart] by Himself, without the Word, that is, without the Son."[AH iv.8.4] Indeed he concludes the chapter complaining again that the heretics misrepresent the words “No man knoweth the Father, but the Son,” [Matt. xi. 27; Luke x. 22] to "introduce another unknown Father." Earlier in chapter six he queerly notes that the saying originally appeared in the Gospel of Mark and moreover that the heretical version of the saying read "No man knew the Father, but the Son; nor the Son, but the Father, and he to whom the Son has willed to reveal [Him]"

So this is the necessary background to understand the discussion in the next chapter - chapter eight - which provides the original context for your citation from Clement of Rome.

Irenaeus continues his attack on the Marcionites who clearly had a gospel which read 'no man KNEW' before the coming of Jesus "the Father" saying that it would be impossible for Paul to praise Abraham the way he did if he were ignorant of the Father. Irenaeus argues now that "those who disallow his salvation, and frame the idea of another God besides Him who made the promise to Abraham, are outside the kingdom of God" in other words, the Marcionites are not Christians.

Now we should understand that the Marcionite undoubtedly did not 'hate' Abraham they just had the misfortune of perpetuating a tradition that tried to make logical sense of the material. Jesus's advent had to mean something in the history of ideas. He had to be introducing something knew on top of what had already been established through the patriarchs so they carried on a tradition that in effect (if I can simplify it) that just like the number eight is one better than the number seven, the revelation of Christ was one better than the revelation of Moses and the patriarchs.

Whereas the Marcionites proved that for Christians the eighth day was now holy and the traditional Sabbath of the Jews empty and worthless by looking at the various passages where Jesus promoted acting in a way that seemed to contradict the commandments of Moses, Irenaeus tries to interpret the same evidence in a way that assumes that the Sabbath and the laws of Moses were still sacred to Jesus but - as he writes in AH iv.8.2 Jesus instead can be seen by these same passages to have "vindicated Abraham’s posterity by loosing them from bondage and calling them to salvation."

So Irenaeus takes on the Marcionite interpretation of a number of passages and provides his own 'alternative explanation.' He notes that this is demonstrated "in the case of the woman whom He healed, saying openly to those who had not faith like Abraham, “Ye hypocrite doth not each one of you on the Sabbath-days loose his ox or his ass, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath-days?” [Luke xiii. 15, 16]

Irenaeus goes on to say "it is clear therefore, that He loosed and vivified those who believe in Him as Abraham did, doing nothing contrary to the law when He healed upon the Sabbath-day."

Of course - I would argue that all that Irenaeus is really demonstrating is why the material was so arranged in the Catholic gospel - i.e. to show exactly this point. Whether Irenaeus was the final editor of the New Testament as I contend or Polycarp - as Trobisch would argue - the point is still the same. The present gospel material and especially Luke was developed in such a way as to REFUTE the Marcionite position (or at least reinforce a Catholic response to Marcionitism precisely because it used to be the orthodoxy of Christianity before the rise of the Catholic Church in the last half of the second century.

In any event Irenaeus cites another example to prove his point in what immediately follows he says again - AGAINST the Marcionite interpretation - that:

the law did not prohibit men from being healed upon the Sabbaths; [on the contrary,] it even circumcised them upon that day, and gave command that the offices should be performed by the priests for the people; yea, it did not disallow the healing even of dumb animals. Both at Siloam and on frequent subsequent occasions, did He perform cures upon the Sabbath; and for this reason many used to resort to Him on the Sabbath-days. For the law commanded them to abstain from every servile work, that is, from all grasping after wealth which is procured by trading and by other worldly business; but it exhorted them to attend to the exercises of the soul, which consist in reflection, and to addresses of a beneficial kind for their neighbours’ benefit. And therefore the Lord reproved those who unjustly blamed Him for having healed upon the Sabbath-days. For He [Jesus] did not make void, but fulfilled the law, by performing the offices of the high priest, propitiating God for men, and cleansing the lepers, healing the sick, and Himself suffering death, that exiled man might go forth from condemnation, and might return without fear to his own inheritance.[AH iv.8.2]

So you see this is a lengthy section re-casting Christianity and the veneration of the Ogdoad as something other than the emptying of the old Torah, the old revelation and the old Hebdomad of power which was held by the Marcionites.

To this end he immediately follows up this argument with yet another example of how the Catholic gospels were specifically developed to counter the Marcionite gospel and its interpretation writing:

And again, the law did not forbid those who were hungry on the Sabbath-days to take food lying ready at hand: it did, however, forbid them to reap and to gather into the barn. And therefore did the Lord say to those who were blaming His disciples because they plucked and ate the ears of corn, rubbing them in their hands, “Have ye not read this, what David did, when himself was an hungered; how he went into the house of God, and ate the shew-bread, and gave to those who were with him; which it is not lawful to eat, but for the priests alone?” [Luke vi. 3, 4] justifying His disciples by the words of the law, and pointing out that it was lawful for the priests to act freely. For David had been appointed a priest by God, although Saul persecuted him.[AH iv.8.3]

These sayings about David and the justification of the gathering of food on the Sabbath were certainly not in the Marcionite gospel. The attempt to argue that Jews would have thought that Jesus and disciples actions would have constituted 'taking food lying ready at hand' is complete bullshit. His real point however it to develop a thoroughly insipid legal argument that David was providing an example that "it was lawful for the priests to act freely." As a Jew these arguments seem utterly absurd but the point is to see that they lead to the proper understanding of your passage.

To this end, Irenaeus who is utterly desperate to get away from the Marcionite claim that Jesus was ending the sanctity of the Sabbath and the authority of the Torah develops the most imaginative stretch yet saying:

For all the righteous possess the sacerdotal rank. And all the apostles of the Lord are priests, who do inherit here neither lands nor houses, but serve God and the altar continually. Of whom Moses also says in Deuteronomy, when blessing Levi, “Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not known thee; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, and he disinherited his own sons: he kept Thy commandments, and observed Thy covenant.” [Deut. xxxiii. 9]

I hope that you can all see what Irenaeus is attempting to do here and how it is echoed in the section of text you cited in 1 Clement. Irenaeus is arguing that David established a legal precedent where priests essentially stood in a position where they could 'opt out' of the Sabbath(!)

In any event the point now is that Irenaeus is leading us to the argument that appears in 1 Clement. Irenaeus is saying that all Christian believers attain the status of the priesthood through Jesus the high priest THROUGH THE EXAMPLE provided by David in the story cited above:

But who are they that have left father and mother, and have said adieu to all their neighbours, on account of the word of God and His covenant, unless the disciples of the Lord? Of whom again Moses says, “They shall have no inheritance, for the Lord Himself is their inheritance.” [Num. xviii. 20]. And again, “The priests the Levites shall have no part in the whole tribe of Levi, nor substance with Israel; their substance is the offerings (fructifications) of the Lord: these shall they eat.” [Deut. xviii. 1].

So now we know where Irenaeus is going with this. All Christians are priests and are possessions of their Lord like the Jewish priests in former days. Now to connect the idea of God being able to kill those priests.

This comes in the final section of the chapter where we read:

Wherefore also Paul says, “I do not seek after a gift, but I seek after fruit.” [Phil. iv. 17]. To His disciples He said, who had a priesthood of the Lord, [literally, “the Lord’s Levitical substance”—Domini Leviticam substantiam]. to whom it was lawful when hungry to eat the ears of corn, [literally, “to take food from seeds"] “For the workman is worthy of his meat.” [Matt. x. 10]. And the priests in the temple profaned the Sabbath, and were blameless. Wherefore, then, were they blameless? Because when in the temple they were not engaged in secular affairs, but in the service of the Lord, fulfilling the law, but not going beyond it, as that man did, who of his own accord carried dry wood into the camp of God, and was justly stoned to death. [Num. xv. 32, etc.] “For every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down, and cast into the fire;” [Matt. iii. 10] and “whosoever shall defile the temple of God, him shall God defile.” [1 Cor. iii. 17]

I hope that everyone can see that it isn't as simple as Andrew Criddle makes it. It wasn't just God who killed the wicked. Irenaeus cites the example of Numbers 15 where it is said that Sabbath breakers have to be put to death:

While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp." So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses. [Num 15.32 - 36]

Irenaeus is CLEARLY arguing that Marcionites not only deserve to be killed but HAVE TO be killed. This must be the context also of the passage in Clement because all of the same ideas are present.

There was a persecution of Christians in the Commodian period which accompanied the rise of the Catholic Church. It is under-reported because the Catholics were exempt. Just read the closing chapter of Book One of Irenaeus Against All Heresies and various other passages where the Marcionites are instructed to chose his New Testament or face execution - or if you prefer the original text "If, on the other hand, they [the Marcionites] feel compelled to receive the remaining portions also, then, by studying the perfect Gospel, and the doctrine of the apostles, they will find it necessary to repent, that they may be saved from the danger [to which they are exposed]." [AH iii.14.4]

The point is that there was certainly a mass slaughter of heretics, Alexandrians and other Christians who weren't Catholics in the Commodian period. It is the very context behind the manner in which 'the Alexandrian gospel of Mark' was made 'secret' in To Theodore.